Bits and bobs No 17 Summer

[Geoff]

Isn't the World Cup full of surprises. We all thought it would be spoilt by security issues but instead it is ruined by a tuneless plastic trumpet. I suppose it could be worse, Scotland could host it and somebody invent an affordable set of bagpipes.

[Geoff]

And I thought the grass was suffering in the aerial photo 5 weeks ago. No wonder they are talking about a hosepipe ban in the NW.

[Clive.]

It's really drying things up here today...mighty warm and with a fair lot of breeze.

Put a few Caulis and Broccoli out here a bit earlier....there was a little damp soil but it was well down. Planting in a 6" V trench and with water in the planting hole first they will be fine..Wood Pigeons permitting...............

Some other greens that went out similarly last week have really moved forward.

..and I still have not got "my" second brassica cage assembled at work...4 remaining posts, the lower side wire and top net to go on yet.... We have got several other jobs done in the meantime I should add...

Clive.

[Clive.]

Just doing a few jobs around the place this evening....tie up of the Sweet Peas, and loops of string around Dahlias...and along comes Spitfire MJ627...lovely

Clive.

[alan refail]

Well, wondering what weather West Wales? Wild, wet, windy

[Monika]

Great alliterations, Alan, and lucky you!

We had some rain last night (7mm to be precise) but it did not even wet the ground underneath the potato foliage. We dug our first open grown potatoes today (Kestrel) rather than bag grown and well watered. The yield is quite low but the potatoes are very evenly sized and beautifully clean because the soil ran off them like dust.

But this weekend all our vegetables will be home-grown fresh for the first time this summer: potatoes, peas, broad beans, kohlrabi, carrots, beetroot, onions, garlic and lots of herbs! And we have just finished the last frozen calabrese and broad beans from last year.

So all the hard work and worries are worth while, after all!

[alan refail]

And another half inch or more over night - potatoes now lifting just damp, but very even and clean, and a good yield from Sharpe's Express

[oldherbaceous]

We are all baking here, so very hot, and still no sign of rain for the next five days.

[Clive.]

Mighty dry here too....
About three spots of rain this morning in bright sunshine.....there was some talk of some wind and rain for Sunday.??

Roses with their "feet" well down and their "heads" in the sun have been full of flower for a long period..
......one good rain and a comprehensive dead heading exercise will have to swing in to action...

..and todays interesting aeroplanes...a pair of Jet Provosts ....long time no see.

Clive.

[Monika]

Jet Provosts - that takes me me back, Clive. We used to see them regularly, I think they used them as trainers at RAF Finningley before it closed, but you would know better. There are certainly far fewer low flying exercises going here now than a few years ago. I remember being on top of the moor near us with my grandsons, then aged about 6 and 8, when two military jets passed over almost skimming the ground. The lads just threw themselves onto the ground, terrified.

Going further back still, to the 1960s, we used to see the Blackburn NA39 (?) flying over us when we lived in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, quite often noisily at night.

[Clive.]

Hello Monika,
Funny thing is that as a young lad I used to see the JP as a bit of a boring aeroplane to look at relative to the front line fast jets.....but it was lovely to see the pair yesterday. A large number were dealt through a local company into the civilian flying world as due to their low weight and single engine can, I think, be operated on a private pilots licence.

They finished RAF service in the early 1990s replaced by the turboprop Tucano...which if you visit the gardens of Beningbrough Hall near York you will hear buzzing about all day from nearby RAF Linton on Ouse.

The NA39 developed into the Bucanneer which was a fun machine to watch...low level antics...not so much take off...but pull gear up and stay low with a smokey climb out when at the edge of the airfield.....


Clive.

[glallotments]

Stil no rain and things are really suffering here except the strawberries and redcurrants producing bucketfuls of fruit!

[Monika]

Thanks for that explanation, Clive. Strangely, the older one of the grandsons, now in his twenties, quite often works at RAF Linton on Ouse now in a civilian capacity!

Going even further back, I also remember a small plane called the Gannet with a sort of bubble on its belly doing night sorties (for radar testing?) from Ford aerodrome in Sussex in the 1950s when I lived near there. Can you enlighten me on that as well?

On the dry weather, glallotments: yes, our plants are really suffering after another very warm day with strong drying winds, too. So we are really hoping the forecast rain will materialise. It said in the paper that the average rainfall in Britain was 356.8mm from January to June in the driest first half of the year since 1929. We only had 303mm here. No wonder the Leeds-Liverpool Canal is now only open two two-hour slots a day because the levels are so low.

[Clive.]

The Gannet was a Royal Navy carrier capable aircraft...powered by an interesting sounding twin Mamba turboprop...and actually quite a fair size machine.
One version was fitted with a large lump of radar for use in an airborne early warning over the horizon protection for the fleet. A role now covered by some Sea King helicopters with a radar head in a "bag" on one side.

I think there is a potential flyer Gannet in civilian hands....there has been one previously but it is now at Elvington, nr York as a potential runner? but not flyer.

Anyone spot the Vulcan about today.??...it was holding in the Newark area for some while before display at Waddington, Lincoln...then returned to Brize Norton, passing Northampton 3-15pm-ish..I read..on an aeroplane forum that I have been known to frequent.

Clive.

[Catherine]

Oh Monika I do hope we get some rain, we are so dry, we had a very light shower this morning, probably lasted 10 minutes, but I am not looking forward to the high winds. We have closed our polytunnel and put sticks on all our broad beans hoping that they will survive the coming weather tomorrow.

We have hardly had any rain since we came back from Italy on the 19th May, in Italy we had nothing but rain