If this week was the 20th century, we’d already be past the Great War and heading for fascism, When I started this analogy it was 1922 but after lunch and  a few odd jobs it’s now looking more like 1924. In family terms my grandfather has returned home from the war and become a family man with two daughters.. As his life gathers pace I realise that I haven’t made much progress in my plans.

I’ve composted some vegetable peelings from home. They were in a plastic container and I forgot to take them last week. The sealed container meant I didn’t notice them at home but turning them out wasn’t a particularly fragrant job. However, whilst I was doing that I discovered that we have a fine-looking patch of wild flowers next to the compost bin. They are considerably more diverse than the wild flower bed behind the kitchen, though on a much smaller scale.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

I’ve also looked up some recipes for later in the week, touched up the Wild Food page with a note on green alkanet bristles and my tongue and spent a lot of time looking for something I should have made a note of last night when I saw it on the net.

After finding the page I needed I can now report, after a brief burst of activity, that I have harvested enough comfrey to make a batch in a 2 litre bottle. The web page said 8 leaves but I used 14. Whether that means my leaves were smaller than his or I’ve put too many in will only be revealed when I open the stinking brew in a month.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

So, one part of the four part plan has been put into action and several valuable lessons have been learned.The lessons are –  there are always routine jobs to do, taking proper notes saves time, taking proper notes also saves you getting sidetracked into the history of sky writing, and finally no matter how dull a day may seem there is always time to see something that cheers you up.

In this case it was the wild flowers and the wrens. There were three of the new brood playing about in the rough margin of the vegetable garden – I actually got a shot of one of them today!