Last Brick Laid

After a lazy weekend spent (mostly) sprawled on the sofa, I’ve now finished “The Bricklayer.”  Apart from a lull in the pace about two thirds of the way through, I enjoyed the book.  The villains of the piece were a little weak, for the most part they remain tucked away in the shadows.  When they do come out from hiding, there isn’t much exploration into who they are and why they’re doing what they’re doing.  Things are wrapped up bit quickly in the final act as well, but not so much that I put the book down feeling as though I wanted my time back.

With this over now, it does leave me having to pick my next book to read.  I’ve got a pile of books waiting to be read, though being on my Kindle this is only a metaphorical pile rather than a physical one.  As a treat I think I will re-read one of my all time favourite sci-fi novels, “Dune” by Frank Herbert.  Every few years I find myself travelling back to Arrakis and I reckon that time has come round again.  Now where did I leave my stillsuit…?

 

Half a Brick

I’m about halfway though “The Bricklayer” now and, so far, I’ve been finding it a very easy book to read.  Being written by an author with genuine FBI experience should give it a degree of authenticity, but the characters are colourful and larger than life so it’s tricky to take the plot with anything other than a fistful of salt.  Having not been in the FBI myself, I suppose I can’t say what is realistic and what isn’t.  The book hasn’t broken any moulds so far, but that’s by no means a bad thing.  It probably suffers from comparisons to other similar thrillers, but life’s short and this is a quick action fix that will lift a grey weekend.

 

Kindling

The year before last I set myself a new year’s resolution to read more and thanks to my Kindle I can certainly say that I’ve done that. I’ve consumed my fair share of cheap rubbish on my e-reader but then I don’t believe that reading always has to be an intellectual exercise. At the moment I’m working my way through the kind of gung-ho thrillers that I’d never watch at the cinema if they were movies. They even take up more of my time in book form. Perhaps I’m just a little more forgiving when I can’t see Chuck Norris and I have to use my imagination.

 

Starting “The Bricklayer” by Noah Boyd

 

Turbo Snails

The greenhouse was full of snails this morning. Ew! Dozens of the slimey blighters were climbing up the glass of the interior. Totally unnecessary. Still, could have been worse – at least it wasn’t frogs.

 

Growing Gourds

Now the nights are getting dark… the mornings are dark… ahh, lets face it – now it’s October it’s dark most of the time.  The greenhouse is not the warm refuge it used to be anymore, now it’s a cold and damp corner of the garden with a few tomatoes and a couple of persistent chilli-peppers in it.  I haven’t planted a great deal of Winter veggies so things are gradually winding down outside.  My gourds are doing well still, hopefully they can be dried out and turned into something decorative for Halloween.  As my trowel is put away for now, I think I’ll dust off my sewing box and thumb through my pattern books in case there’s something worth rustling up in time for Christmas.

 

There Goes The Sun

Now that we’re almost into October, the weather is a lot colder and things in the garden are starting to wilt. The water melons are a write off (always a bit of a long shot) and have shrivelled up. What’s left is now a spider house as the dried up stems seem to be a convenient place to weave webs. On the plus side, I’ve still got radishes and tomatoes that are looking healthy so there’s a few more edible things that are surviving the changing temperature. I would also have expected my chilli peppers to have been wiped out by the cold but they’re flowering nicely. Not sure if I’ll get any actual peppers from there but hope springs eternal etc.

 

Spuds–U–Like

After a (mostly) warm summer, there’s been a mixture of successes and failures in the greenhouse.  Successes include, my potatoes and spring onion – which both turned out very well.  On the flip side, my gherkins dried up after a particularly hot day and never really looked like they could be revitalised.  The herb garden has also continued to be a success and has been tucked into plenty of times for salads and such like. 

Growing very enthusiastically are my watermelons – no idea what I’m going to do with these if they start to bear fruit, but they’ve reached the flowering stage so I should really read up on these…  I’ve also hung my gourds over a trellis, which has given them a second lease of life (they looked a bit droopy at one point) and there should be plenty of the things ready for turning into decorations by the time Halloween rolls around. 

Speaking of darker months, September is just around the corner, so I’m sure there must be something I should be doing to prepare myself (not that I want to give the impression that I’m a haphazard gardener or anything…)  However, since this is my first year growing veg I’d be happy with anything that I could actually grow, so if I can pull anything out of the ground before Winter strikes, it’ll be a bonus.

 

Green Fingered

Well, I’ve been paying daily trips to my greenhouse for a couple of months now. A couple of things that I’ve planted have just shrivelled up and died (cucumbers, turnips) but generally most things are faring well. The warmer weather is making it a lot more pleasant to be outdoors, it’s been up to 40 degrees in the greenhouse on some days. My lettuce has come along very well and I’ve even had my first harvest from that. My chives also made their way to the dinner table, which is very encouraging. Spuds and gourds will soon be joining them, hopefully.

 

Going Green

For a few weeks now, I’ve been dutifully checking and watering everything in my greenhouse. Since I’d planted my seeds at the very earliest opportunity there was always a good chances that a sharp frost could come along and wipe out my ‘crops.’ Luckily this hasn’t happened and only my cucumbers haven’t shown any activity now. My tomatoes are all shooting through and my collection of herbs are looking strong too. My lettuce in particular is very leafy and I think I’ll have to transplant it to a larger tray, for the second time. It’s still a bit to cold for anything to go outside just yet. Saying that, I have planted a redcurrent bush so who knows if that will make it through to Spring. Hopefully it will, but it’ll take a few years before I get any fruit from it.