With one leap he was free ………

I don’t know whether many of you will remember the comedian Tony Hancock. He was very funny. In one of his shows, he was trying to write a novel. The chapter he was finishing off had his protagonist chained up in a dungeon with no hope of escape. Things looking pretty bleak. He wrote down the next chapter number and then stopped and chewed his pencil for a bit trying to work out which way to go with the story. Then, as inspiration hit him, he started off the new chapter .. “With one leap he was free ……………….” Obviously needed a bit more work.
Anyway, the culprit this heading refers to is of course Bertie.
La D and I have spent money we hadn’t intended spending on fencing to keep pigs out and, more importantly, Bertie in.
Bert, for some reason, hates bicycles (I think he hates motorbikes too actually).
The husband of the lady who teaches us Italian came down the lane in all his super cerise cycling gear. We don’t really know why he came down our lane as our lane is a dead end and he knows that, but that’s beside the point. Bertie started barking as he passed the front gate and then hared off round the house to the back gate and followed on barking. He then turned round and went back up the lane to the road. Bertie did his barking at the back and then came round to the front like an exocet. Then without a blink made this beautiful jump high above the fence into the neighbours, ran over their garden and got to the lane just as the man got there too and started really “kicking off” (La D’s words) at him. Sensibly the man just got off and put the bike between himself and the dog.
By this time we had picked our chins off the ground, grabbed the lead and ran up the lane after them both.
We were desperately embarrassed as you could imagine. He was full of apologies too, we were not sure why.
We got the beast under control and brought him back home and gave him a good talking too, but I don’t think it had much of an affect.
We have reinforced part of the fence with some rescued pieces of our first gazebo. We do try and recycle stuff as much as possible.








We really do not want to chain him up outside, but we will have to see. However, when we arrived here we found an old exercise bike. We got it out and sat on it whilst Bertie was watching and did some cycling and Bertie barked and tried to bite our ankles. We are trying to do this pretty often whilst kicking , sorry, talking to Bertie to see if we can educate him. Stop sniggering.

There’s something in the woodshed – not Divine Comedy though

They’ve gone and done it again. Starlight the littlest community cat has given birth to four gattini in a large box in the woodshed. I keep all sorts of old cardboard stuff to light bonfires with in the cooler times of the year.
La D of course has gone all maternal and clucking about them like some mother hen. We have moved them into the laundry room, like we did with Mum’s brood last February/March. But we will have to see if the same fate awaits this lot.
Bertie seems very good. When they were in the woodshed, he would often go and listen, cock his head as he heard the tiny mewing and look in on them and he and Starlight go and lie down not far away. More things for him to guard. Very lovely.








Just don’t introduce any food to any other animal whilst Bertie is around.
He is of the firm, immovable view that any food not destined for human consumption is his. It’s his inalienable right to eat all scraps. He’s quite forthright at dealing with any misinterpretation.

Mum of course is also pregnant again but I am desperately trying to upturn any thing that could be a likely birthing box and keeping doors to outside buildings shut. We really do not want to assume responsibility for more living things. Bertie is quite enough thank you.

Summer is here

As soon as the boys went back, the weather stabilised and it’s now very warm and sunny, everyday. The forecast is for it to continue for quite a while. But, man is it hot. It was 40 in the shade at the back of the house around 13:00/14:00 today. I’d made a moussaka with our first eggplant. It was lovely, but I very nearly melted and disappeared. Fortunately La D had the foresight to make me stand in a pan while I did the cooking so that if I did melt completely, I could be reconstituted when it got a bit cooler. Phew. That was fortunate.

Orti – vegetable patches

They are going great guns because of all the rain and warm conditions. We’ve got loads of cucumbers just about ready, we’ve already had our first zucchini. The big tommies are looking seriously like world beaters in the size stakes. We have had loads of cherry toms already, and lettuce and early spuds, as well as peas and beans earlier on.

We have got a lot of stored water ready to go and it looks as though we will need it sooner rather then later.
La D has come with an ingenious uses for old plastic bottles, well two uses actually. She cuts them in half and use the top half, minus the screw cap and buries it beside a new veg she plants. Then she just fills it with water every so often and all the water is directed to the roots. Ingenious, eh. I did try and point out that I suggested we do that last year.
I just get the imperious look and a “Don’t be silly L’uomo chi fa, haven’t you got a TPU to get on with?”
The other end of the bottles go over small stakes used to help keep small plants straight. When we were weeding the other day, la D got a nasty cut on her arm as she caught it on the top of one these stakes. Well, that won’t happen now. She’s pretty smart La D is. Brilliant

Ciao, mantenere la fede