Pimlico, Here I Come

I forgot to mention that my new passport finally turned up a couple of weeks ago, having taken about 6 weeks to work its way through the system. So I am now the proud owner of a shiny new e-passport. What that 'e' means is that the passport stores 'biometrics' (i.e. a scan on my mugshot) and the rest of the passport details on a chip which is laminated onto one of the pages along with an antenna so that anyone with appropriate equipment can read the card from a distance. Officially this is only readable at very close range (I couldn't find the official figure, unfortunately) and is protected by strong encryption, but the range can be extended with the right kit and encryption can, under the right circumstances, be defeated by a man-in-the-middle attack. Dealing with this sort of thing is not easy, but I can't help thinking that a contact only reader should be safer.

Interestingly enough, a £15 hike in the cost of a passport was announced recently, which pretty much makes up for the waste of me getting my new passport a couple of years early. This is on top of the rise last autumn, which I make to be a 57% increase in two years. That's a good bit of inflation there.

State of the Onions (or shallots)

We're well into the summer and we've been eating quite a bit from the garden, so I figure it is about time to think about how things have gone so far...

Broccoli

...of the Italian sprouting type (calabrese)... We've had a few portions of this, and delicious it was, though after the first couple of heads I harvested, the others grew rather loose. I suspect this was due to a combination of being planted too close together and not being watered enough.

Peas

Delicious, but didn't sow enough.

Broad beans

These were great: better than anything you can buy, but were massively attacked by blackfly. Still, we had a few meals out of them and before scrapping the remains of the plants I froze the better part of a pound of beans for later.

Perpetual spinach

This stuff is great. You have a big pile of spinach-like stuff to eat, then a week or so later it has all grown back again. I'm growing a few more plants to take over when the original batch gets tired — apparently these babies will crop into the winter.

Potatoes

Not as fab as last year (and needing more watering — the story of my life this year) but still great and better than buying. And there are still some left to lift — many of which are planned as spud salad over the coming weekend.

Carrots

This year's crop hasn't been too good, partly because of lack of rain, but also because I sowed in soil that has loads of stones in, which is causing the carrots to come out all mandrake shaped. They taste nice, though.

Shallots

A decent crop of very tasty little fellas, which amounts to about 5 or 6 times the weight of the sets I planted. I'll try keeping a few bulbs over to replant for next year.

Garlic

Not quite as successful as the shallots, with only small bulbs being produced. Probably again due to not enough water. Still, it's more than we started with, and they didn't take much space in the corner of the garden.

Rhubarb

Enormous quantities available: this really is a "fire and forget" crop that keeps giving. We now have a freezer full of stewed rhubarb and a load of rhubarb chutney. I'm planning on splitting the crown before next season so I can try forcing a plant and getting a nice pink, early crop.

Lettuce

Used up the remainder of last year's selection pack, which has already produced a silly quantity of multicoloured leaves and there are a load more young plants coming along which should see us through the rest of the summer.

Gooseberries

Leaving the best 'til last... I harvested these yesterday, possibly leaving it a bit too late, but these were huge, sweet and succulent berries (good enough to eat raw), in enormous quantities on our one little bush. I've really got to get more fruit bushes — so little work for so much tasty fruit.

I need to consider companion planting more carefully next year. One of my big enemies in this garden is blackfly, so anything to discourage them would be good. I understand marigolds are good as they encourage predators, but this year most of my marigolds got dismembered — by pigeons, I think. However, there's another possibility: I understand garlic is a good deterrent for blackfly (with the added advantage that cats don't like it either, so they don't crap in its vicinity). Evidence from this year supports that: last year we had a sunflower which got badly infested, but this year we have a row of sunflowers right next to the garlic and not a single aphid visible on any of them, despite not being far from the suffering broad beans. It's hardly scientific proof, but it's good enough to encourage me to dot garlic around the veg patch next year.

There's loads more to cover as further crops arrive: cabbages, runner beans, courgettes, squashes, sweetcorn, and so on. Maybe there'll be a follow-up post.

ID No More?

After a weekend where a leaked email called into question the civil service's confidence in the UK ID card project, and the ensuing denials, counter-claims and spin, The Register is now confidently predicting the death of ID cards. I'll wait for a while before I'm completely convinced, but the sliding of schedules and reducing of scope does look good for The Cause. You never know, Windows Vista might actually get here first!

Another thing to smile about

Today we heard our baby's heartbeat for the first time. :oD

Things that are making me smile

• <3 is back from a 3 week trip to America and now little Asbo is starting to be visible in the shape of a definite bump.
• Last night's "diddly-diddly" session at the pub was cancelled due to the World Cup final getting in the way. This in itself was not a good thing (I'd far rather do music than watch football), but we had a great chat with a couple of the regulars and I now have a list of (and sheet music for) a load of tunes that the group likes to play, so I can start learning them.
• <3 brought me back a nice new harmonica and an excellent case to carry my harps around in.
• It's raining. This makes me smile because I don't have to water the garden and the weather is cooler, which makes me happier.
• We saw Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest yesterday. While it isn't a patch on the first film, and rather annoyingly leaves an awful lot of stuff unresolved, ready for the next film (due out in the spring), it was still heap big fun and I'm looking forward to the next one. (Hint: if you haven't seen it, don't forget to wait for the end of the credits.)
• Life is basically good.

Well I woke up this mornin'...

It's a few years old, but I am pleased to see that according to an article in the Onion, not all wives of blues men are willing to sit back and take the accusations of "messin' aroun' with another man" and so on.

Independence Day Again

The people of Blaenau Gwent have spoken. In last year's general election, New Labour fielded a candidate from an all-woman shortlist in one of their safest seats, only to be whipped soundly by Peter Law, a traditional Labour man (who ran as an independent) and Welsh Assembly member who was popular in the constituency and seemed a natural choice for parliament. The lesson being clearly that even in a safe seat, the big parties need to listen to their constituents.

Sadly, Law died in April, triggering yesterday's by-elections for both his Westminster and Welsh Assembly seats. Both elections were won by independents, the new AM being Law's wife, Trish. Again New Labour gets a bloody nose.

There have to be many reasons for this. It is often the case that a government party performs relatively poorly in by-elections, and there must have been a significant amount of votes cast out of loyalty and respect for a dead man, but I would like to think that this might be the start of the realisation in the old Labour heartlands that New Labour is no longer the party of the workers and the dispossessed. This is a party fighting over middle Britain, assuming that the traditional support will always be there — which it won't, of course, unless its needs are addressed.

Besides, this country needs a few more independent MP's. It helps to keep the major parties honest.

Blue Skies and Barbies

Over the weekend I camped out at Southampton Kite Festival, and a very enjoyable time it was too. As is so often the case, the wind was a bit too light (and the sun too bright) most of the time but I still got to see V&K coming second in the pairs ballet competition (and top of the experienced class, which is great) and the new look Scratch Bunnies, now a six man team thanks to the addition of UK champion Chris Gough and all-round kite deities Carl and James Robertshaw who have won more kite competitions than anyone else has had hot dinners. They are already looking pretty darn good, so I'm looking forward to seeing them fly together after some more practice. Word is that they are working on an assault on the international kite competition circuit.

For me, though, the highlight was probably the impromptu barbecue that took place in the camp site. There was a big whip-around and a trip to the nearby supermarket for a nice selection of burnables and drinks, followed by a really mellow evening of eating, drinking, chatting, and looking at the flashy lights that were hanging off the small number of kites that were still flying.

I even spent some time flying kites myself over the weekend, which is a rare thing these days.

Diddley diddley di do dum!

A week or so ago, <3 and I found out about a folk music "session" in our vicinity from a colleague and as <3 used to be in a folk band and fancied having the chance to sing and blat her bodhran and I rather like listening to music of just about any sort, we turned up at the pub yesterday evening to check it out.

We thought we were playing it cool by turning up half an hour after the intended start time, but found only two others there. The others soon turned up from their respective barbecues, and the session got under way, giving me the distinct impression that Wantage is Squeezebox Central with the amount of concertinas and melodeons about. The whole evening was refreshingly friendly, with even us newcomers encouraged to take part, though I must admit I was too nervous to have a go myself — I bottled out of singing (though I did join in on some choruses) and hadn't brought any harmonicas (which I wouldn't have been confident playing folk tunes on, even with the friendly atmosphere). <3 sang a few songs though, and seemed to go down well with the others.

This was a really fun evening and we are planning to go again — and with the good natured goading from the other musicians, I now have a challenge for myself: to learn a tune to play at next month's session. I've ordered a book to help get myself started...

Project X Unveiled

I doubt there are many/any people who read this page that haven't heard the news by other means, but here goes anyway... If all goes well and there are no major problems, by the end of the year I should become a father. It still feels weird and distant, but it is rather less so for <3, who has spent quite a lot of time feeling ill over the last couple of months. She has, however, scanned our 11 week ultrasound and added a couple of annotations so you can tell which blob is which. So, without further ado, let me introduce little Asbo...