A week in Jersey

Selfie with granddad

Margaret and I are just back from a week in Jersey where we have been visiting Sam and Lucy and getting some quality time with Arthur, our grandson, who is just 18 months old.

He's quite a handful, a lot more wriggly than Julia and much more daring. He will charge down steps, even quite high ones, and is obsessed with jumping.

We picked a bit of a bad week weather-wise, but Arthur was also a bit below par – he had a cough, which woke him (and his mum and dad) every night and he is also getting two teeth either side of the two he already has at the front on his bottom jaw.

He's been walking for a few months now and is really fast on his feet. You can't leave him for a second, although if he's about to do something he knows he shouldn't, he generally says “bye” - that sets the alarm bells ringing.

Like Julia, he's a real mimic, although he hasn't done any impressions of Margaret yet.

He can say “daddy”, "ga-ma" and also “mummy” but he wouldn't say “mummy” when Lucy was about.

He says “no” with a strange accent, almost like “niow” with real expression. He also says “go” and “there” when he wants you in a particular place. Arms held up mean “pick me up please” in universal toddler talk.

He looks like a real little lad, especially after his latest haircut (on Friday) and his favourite thing is to have books read to him. Mr Tumble was a popular choice, also a first words book with lots of pictures, Incy Wincy Spider and Piggy plays hide and seek. He's also allowed a spell of TV, so I was introduced to Something Special (a signing show featuring disabled and able-bodied children), In The Night Garden and Teletubbies.

These are all on BBC iPlayer. I think that In The Night Garden must have been written while the author was high on drugs and Teletubbies also has something of the mind-altering about it.

Normally Arthur is at nursery on weekdays. He gets dropped off by Sam in the morning around 8am and does a full day to 6pm. He's now in the older toddler group and he's one of the smaller ones in there. 

At home, he wakes up around 6am and likes a cup of cow's milk first thing, breakfast at 8am and then playtime until 10am when he really needs a sleep. He won't sleep if we put him down, but if you push him out in his buggy, then he goes out like a light for a maximum one hour (or until the buggy stops). Sam was just the same.

After the morning sleep, he likes a fairly early lunch, more play, an afternoon sleep (same rules as the morning sleep), then play or book and then dinner about 4pm, play, some TV and sleep around 7pm.

Sam and Lucy both had the sleep-deprived, harassed look of toddler parents. It was ironic to hear Margaret re-assuring Sam (Sam who was such a difficult baby) that it wouldn't last long. It does seem hard work (because it is hard work) and you have no time for lots of other things, but it does go by so quickly.

Margaret and I know how they change and grow and how these precious moments of life's first steps, words and discoveries go past so fast. It seems not so long ago that we were doing things with Sam that he's now doing with Arthur.

Arthur enjoyed my company, especially a gee-gee, but he really loved ga-ma. He would always choose Margaret to read him a book and occasionally come to me for a second opinion. I'll have to try harder next time.

We drove to Gatwick and then flew to Jersey by easyJet. It's a familiar route by now and is the cheapest way to do it (although I got my suitcase weight really wrong and ended up paying another £40) It cost more to get the suitcase there and back than it did for our tickets. We arrived around 8.30pm on Wednesday.

Thursday was a nice day. Arthur had to be at nursery because Sam, Margaret and I were booked on a boat trip to the Écréhous, which is a reef and string of tiny islands between Jersey and the Cherbourg peninsula. It's about six miles from Jersey and the same from France, but is part of Jersey and has been since the Normans conquered the whole region in the first millennium. France laid claim to the Écréhous, but in 1953 the International Court of Justice ruled they were part of Jersey.

The name comes from two Norse words – Esker and Hou, meaning 'stony' and 'island'. The Vikings didn't miss much and this tiny string of islands, most of it only visible at low tide, was certainly on their radar.

All but the three largest islands are submerged at high tide, there are no permanent residents and no fresh water there. Due to erosion, they are now much smaller than they may have been within historic times. Maîtr'Île, the largest of the islets, is about 300 metres long. There are about eight buildings, some used as holiday residences, on the largest islets, and one official building, a customs house, on La Marmotchiéthe.

The Écréhous also attracted the notice of the early Christians in Europe. Being remote and grim, it was considered the perfect place for a monk to live and for a few hundred years there was a chapel and priory there. It was also a staging post for smuggling.

According to Wikipedia, there have been permanent residents on Les Écréhous in recent times. Philippe Pinel lived on Bliantch'Île from 1848 to 1898 and exchanged gifts with Queen Victoria. He styled himself king of the Écréhous. More recently, in the 1960s and 1970s a man called Alphonse Le Gastelois sought refuge in the islands from unfounded public suspicion of being a sexual attacker. He home in Jersey was attacked, so he left for the Écréhous and lived there for more than 20 years, even after the real culprit was arrested.

Now the islands are a protected conservation zone.

We took a rib from St Catherine's. It was a powerful craft that sped across the short stretch of water and easily navigated the many submerged rocks and sandbanks. It would have been a much more dangerous trip for the Vikings, who depended on oars and sails. Inside  Maîtr'Île, there is a sheltered inlet and small sandy beaches. We only had an hour or so on the island, but Sam was keen to have a swim and so I went in with him. The water was about 18 degrees, so it felt cold until you splashed about a bit and then it seemed warmer than the air above. I haven't swum in the sea for well over 10 years and it's easy to forget how much easier it is due to the extra buoyancy of salt water. Other people who had come across with us thought we were a little crazy.

It's amazing to swim in a little sheltered inlet like this, miles from anywhere and think of Viking longships laid up there with some protection from a high sea. There was a fair bit of wildlife about. We saw dolphins, seals, gannets and terns.

Once back, we picked up Arthur from nursery and headed home.

Breakfast at El Tico's always goes down well.

On Friday, the weather was getting wet and windier. We wouldn't have been able to get to the Écréhous this day, so it was as well we had gone when we did. Instead, we had breakfast at El Tico, a favourite location for breakfast when we're in Jersey and then did a supermarket shop at Waitrose in Red Houses and Sam took Arthur for a haircut (his second). Having a 'big boy' haircut really makes him look grown up and older than his year-and-a-half. Arthur's routine isn't as rigid as Julia's. She goes to bed for a two-hour sleep at about 12.30pm, but Arthur seems to catch some zzzs when he can. A trip in the car or the buggy, soon sends him off to sleep.

On Saturday, we all went to Jersey Zoo, which had an open day for 'friends' – including people who have bought a year-long subscription. I don't really like zoos and, especially zoos that have birds in cages, but I acknowledge that my dislike is perhaps not based on sensible science but rather putting myself in the position of the animals. We bought Lucy a subscription to the zoo, so that she could take Arthur along there any time and it has been fairly well used. It's in a nice parkland setting, so it's a pleasant place to walk around and there are some interesting plants as well as the usual animals. I had a nice chat with the politically incorrect gorilla keeper and went to say hello to the fruit bats. Arthur wanted to run downhill (any hill).

We had lunch in the zoo cafe, but plans for my first taste of Jersey ice-cream were thwarted when the ice-cream machine had broken down. There are two types of Jersey ice-cream (made with Jersey milk) – soft or hard. I rather like ice cream, but for some reason I've never had one on holiday in Jersey. Perhaps the weather has always been too wet.

Nice ice-cream for Arthur

After the zoo, we drove out to the north shore and had a little stroll along a beach and slipway. A party was just setting off on a coasteering trip and it brought back horrific memories for Sam who was terrified when he took Max and Inna coasteering this summer.

In the evening, we were babysitting so that Sam and Lucy could go out for dinner. It had been their wedding anniversary (ninth, I think) that week and they went to Ormer, the Michelin-starred restaurant in St Helier. Arthur was very good for us, but woke up just before Sam and Lucy arrived home. Margaret was able to get him down again. Poor lad has a cough and spits his dummy, then needs comforting. Sam and Lucy were both stuffed with food and wine. They'd had a taster menu with a different glass of wine with each course!

It was good that they could go out. It's hard with a small baby and no family support nearby, so they depend upon Maureen or Margaret being in town to have a social life.

There have been lots of changes to the house since I last visited. There are new wood floors, wood-burning stoves in both living rooms, the kitchen units have been painted and the garden is much changed and restocked. Lucy has some lovely grasses, which I rather coveted. She found me some seeds for one variety, but the other is not hardy enough to grow in our garden. I do have its name, so I might try anyway. Perhaps I could find a warm corner.

On Sunday, I helped in the garden by sorting out the pile of wood from various trees that have been cut down. I persuaded Sam to put the bigger logs in his wood-store and stacked the smaller pieces in a neater pile at the bottom of the garden. They should be good for insects and birds. Sam says he isn’t scared of spiders any more, but he wasn’t in any hurry to dig into the woodpile.

We also fixed the lock on the front gate, so Arthur could be locked in the back garden (he could open the gate and get out onto the road) and also did some general tidying.

Windy day at St Brelade's

In the afternoon, Sam and Lucy took advantage of grandparent day-care to visit the gym, so Margaret and I walked Arthur around St Brelade's. Soon after we set off, the rain blew in on a strong wind and so we decided to carry on across the beach to the Smugglers’ Inn at the end of the bay. Arthur was snoozing happily, but Margaret and I were soaked on one side and completely dry on the other. The rain was coming on horizontally.

I like the Smugglers’, it has fires and allows dogs into the bar. We got Arthur some fish & chips and apple crumble with ice cream. He ate fish, licked tomato sauce off the chips and ate the ice cream. Thankfully, the rain had stopped for the walk back.

St Brelade’s is probably the nicest beach on Jersey. It’s not as long as St Ouen’s, but has good sand and it’s very pretty, with a rocky clump of granite dividing the beach (and the bay) in two. At low tide, you can walk around it; at high tide, you have the scramble over the top.

Jersey isn’t very green. All household waste gets incinerated and there’s no organised recycling. Electricity comes from France, so I guess that’s nuclear and it’s either green or the end of the world, depending upon your point of view.

Well, on Monday I went with Sam to the recycling centre. I’ve been before, but a new one has opened just north east of St Helier. It’s very impressive. There’s a recycling shop, where you can drop off things that might be useful and they are then sold for charity; also different skips for different types of rubbish. It’s all clean, very easy to park and very quick. We also took some garden waste, which is composted and you can buy topsoil/compost by the bag or giant bale. The best thing about the old site was a pile of “possibly useful” things which you could help yourself to. That’s no longer there because the charity shop takes them all. Trouble is, the stuff that might be useful to someone, but is a little shoddy, now tends to get dumped.

Foamy sea off St Ouen's Bay

As we drove to the recycling centre, the waves were crashing over the sea wall, so afterwards, we went round to St Ouen’s Bay, which faces west, just to see what it was like. The sea was foaming and waves were breaking over the wall – not a day for a walk on the beach or a sea crossing. If we’d come via ferry, we might have been wondering if we’d get home on Wednesday.

St Helier was windy, sunny and wet – all in the space of a couple of hours. We had a look round the shops, bought some Jersey Pottery for Emilia and Julia and met Lucy for lunch at Pizza Express. Arthur was good, but needed a dance with Margaret to keep him amused. He does like to dance, but other diners might not have noticed the small toddler and thought: why is that crazy woman dancing in the middle of the restaurant?

Tuesday was our last day with Sam, who had to return to work on Wednesday. We had a quiet day, with a couple of walks for Arthur so Sam could spend some time sorting out his broken boiler (leak, then short circuit when it was turned on), the blokes who had come to dig some tree roots out of the garden and also looking at the John Lewis website. Sam wants a new oven and hob to complete his kitchen makeover and his favourite reading is currently the Bosch catalogue and the John Lewis website.

The gardeners did an OK job and there’s now lots more space for new plants. We rounded our day off with a trip to Waitrose. I took Arthur to see the fish on the fish counter and the shop-assistant (it being a slow day) thought he’s entertain us by picking up a mackerel and making it swim towards Arthur’s face. Arthur was not amused.

I let him have a run around after that and he found the toilet roll aisle bewitching. I realised that all toilet rolls and paper towels have pictures of puppies or teddies on them.

Our last day was Wednesday and we could have packed Arthur off to nursery and had a quiet day, or given him another day of books, buggies and Teletubbies. We chose Teletubbies. It was nice to spend time with him on our own, although we did need two long walks to get him to sleep. Sam arrived back from work in time to take over and to take us to the airport.

Not happy today - needs some Calpol

Discovered the joy of watering plants

Building a tower ...

Trip to the seaside

Julia definitely has a mind of her own. In the summer, we took her to Hunstanton for the day. We envisaged running on the beach, paddling in the surf, building sandcastles …

Julia wasn't keen on sand, she hated the feel on her feet and she was no happier with shoes on. She viewed sand as you or I might consider dog poo – something to avoid stepping on at all costs. The fact that hundreds of other children were having a great time counted for nothing.

She was carried to the sea a couple of times, but paddling was out as there was clearly sand under the water. We did collect a few shells, which are now something of a treasure,

Much later in the year, in December, it snowed heavily in Thorney and Tom and Lucy bought Julia up to enjoy this rare treat. Julia puts snow in the same class as sand – not to be trodden. She didn't mind looking at it from the safety of my arms, she thought it quite funny to throw a snowball at dad, but she yelped when a snowflake went down her neck.

I'm sure, in time, Julia will enjoy a day at the beach and (if she gets chance) will love to make a snowman – just not in 2017.

Aureliano was so impressed by Hunstanton that he fell asleep and I kept
him company.

Do you speak Julia?

It is interesting hearing a child learn to speak and particularly interesting for me as I am learning a language (Spanish) myself.

Julia has two languages to learn - Spanish from her mother and English from the rest of her current world.

She also makes up words of her own to fill in the gaps, so the result is a blend of Spanglish toddler talk. It’s quite creative and often quite funny.

Here are some of her words:

Buo - is milk (hot or cold). I don’t know where this one came from. The Spanish for milk is ‘leche’ so there’s no obvious link there.

Wei-wei - that’s her word for me, grandad. I think it came from ‘abuelo’ the Spanish word for grandad and I think she picked up on the ‘welo’ sound within the word. I rather like being Wei-wei

Ma-ma, not to be confused with Mammy  - is what she calls Margaret. The ‘ma’ sound, obviously comes from the ‘ma’ in grandma. Often Julia shouts it very loudly indeed.

Wei-wei - Nina - is her word for grandma Nidia and (just recently) Wei-wei Lala for grandad Carlos. Wei-wei is now her word of choice for grandparents.

Memes - are socks. The Spanish for socks is ‘calcetines’ but in Latin America they are medias (as in halves) and memes is obviously a corruption of medias.

Tu - is you (of course), but Julia uses it for ‘me’ (as herself). Lucy would refer to her as ‘tu’ and she thinks that’s her name. I tried to get her to say me, but it’s far too confusing for a toddler (or a granddad).

Ollybolly - is Holly, our dog. She does call her olly when issuing a command, which she has started to do. “Olly, no!” is a common one.

Oh-Oh - means there’s a problem and it’s such a useful word. Anything from a pain in the foot, a lost item or something dropped on the floor. There was an incident when Julia was climbing on a chair and grandad told her to be careful and come down. She didn’t heed his advice, slipped and banged her ear. This incident was reported to mum and dad with the damning sentence: Oh-oh, wei-wei ear.” Recently, she has had a cold and this was called ‘oh-oh nose’.

Bee - this is a bee, but also any other insect from a fly to an ant, although I think I’ve now taught her ‘ant’.

Beeba - is bib, the thing you wear for dining when you’re two. She is very fussy about her bibs or beebas and many have names. Plane beeba is a freebie from KLM. It is also a hairclip, from the Spanish ‘horquilla’ and ‘bedcover’ from ‘cubrir’.

Dada isn’t dad (that’s daddy) but is does mean poo, house and spoon. Tom told me about the first one and I haven’t heard it. Normally when it’s a No 1, she gets anxious and points to her belly. That’s the sign to run for the potty. She was saying ‘caca’ so perhaps that’s corrupted to dada. House is ‘casa’, so close-ish and spoon is ‘cuchara’. A lot of words are picked up and used because they sort of rhyme - I guess they sound right. Bee dada is one of her favourite spoons - it’s a spoon with a big yellow handle and a picture of a bee on it.

Mano is brother, from the Spanish hermano.

Babbies - are strawberries or raspberries.

Welcome to the world, Aureliano.

May 25, 2017 saw my third grandchild arrive.

We have been waiting for him for quite some time. Lucy was convinced he would be early (like Julia) but it turns out that we was very happy where he was and in no hurry to make an appearance.

There was some excitement about four weeks ago, but it turned out that it was just back pains. Lucy was finishing some essays for her first year PhD and had been sitting in the same (bad) position for too long.

So the pregnancy term of Julia came and went, and Lucy's official due date came and went, still no sign of action.

On Wednesday this week, six days after the due date, I went down to Baldock to look after Julia for the day so Lucy and Nidia could spend some time together. While we went to grandparents’ playgroup in Letchworth, Lucy and Nidia walked to Sainsbury’s, then to the swimming pool, then back to Baldock to have lunch with us in Dizi’s, then back home. Lucy was too weary to walk to Avenue Park in the afternoon, but she did walk to the chip shop with Tom to get fish and chips for dinner. I think she must have walked four miles that day, plus an hour’s swimming.

In the evening, Tom and I went to the Templars Hotel to watch the Europa League final between Manchester United and Ajax Amsterdam (Man U won 2-0 and qualified for the Champions League next year). Lucy was still up when we got back and I drove home.

At 5am, when Holly woke me up, there was a WhatsApp message from Tom to say that Lucy’s waters had broken and they were at the maternity hospital. For the past five weeks, we had been on standby to go to Baldock to care for Julia when Lucy went in to give birth, but since Nidia arrived from Ecuador just over a week ago, we’ve not been first-line responders.

I made a cup of tea and went to tell Margaret the news. I had a meeting at school in the morning with the head teacher and two prospective new governors, so Margaret went down on the train to help Nidia and lend some moral support. Julia was at nursery until 2pm, so Margaret and Nidia did some cleaning and washing before having lunch and picking Julia up.

Lucy gave birth at midday with the baby weighing 3.7kg (8.4lbs) which was much more than Julia and reflects the fact he was a week late rather than three weeks early. After my meeting, I sorted out Holly and some watering and then drove down.

They were in the Lister Hospital in Stevenage and so I drove Nidia, Julia and Margaret to see them. The new baby - Aureliano Jacinto Rayner Rojas - was doing fine. He had fed already and was fast asleep. He’s quite a big baby, but seems tiny next to Julia or Arthur. Julia is fascinated and was very keen to touch him and give him a hug. She calls him “mano” which is part of “hermano” - Spanish for brother. We will probably call him the same thing as there’s no obvious diminutive of Aureliano. We thought about “Arry” or “Rio” from Aureliano or “Jack” from Jacinto. Anyway, Julia will have the final say.

She was shattered and starving when we got her home and was so hungry (by the time I’d got to Tesco and back) that she needed Tom and Margaret to feed her - one shovelling in the tuna fish and sweet corn, the other doing pasta and pesto.

After dinner, I played with her while Tom went back to Lister hospital to pick up Lucy, Aureliano and Nidia. We’d just got her pyjamas on when they got home and she was very weary - overtired. Aureliano, on the other hand, was fast asleep in his car seat and didn’t wake when Margaret took him through to his Moses basket in the lounge.

Welcome Aureliano, I look forward to watching you grow up and wish you a long and happy life.

Aureliano has lots of hair. Quite dark at the moment

Back home with grandmother Margaret.

In the Moses basket - and still sleeping.

This Jay thinks it is a Blue Tit

The Jay that is a regular visitor to my garden has been displaying some very strange behaviour. He (or she) grabbed a fully-grown sparrow and carried it off last week (he thinks he’s a sparrowhawk) and on several mornings I’ve now seen him eating off the nut feeder.

Jays will take nut chippings put on the bird table in winter and I’ve also seen them bashing at the nut feeder to knock some bits out before swooping onto the lawn to get them.

We have a nut feeder that’s shaped like a ball and made from woven wire. This Jay has been coming to the feeder, grabbing on and hanging upside down to take nuts - just like a blue tit or a great tit. It’s quite comical seeing a large bird like a Jay behaving like a blue tit.

Also the lid has been prised off the feeder several times and I’m wondering if the jay (or a Jackdaw) has worked out a quick way to empty it.

Corvids are clever birds and will adapt their behaviour, so it’s interesting to observe them solving problems and finding new food sources.

Catching up on the allotment

Autumn-sown broad beans at the back and spring-sown
coming through in front.

I have been busy at the allotment and have managed to do quite a lot of work, even if I am always four weeks behind where I want to be.

There's a list of jobs marked 'not done' (and I guess there always will be) but it is looking as well as it ever has and I'm quite optimistic for this season.

My autumn digging never happened and turned into spring digging, which meant the soil wasn't broken down as well as I had hoped. However, I did get almost all my digging done and the bit I didn't get round to, I have covered with black plastic to keep the weeds down.

I have had three or four feeds off my three asparagus crowns, which have been in for three years. I have now left them alone to build up their strength. Most of the tips have come from just two crowns, while the third (a red variety) is proving far less vigorous.

Last year I expanded the bed and added another five crowns of Mondeo, which is a pretty vigorous variety. One didn't survive, but the other four have come through. I'm not touching those until next year.

Leeks were a big success and we finally picked the last ones in April. Despite deer nibbling the tops throughout winter, they did pretty well and were a good size. I grew Musselburgh and I'm doing the same this year. The seeds have germinated in the asparagus bed.

My winter-sown broad beans (Aquadulce) look good. They're a coming up to three feet and have set lots of pods, plus lots of flowers. David Jones, my farmer friend, said I should sow them on Bonfire Night and plant them nine inches deep. I didn't sow them quite that deep (I thought they'd never come up), but I did sow at the beginning of November and they have done very well. I've also got a crop of spring-sown ones (Robin Hood), which have all germinated, so I should have a good crop for several weeks.

I have runner beans germinating in the cold frame and French beans still to plant. Perhaps I'll get those in this week (if I can find any room). I'm growing Butler runners and Blue Lake climbing French beans. I won't eat the pods, the plan is to save the beans and eat them like kidney beans during the winter.

Last year, my peas were a disaster – they were covered in weeds, eaten by birds and mice and a complete waste of time and space. This year, I have been much more careful. I have prepared a good plot, covered it with mesh (to keep out the rooks and the pea moth) and watered well. I'm growing Hurst Green Shaft and Lincoln and they have germinated quite well, so fingers crossed.

Late raspberries are making good growth.

My autumn raspberries gave us a few berries last year. They are primocane plants (cropping on the current year's growth) so I cut them all down at the end of the year and they are now sprouting lots of lush growth, so I'm hoping for a bumper crop. My six blackcurrants and one redcurrant bush look healthy and are setting lots of fruit. I also put in some early raspberries at the end of last year. Most of those canes have some growth, but I won't get any fruit until 2018.

I failed completely with gooseberries last year. I'm not sure if the location was too sunny or the deer came and ate all the fruit. In any event, we didn't get one berry! Last summer, I went to a pick-your-own fruit farm with Tom, Lucy, Emilia and Julia and it was quite an eye-opener. Strawberries were grown in troughs at shoulder height so the berries hung down and were easy to pick. Raspberries were in grow-bags and everything was in poly-tunnels, which had been rolled back as the weather got warmer. I don't plan to copy this type of industrial fruit growing, but I did see that they had gooseberries in large pots, so I decided to try that. I've dug out my four bushes and put them in plastic pots with the bottom sawn off and set these halfway into the ground. I've put them along the back fence behind the cider apples, so they will be a little shaded. So far, they're looking pretty good and there are certainly berries forming now. I'll be able to net them there to stop the deer stealing the berries.

Redcurrants forming (above) and my potted gooseberries (below)

I have decent-sized plot of onions (Rumba, a white variety) and I'm growing these on virgin soil due to worries about white rot on the other side of my plot. They worked well last year and the sets are looking OK at the moment.

I have grown a few potatoes in pots the last few years and my fellow allotment holders think I'm a little strange because I don't have any on my allotment. Some people grow nothing but potatoes and almost all the others have a good section dedicated to them. This year, I said no more South American corn and so the spare land will be dedicated to spuds. I have two varieties Cara (maincrop) and Jazzy (early). The seed potatoes were stored in the garage when they arrived. I thought it would be dark and cool, but it was clearly too warm and when I checked on them, the shoots were sprouting out of the box! I had to rub them off and resprout them in a colder spot. Earlies went in some weeks ago and the lates a couple of weeks ago (with Max's help). Sadly the earlies have been frosted a couple of times (despite being under fleece), so I'm not sure how much that will have affected the yield. The allotment is a bit of a frost pocket, I'm afraid.

Last year, I decided that the allotment should not be just for vegetables and I planted some sunflowers and roses to provide cut flowers for the house. I now have nine rose bushes. They are all older varieties selected for scent – Peace, Fragrant Cloud and Silver Jubilee. The sunflowers were a big hit last year and I'm growing them again, a little later, so we will have a supply of flowers for the flower festival. I also have sweet william at the allotment, which are almost ready to flower.

As I write, there are still a lot of plants to get sorted. I have beetroot, swede, carrots and parsnip to sow in the ground and also courgettes (if I can find room in the greenhouse).

One big job facing me this summer is to move the cynara cardunculus plants, which I had assumed were globe artichokes (they are a close relative), but I now believe are cardoons. These are vigorous, massive plants which look like giant artichokes, but have spiky flower buds which are not edible. I'm going to move them to the side of my plot because they look spectacular (the bees love them) and replace them with some artichoke green globe, which I have in my greenhouse, having grown them from seed (they're almost ready to prick out).

Onions (behind the orange netting) with beans and peas, plus soft fruit behind.
You can see the cardoons in front of the shed.

Plants being grown for the plant stall at the
 church flower festival

My asparagus bed

Early potatoes with protection (not enough)
against late frosts

Birdwatching in the garden

There is always something interesting going on in the back garden.

On Sunday morning, I’d filled the bird-feeders first thing and was sitting in the lounge with some breakfast watching the lawn as it is the start of a new week on my British Trust for Ornithology's Garden Bird Watch.

Each week, I take a note of the different species seen and the total number of birds of that species seen at any one time. The new week starts on Sunday, so I like to spend on hour on Sunday morning to see what arrives.

Last Sunday was bright and sunny and there was a flock of housesparrows feeding on the lawn near to the house. They live at Chris’ next door. He has not had his soffits replaced, so they finds lots of nesting space in his loft by squeezing through the gaps in his eaves. I counted seven and they were having a good time, taking a dip in the bird-bath, sitting in the barberry bush, which is in full flower, and dropping down onto the lawn to feed.

Two jays arrived. A jay is a regular visitor, but two together is unusual. I’m always pleased to see them because they are beautiful birds and these hopped onto the pots next to the barberry bush, so I got a really good view. One flew off and the other flew into the barberry and sat there, so I had an even better view.

All of a sudden, it dropped onto the path, grabbed a small, female housesparrow by the wing and gave her a shake. It then flew up into the corkscrew hazel and did its best to finish her off by bashing her against the branch and stabbing with its beak. It then flew off fowards the windmill with three excited jackdaws following.

I know that jays will take small mammals and fledglings, but this was a fully grown (if small) bird. I’ve never seen anything like it before and the flock of sparrows looked rather surprised. They all flew into the barberry and sat there looking at each other as if to say: “what the hell happened there?”

That was quite a violent incident, but I guess the jay had hungry chicks to feed and the loss of a sparrow is the gain for a jay.

Yesterday, I was sitting on the bench, cleaning some gas rings with a bowl of water and a Brillo pad and I could hear a gentle ‘chuck-chuck’ overhead, followed by a gentle ‘mew’. I looked up and, just overhead, very low, there was a buzzard passing slowly over with a rook shadowing him. There was no attempt to mob the bigger raptor, the rook was flying alongside and ‘chucking’ quietly as they flew eastwards over the village.

Last year, I wrote about the rooks and their aggressive interception of a buzzard that got too close to their rookery. That was a case of “scramble, scramble - enemy sighted, engage immediately.” Last year it was Battle of Britain, this year seems more like a Cold War response, fly alongside, let them know we’re here and leave them alone unless they pose an obvious threat. The odd thing was that they were certainly communicating with each other, it was almost a polite negotiation.

Storm Doris does for my greengage

Storm Doris is sweeping across the UK today with wind speeds of 50mph and higher gusts here in Peterborough.

Margaret and I went to the allotment at lunchtime to lop the new growth off the pollarded willows, but the wind was much stronger than we’d anticipated.

Margaret was carry some branches across to the side of the allotment and I was trying to balance on top of the compost bin to do the top of one tree when she called for me to come.

I thought she’s seen a strange bird or found a creature of some kind and I was a bit grumpy. When I got across, she was standing near the greengage tree and as the wind blew, you could see the roots pulling the earth up out of the ground. It was going to be uprooted any minute.

I rushed to the shed to get a saw and managed to lop off a couple of branches and then get the loppers to take off some smaller branches to reduce the drag. Margaret went home to get a better saw and then I took all of the big branches off, leaving just the main trunk. I think I’ll borrow Chris Coakley’s chain-saw and take it all down next week.

The problem was that there was a wildling plum (probably seeded from the greengage) that had grown next to it. It had taken light from the greengage and made the tree grow outwards.

I took the wild plum down, but didn’t have time to prune and shape the greengage (it was on my list). I think it was just too leggy and bent to withstand the storm today.

It was a good job Margaret spotted it. If it had fallen, it would have taken out a good chunk of fencing.

My greengage wasn’t the only casualty of the storm – a tree is down in the churchyard, Whittlesey Road is part blocked by a fallen tree and a couple are down along The Causeway (by the Toneham path) although they haven’t fallen across the road. There are also a number of vans and lorries blown over.

The storm should be subsiding now (according to WeatherPro), but it is still blowing hard and gusting harder.

Tree down on The Causeway (above) and Churchyard (below)

Three HGVs blown over at Ring's End

Spring has sprung

I'm feeling a little sore this evening as I have been digging at the allotment to try to get the patch cultivated. I should have done it much earlier, but it seems that the winter has flown by.

Indeed, this week has felt really spring-like with temperatures up above the mid teens and some sunshine to cheer us all up.

I've been working outside for a few days doing jobs around the garden, including cleaning the greenhouse and some planting and weeding.

Being outside, it's surprising what you are able to observe. There are signs of spring everywhere. The blackbirds are chasing each other around the garden, the male chaffinches have their best mating colours blazing and the rooks are ahead of everyone. This morning, I saw them landing in a large beech tree on The Causeway; they were tearing twigs off the end of branches and flying off to their rookery to build or repair their nests.

The other day, there was an odd incident when I was sitting having a cup of tea. One lone gull was flying east and one lone gull was flying west, almost on a collision course. I wondered what would happen … As they drew near, I heard one call to the other and the one that had been heading west, answered the call and then turned and fell in behind the other. Both of them headed east. I wonder what was said?

This evening, I am babysitting in Baldock. It hasn't gone as well as I hoped. Julia did not want to settle down and she cried and made herself sick. I'd only just bathed her and put on clean pyjamas. The PJs had to come off and go in the wash and I found some new ones. There's sick all over my pants and the carpet. I gave it a quick clean with a towel from the bathroom, but couldn't do much else because Julia needed attending to. She eventually went off to sleep, so fingers crossed she remains asleep until mum and dad come home. This isn't doing much for my reputation as a childminder.

I could murder a glass of wine or a nice chocolate bar ...

Yesterday, I was also on Julia-sitting duties. We had a nice day (no groups to attend), but we went to Tesco, then Tapps garden centre, then back for lunch. Julia wouldn’t have her usual post-lunch nap, so we went to the park instead and she fell asleep in the buggy when I was walking her up Weston Way to see Tom and Lucy’s new house (they move in early March). For dinner, I introduced her to Heinz spaghetti hoops, which she thoroughly enjoyed.

I normally look after Julia on Wednesdays and Margaret does Fridays. This week, she had a hospital appointment, so we did a swap. It looks as if she will need surgery to repair a hernia and also stop acid reflux from her stomach. I think we’ll hear in a few weeks.

Not another skiing holiday!

As if I wasn't battered enough after the last one. Sam had a week's holiday to get in and wanted more skiing. He asked all his mates and, finally, in desperation, he asked me. So here I am in Arc 1950 in a ski chalet with Sam, an Irish couple and an Irish chalet host. We got a cheap late deal, which you can do if there's just the two of you and you can be flexible.

I like 1950, I've skied through here a few times while staying with Sam and Lucy at Villaret sur la Rosiere, but I always thought it was really expensive – not so this week, thanks to that deal. We're with SkiBeat which Sam booked through Igloo.

There was, predictably, a late scare with the Jersey weather. This time it was a threatened force 9 gale which would ground all aircraft, so Sam wouldn't be able to fly out. As it happened, the weather was not so violent; he was able to get off (good old EasyJet) and we met at Gatwick on Friday evening, stayed overnight at a hotel by the terminal and made a 4am start for a 6.40am flight.

The flight was on time, but our coach transfer (quite a long one from Lyon) was held up waiting for just a couple of people from Manchester to arrive. Most people on the bus were heading for La Rosiere, so we were dropped off in Bourg-Saint-Maurice and had a taxi to take us up to 1950. We got here around 3pm.

View from our chalet window

There had been a big snowfall on the previous day and it was snowing slightly at 1950. The taxi took us into a massive underground car park below the village. This is a fantastic feat of engineering. The village was built as a one-off development (apparently in the style of Whistler in the US) and it's a real feat. I quite like the place, but of course, it's completely fake. At least it's pretty fake, unlike Arc 2000, 1800, Les Menuires and Val Thorens, which are monstrosities. You can also ski right through the village, which I also like very much. Just imagine being able to ski through Thorney – clip your skis on and cruise to Mo's for your paper or along to school for a meeting.

Our chalet host is an odd mix of earnest and chilled, very keen to be helpful and a very good cook. We thought he'd gone to work in the Alps for the season to forget a girl. We had a fantastic opening three-course dinner and a really high standard all week. For breakfast, he's fond of his porridge, which suits me very well.

There was heavy snow when we went to bed and we woke up to the sound of explosions from the piste workers using TNT to dislodge the snow banks threatening to avalanche. Lots of lifts and runs were closed and we couldn't get across to 1800 or 1600, so we were restricted to 1950 and 2000. Up in the bowl, it was quite hard to see – pretty much a white out – and the runs further down, with more trees about, were better, but have a really slow lift feeding them. I have never skied in deep powder before and it was different. It would have been better if it hadn't been so busy; lots of people were on the fewer runs open for business and there were lots of ski schools and lots of kids.

I did have one fall. No injuries, but it was spectacular. In the white blur, I missed the edge of the piste and shot off-piste into about three feet of soft powder. It was a nice comfortable landing, but I spent an awkward minute stuck on my back like a beetle kicking my legs. Luckily, my skis had stayed on, so I was able to get myself pointing in the right direction, then upright, then ski through the soft snow back onto the piste. I'd had enough after a couple of hours, so Sam went off to do some other runs (he's quite patient, but it's not much fun for him pootling around on blues). I had a chillax and then went to the spa, which is part of our deal, and had an open-air swim, sauna and steam room. The pool was fairly warm, but you did have to walk through snow in your bare feet to get in, so anything might have felt warm after that.

Rob cooked up another three-course meal in the evening (chicken in cream sauce for the main). I’d bought a bottle of Genépé and introduced Justin and Lizzie (an Irish couple and the other guests in the chalet) to it. We polished off the best part of a bottle of Genépé between us.

On Monday I decided to ski in the afternoon. Lifts were not open when Sam went out so he got the bus down to Arc 1600 and met three chaps who were from Knutsford on their annual ski holiday. He showed them the runs around 1600 and they offered to buy him dinner, but he had to come back to meet me. One of them goes to Jersey for his holidays each year and so Sam might get a bit of business out of him if he's taken ill while over there.

I was skiing like a plonker in the afternoon and had a few tumbles, but no pain. In the end, I found a nice gentle and quiet blue above 2000 called Marais; it was as good as Gollet. Sam let me do it twice, but then we had to do something a little more testing so we skied down Vallee de l'Arc to check out a restaurant that we might use for dinner on Wednesday night (Rob's night off). The run was really, really busy and, near the bottom, we ran into cloud, so you couldn't see more than 50 metres. The restaurant is only open in the afternoon and it wasn't open that afternoon, so despite our efforts, we'd have to find somewhere in 1950 for dinner.

I'd had enough skiing, so I caught the bus back up to 1950 and Sam went on a late tour above 1600 and 1800. He almost missed the last lift back.

On Tuesday, I was out good and early to ski across to Vallandry, which we did via Plan Bois, Foret (an old favourite) and Grizzly. We then took the Grizzly lift and skied down Foret (past the top of the infamous Renard) to 1800. Sam wondered if I'd like to do Renard as I was now a more experienced skier than my previous two attempts. I took the stance that Holly uses when she doesn't want a wash, I dug my front paws in and arched my back. The runs were getting busier and busier. It's the first of Paris ski fortnight, so just about the worst combination you could wish for – lots of people and lots of rude Parisians. Most of the locals don't like them, despite all the money they bring in – it makes you wonder what they say about us when we're gone.

The route from 1800 to 1600 is simple enough – Gollet all the way – but Sam took us up Vagere lift and then claimed he didn't know how to get to Gollet. I quite enjoyed the route we took (Arpette 1) which was a favourite of ski schools. After a drink in 1600, Sam went off to ski in La Plagne via the Vanoise Express and I caught the bus back to 1950. It was snowing when I arrived and it's been snowing steadily since. More snow is predicted for Wednesday.

Wednesday was a grey old day and we went across to ski above 1600 because the visibility was so poor. I was skiing like a novice, leaning back, I kept trying to snowplough and coming off the top of the Comborciere lift down the little ski road I couldn't do a skid stop at the end and went flying past Sam to stop 15 yards further on. I think he felt sorry for me because he said I could do Gollet. I said “OK, just for old time's sake.” Actually, Gollet was quite uneven and Sam almost fell over – what an embarrassment that would have been. We took the lift back up and I said I'd do Gollet again and then stop for the day as it was snowing hard. Sam came with me to do the black (see below for his evil plan) and Gollet was much easier this time as a couple of inches of powder snow had fallen. I said I'd get the bus back up to 1950 and Sam shot off to ski on his own for a bit. On the way down, I missed the edge of the piste and fell over. It was quite flat and I couldn't get up and struggled for a couple of minutes before I gave up and took off a ski.

Sam called later in the afternoon to say he'd finished and was going for a drink in 2000, so I got the bubble lift up to join him. He was in the restaurant just at the entrance to the village and when I got there he had a glass of Chablis and a dozen oysters – still a GTC – although he did give me a couple oysters and they were rather good. In the evening, it was the chalet host's night off so we went to La Vache Rouge restaurant for dinner. The exterior looks a little odd (there's a full-size model of a cow, painted red, for a start) but it's very good. We both had fillet steak with chips, followed by a local cheeseboard.

On Thursday, conditions were perfect, about as good as it gets, so we were out reasonably early, but so was everyone else; the lifts were really busy below 1950, so we skied down to Comborciere. We were almost the first people to ski the piste (Vallee de l'Arc). It's a nice run, but has been so busy at times this week that it's been a nightmare. Anyway, we went up the slow Comborciere and then down the ski road past Mont Blanc onto Belvedere. I was really concentrating hard on body position and kept control all the way down, even when someone had fallen in front and the ski instructor was taking up almost all the piste pulling them up. We went down to Arpette lift which takes you up onto a ridge where you can ski round back into the bowl above Arc 2000 and take a couple of nice blues back to the lifts. We did both Edelweiss and Plan. I remember Edelweiss from my ski-school days. It's a good run on which to practise your parallel turns and it was pretty quiet. We took the lift back onto the ridge and pootled about on the blues above 1800 and Vallandry before working back via Grizzly and Derby to the mid-station of the Trans Arc bubble. We finished the day with a run down Col de Chal and Vallee de l'Arc 2 and then down into 1950 to finish. I'd skied about 26 miles and it was the best I've skied this year, so I was very pleased with myself.

On Friday, I took the bus and the funicular down to Bourg-Saint-Maurice. It was sunny at 1950, but misty and freezing in the bottom of the valley. Nice to see Bourg again and also visit some favourite shops for mugs and Christmas tree ornaments. It was not nice to see the development going on in front of the church and war memorial. This was where the market was held, but now it's a huge hole and building site where they're putting up a development of apartments up to five storeys. It will spoil the aspect from the church and the little square that once existed.

Massive development in from of the church in Bourg-Saint-Maurice

There was some drama later in the day when the host of the SkiBeat chalet opposite, burned his hand cleaning the oven. He had to be treated in Vallandry and a reserve host (a lady, who looked to be about 45) skied in at a few hours notice to look after the guests. Our chalet host helped as much as he could, telling her where things are and lending missing implements, but she looked very capable. I wonder how a woman of that age comes to be doing chalet hosting. There must be a back story.

Our chalet host had recommended an app called Yuge at the start of the holiday; it's a ski app which will track how far you've skied during the day, average speed, top speed and descent. Sam put it on his phone and tried it the first day. It told him he was 150-something out of 600 users and Sam immediately set a goal to reach the top 10. Halfway through the week, I asked him if he didn't mind skiing all these boring old blues with me. He said he didn't, but it turns out that Yuge gives you points for skiing new runs. He even wanted to ski Gollet once to cross it off and again, so he could do the little black link. One day, he clocked up over 60 miles skiing and on the last day, he wanted to ski the Aguille Rouge from top to Villaroger in order to get a virtual badge. He clocked 87 kph on the run down – much too fast, said I.

Setting sun on Mont Blanc - lovely

On our last day, we went out about 5.30pm for a wander around the village and final drink. The sun was just setting on Mont Blanc and we had a nice view of Monty. What a magnificent sight.

It was a great holiday, nice to spend some time with Sam and I like the runs around Les Arc (there are so many). Arc 1950 is great, our chalet was good and SkiBeat did all they said they would. The transfer was a little long (to Lyon), but worked out OK. We were there for 3.30pm and I got home about the same time. I really like Aer Lingus (the carrier), who did a great job and even fed us a snack and free drink. I think I've got used to EastJet, so a wrap and a coke seemed like the good old days.