CUCKOO A seventy-five year old friend was telling Dirty Nails about the sound of cuckoo’s in her youth. She grew up in Surrey and back-along the summer visiting migrant was considered nothing special – in fact, quite the reverse. In those days the cuckoo was a common bird, its arrival to these shores every April [...]
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DIRTY NAILS BLOG by Joe Hashman CUCKOO
Monday, May 31st, 201012 February 2010 DIRTY NAILS’ BLOG by Joe Hashman HURRYING SLOWLY, SCHOOL LANE GILLINGHAM, JUST THINKING, THE PRACTICE OF GARDENING
Friday, February 12th, 2010HURRYING SLOWLY Whilst nursing a cup of tea first thing, to wake up… …eight pigeons clapper-board in powerful flight, veering right to left. Blackbirds steer low and straight, either directly in line with my seat, head-on or, with an audible whoosh, coming in to sight from behind my head. A pair of blue tits check [...]
Read More »9 February 2010 DIRTY NAILS’ BLOG by Joe Hashman IT’S BEAUTIFUL OUT
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010IT’S BEAUTIFUL OUT At 3.30pm on the dot I felt like a miner coming up for air. Clouds were full and fluffy, set in great drifting banks against the cleanest shades of deep and paler vivid blue. On the street, south-facing, the sun was bright. All around, the stuff of life occuring. Ofcoarse, I forgot [...]
Read More »1 February 2010 DIRTY NAILS’ BLOG by Joe Hashman PINCH PUNCH
Monday, February 1st, 2010PINCH PUNCH I didn’t have my bino’s with me but could still see a greenfinch, plumply sitting on a thin wisp of branch from a silver birch which stands elegantly above the conifers and shrubs in an ornamental allotment plot we have here in St James called ’Dorothy’s Garden’. Greenfinch provided a pleasant and appropriate musical accompliment to the [...]
Read More »19 January 2010 DIRTY NAILS’ BLOG by Joe Hashman ‘AUTUMN RASPBERRY’ MANAGEMENT, 5.25PM
Tuesday, January 19th, 2010‘AUTUMN RASPBERRY’ MANAGEMENT If you’ve got raspberries that bear fruit from August to late autumn and beyond (Solstice, December 21st, last year) then now’s the time to get in amongst your rows and sort them out. Cut down and remove everything. That’s what I’ve been up to yesterday, today and dare I say it, again tomorrow. Autumn [...]
Read More »7 January 2010 DIRTY NAILS’ BLOG by Joe Hashman ANARCHY IN THE U.K.
Thursday, January 7th, 2010ANARCHY IN THE U.K. Although I’ve had enough of the snow already and look forward to a thaw and emerging signs of spring, I do like the anarchic nature of this frozen beast and the way it brings so many things we take for granted to a grinding halt. In many cases we’ve no choice but [...]
Read More »2 January 2010 DIRTY NAILS’ BLOG by Joe Hashman WHILST SITTING ON THE FLATTENED BUTT OF AN ANCIENT POLLARD OAK
Saturday, January 2nd, 2010WHILST SITTING ON THE FLATTENED BUTT OF AN ANCIENT POLLARD OAK… … a country robin flitted between nine tanalised fence posts which bordered the bottom of an uncut thorny hedge, one-by-one. It surveyed the frozen pasture from the flattened top of each in turn. Jenny wren emerged from a tangle of dead brambles, looked left [...]
Read More »23 December 2009 DIRTY NAILS’ BLOG by Joe Hashman WEATHER CHECK
Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009WEATHER CHECK They’ve had something like ten inch drifts of snow up Holmer Green in the Buckinghamshire Chilterns. My nephew counted sixty-eight abandoned vehicles along the A404 betwixt their place and Amersham. A mate of my brothers left Wycombe for Reading at 4pm and made his final destination at four in the morning. Brother himself [...]
Read More »17 December 2009 DIRTY NAILS’ BLOG by Joe Hashman PREPARING FOR SHALLOTS
Thursday, December 17th, 2009PREPARING FOR SHALLOTS 8.26am. I love how sunshine illuminates The Hangings behind St James Street an hour or so after this deep-winter day awakes. As the silver ball tentatively rises above our houses so wooded and scrubby slopes glow golden-brown. Mums and kids en route to school on top, gurgle of free-range chooks over the [...]
Read More »30 October 2009 DIRTY NAILS’ BLOG by Joe Hashman 92 MILES TO MAIDENHEAD
Saturday, October 31st, 2009I left the house in darkness at the stroke of 6am. Unlocked the van, slung in a case, climbed in, turned the key and switches, pulled out and along St James away. My day unfolded whilst travelling west to east across Salisbury Plain. Daylight proper came somewhere betwixt Andover and the M3, though we all [...]
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