Sunday, March 23, 2008

Seed Watch II

So, is my single sweetcorn seedling destined for a life of celibacy? Will the squash and marrow ever sprout? Hold on for some of the answers… maybe! The weather here is still cold. It’s amazing me that seeds are sprouting at all in my kitchen, which feels frigid to me. Anyway, here’s the latest on Saturday night, day 8…

Thyme: 35+
Tarragon: 7
Basil: 3
Mint: 0
Dill: 8
Parsley: 0
Chives: 0
Sweet corn: 2
Squash: 0
Marrow: 0
Globe Artichoke: 3

So… the basil have arrived. Dill has overtaken tarragon. Globe artichokes are doing me proud with the biggest percentage germination so far among the big seeds. Thyme seedlings may be gifts to everyone I know. And my sweetcorn seedling is no longer alone! I’m still a little worried though… while the artichokes are in a nice little group, the sweetcorns that have sprouted are diagonally opposite in their little block of pots. Hope this doesn’t mean they don’t like each other. And the squash, marrow, mint, parsley and chives are still notably absent. Come back soon for another thrilling instalment…

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Seed Watch

The last few days I’ve become totally obsessed with my seedlings, and I thought it was time to share it! A week ago I planted a sprinkle each of some second-hand herb seeds, 4 each of squash and marrow, and 6 each of globe artichoke and sweetcorn. Small amounts maybe, but it is a small garden. I was hopeful that with brighter weather predicted after the rain it was the right time, and I’d be seeing them in the 7-10 days most of the packets seemed to predict.

I got worried as the weather turned colder. Would any sprout? Then after only 5 days I spotted the first seedlings. Tiny teeny thyme plants, three of them, and so small I had to stare closely to be sure. Next was one solitary tarragon seedling, also small, though not so teeny as the thyme. The next to arrive, early on day 6 was something of a shock. A great spear thrusting up, announcing the arrival of the first sweetcorn seedling.

Today (well, yesterday now if you want to be picky, since midnight has passed) was a day of little new. The thyme seedlings multiplied, reaching 15+. Tarragon climbed to 3. Still only 1 sweetcorn though and nothing new. I was especially worried by now about the globe artichokes, since mould had developed on their pots, surely not a good sign. And 1 sweetcorn? I think they are not self pollinating, so I need at least 2!

Scores on the pots this evening:

Thyme: 15+
Tarragon: 3
Basil: 0
Mint: 0
Dill: 0
Parsley: 0
Chives: 0
Sweetcorn: 1
Squash: 0
Marrow: 0
Globe Artichoke: 1.5

Yep, no need to worry about the mould it seems! One big strong seedling thrusting up, and another pot’s soil cracking in a way that surely indicates a plant pushing upwards (hence the 0.5!)

Stop Press: just checked and there’s two dill seedlings now… More tiny seedlings, long and leggy with their heads still buried in the soil and long stems bent double. Time for bed! Wonder what will be there in the morning?

Friday, March 21, 2008

Going to see the Dinosaurs

Wednesday I finally got out on my long run. It was supposed to be Sunday… but well, these things happen. And I did do a short run then… I also have to admit that it involved very little running. Something that I’d planned as I knew I’d planned far too many distractions along the way, and the speed I go it doesn’t make a massive amount of difference! Anyway, I headed off for an adventure down South.

I know my patch is more North East London, but I’d decided to go and explore the South East a bit. I’d been promised bright sunny weather, but the threatening clouds hadn’t heard that. Sun only broke out occasionally, it was cold, and the pictures I took are not as good as I’d hoped to get. Never mind. I started off in Brixton, where I used to live years ago. It looked pretty much as I remembered it to be honest! From there I headed through Brockwell Park, and into the unknown. To think, when I lived there I hardly ventured out except to head North!

Dulwich turned out to be surprisingly pretty and posh. I cancelled my visit to the Picture Gallery though as they expected £5 to look at even their permanent collection and it didn’t appeal enough to me. Past Dulwich Park I took an unplanned diversion up Cox’s Walk to Dulwich Wood, then had to turn back to my next stop... The Horniman Museum and Gardens was even more distracting than expected. It’s an excellent museum, and I had a hard time pushing myself through in even twice the time I’d planned!

Then it was on over the hill to Crystal Palace. By the time I reached the top of that park it was heading towards dusk, the road was crammed with speeding cars tooting horns at each other, and there was no sign of a crossing. It took a while to get over, and then I had to decide which way to go to try for an entrance to the park. I decided to walk down past the transmitter, and eventually found a way into the North side of the park. There were no signs with maps, so I wandered along the top until I came to the North West entrance, where there were a few formal beds. Still no sign. I wandered down, taking in the terraces, great sweeps of lawn and sphinxes. All fenced in as they are dangerous till renovated. Still no signs. I was of course looking for the dinosaurs, but when I asked locals they seemed a bit vague. I was directed back to the corner where I’d first met the park boundary and told to turn right… Past a fence, I guess marking the parts of the park under renovation, with signs on about events, but no sign with a map… Onwards and ever onwards I was directed. Down and down (knowing at some point I’d have to come back up…). Past a weird windowless building thing in a lake (I eventually worked out it was a stage). I explored a maze (nice, though the branches were bare at this time of year), and on to the bottom of the park. At which point I realised I was going too far and trekked back across the corner of a open grass bit that turned out to be a near swamp. Finally I found myself facing a fenced area with lakes. And there was a map! I walked on… and on… those lakes seemed to go on for ever.

At last I found the dinosaurs… There were a lot more of them than I remembered (visited once as a small child…), and not just dinosaurs as well. There’s ancient early mammals as well. I also remember them being half hidden in vegetation, and being able to go up and touch and climb on them. Today they are, of course, fenced off. Still they are, as a group, impressive and a lot of fun. They’ve got good signage up too, with comparisons of the inaccurate way they were made, compared with modern versions. To be honest, on a one against one basis I think I prefer the Stonebridge Park serpent. But as a group they are well worth seeing.

I paused only to use the loos (graffitied, scrawl, not art), decided to give the information centre a miss and walked out. Past another sign I think. There were signs with maps all over the place down there… it’s almost like the guys who put the signs up had said to each other ‘look, let’s not bother climbing that hill, no-one will notice…’ and put all the signs down the bottom. Rather like those leafletters who leave leaflets all over the floor of the entrance of a block of flats thinking their boss will never know they haven’t delivered them properly.

Meanwhile, I headed off up the streets round the park and back up the hill… bloomin eckers it was steep. Then I decided I didn’t fancy walking back to Brixton and walked and ran to Clapham instead. Rush hour was in full flood, and you could feel the frustration like a dark miasma coming off the cars. Moments like that I’m so glad to be on foot. It was going dark as I walked along the crest of the hill. There were great views out over London, and the sky was a mass of steel blue and red. I tried to take a picture, but got the red light of a full card. Sunset pics rarely come out well anyway. After that it was a long slog on protesting legs (sometimes meandering slowly is harder on them than a fast run, and they were feeling my long day). It was gone 9pm by the time I got home.

I have now got a massive job writing reviews for Qype and editing all the pictures. I’ve been editing pics 2 hours already and a tonne to go… I’ll add the links and pictures in here later. Might actually get round to measuring my distance travelled at some point too, as I currently have no idea!

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

I’ve got a little list…

I’ve developed a fetish. Well, OK, I admit it, I’ve always had it. But recently I’ve been able to enjoy it to the max and make it public. All thanks to Qype. What is it? Well, it’s making lists. There’s a certain satisfaction to gathering things together and putting them in order. From the real places that inspired ‘Eastenders’ to London Loos, I’ve been listing them all. If you’d like to share some lists, including mine, check them out here. Then why not create your own!

Hmmm… really should get together a list of favourite places… now that’s hard to choose!

Monday, March 17, 2008

Garden Flowers

I’ve been largely at home feeling depressed miserable and achy this week. Think it’s the wet weather. However not all is lost. I’ve managed to drag myself out to run and done some decent times. I’ve also cracked on well in the garden. It’s actually looking like it might be planting time soon. And I’ve got the seeds sown ready in pots in my kitchen, thanks to the wonderful range at North One Garden Centre.

There’s a grass verge near me that’s currently covered in wild violets. I’ve been looking at it longingly, wondering if I dare ‘transplant’ a few with all the CCTV there is in the area! Not sure the council would look kindly on nicking the plants. Of course, since then some guy on a mower has been and mown them all down… guess the council have not got the violets on their ‘keeps’ list. Sigh. The plants are OK, but most of the flowers are gone.

Still, I have acquired a few broken pipes and bricks from a building site, and have plans to build a feature. With the change in the weather things are looking up.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Nochex Nightmare and the Neolithic

They say money can’t make you happy, but it certainly makes things less complex. Having sorted my cash flow crisis I was feeling all relaxed. I’d decided I’d go ahead and enter my half marathon (gum was healing nicely after the extraction). I also needed some ink for my printer (which, as my printer is ancient, I can get at a fraction of the shop price if I order from the internet). So late one Sunday night I sat down at my computer, armed with credit card.

I decided, unwisely it was to turn out, to enter the Half first. The organisers had set up an account with a credit handling company called Nochex, so I was directed to their site. I happily typed my details into their form and submitted it. Form returned with a red notice saying my address couldn’t be confirmed, please check with my credit company that it was exactly as written on my account details and try again. I checked my credit card statement, found a slight difference (one that hasn’t made a difference before I should add) and re-wrote the address. Same result. I deleted it all out and made sure it hadn’t got any stray gaps… same result. Tried again… same result. Maybe I’d got the security number wrong? (It’s faint on my card)… same result. Maybe they wanted all my initials, not just the one on the form? … same result. Maybe it was a temporary fault with the site? Wait a few minutes… same result. By now I was reeling with tiredness and headed off to bed.

Next morning I got up groggy from lack of sleep, and hoping ‘the fault’ had cleared, I tried again. First go I made a genuine mistake and forgot to alter the ‘valid to’ date. Second go I got a message saying my card was now blocked… Rang up my credit card company and found that not only had payment apparently gone through, in spite of the Nochex site asking me repeatedly try again because it hadn’t gone through, but it had gone through on EVERY attempt I made and my card was now over limit and blocked for 10 days because of the suspicious activity. And no they couldn’t do anything about it: the money was in limbo and I’d just have to wait to see if it would reappear.

Needless to say I contacted the event organisers, and sent a choicely worded email to Nochex as well. Apparently Nochex replied to the organiser’s own enquiry within a day, and told them no payment has gone through. Nochex have yet to reply to me.

So, no half marathon… no card to try again (as if I would..) and no way I was going to pay an extra £7 to enter on the day. But that wasn’t the end of it… I had of course stupidly taken my card to Nochex before my regular ink supply website… And I now had a printer out of action. Besides needing regular printing for work I do from home, I also had another event entry, for the Neolithic Marathon, which needed to be done by post (entry form to print out…) and quickly as it was approaching a deadline for that. So I had to get on the phone to my mum and ask her to order ink for me! I bet Alan Sugar never has to ask his mum to order his ink for him…

So, I have several days worth of scruffy hand drawn record tables for work. The ink did arrive (thanks mum). And my Neo entry did get sent. Still can’t use my credit card, and it still remains to be seen if my money will reappear.

Meanwhile… ‘my’ garden has had pond cleaned out (somewhat yucky job!), has survived the storm nearly intact, and my first seeds (some mixed salad) is just pushing up a few first shoots. Serious planting in trays at home this week!

Sunday, March 2, 2008

A Dental Diversion

It's a little bit lazy of me, but here's my review of Guy's dental service which I wrote for Qype. Follow this link if you want address and someone else's point of view, but my review's the same!

Perhaps I shouldn’t admit this, but I recently had a very unpleasant few days, panicking and in pain. You see, I’d somehow got the idea that you couldn’t get NHS dental treatment if you are working. My excuse is I’ve always previously managed to time my dental emergencies to coincide with periods of unemployment. And I’m also used to getting glasses, where you either pay or get a voucher to help if you can’t, and there’s no help for those that can. So anyway, there I was, with a suspected abscess in one of two teeth competing for one place in my gum, working, but with a cash flow crisis, and thinking I couldn’t go to this place…

Then I found I could actually get help with dental costs as long as I got an NHS appointment at a dentist (and the fees suddenly seemed very reasonable considering I’d been expecting a couple of thousand…), but my local dentist didn’t have NHS appointments for months. So it was off to this place, with the worst of the pain over by this point!

I visited the walk in clinic. Actually my second visit, but my first was many years ago and involved having an impacted wisdom tooth and part of the surrounding bone removed under a local: not something I’m keen to remember, though that wasn’t their fault. I was advised to arrive about 8 am to queue for the doors to open at 8.30. Thanks to busses it was actually 8.30 when I arrived. After quite a long wait at reception I was actually seen more quickly than expected (I think I may have been lucky), and there’s a stunning view from the waiting room: the clinic is on the 23rd floor. The walk-in treatment room is a large room with many bays. The walls of the bays are half height: high enough that patients are out of sight when lying down in the chairs (except those opposite you…) but not fully private. I was seen by a 3rd year student to take my history. She then ‘presented’ to a tutor, and I was sent along the corridor to x-ray. Another wait there, then back to wait again… This time I was seen by a student in her final (5th) year, who would be treating me. They actually have notices up saying they don’t do permanent fillings and extractions in the walk-in clinic (usually you’ll have to come back or go to another dentist), but I was offered the chance to have the tooth extracted that day, as the extraction looked strait forward and the tooth was causing me major problems. I said yes, but since it was dinner time by then we agreed after lunch!

After fortifying myself with a good dinner I was escorted into a private room for the extraction. My student was great about waiting for my mouth to become fully numb and giving me a top up (dental anaesthetics seem to work badly on me and I’ve had many experiences where I’ve only become fully numbed up after leaving the dentist…). A tutor was not present in the room, but within earshot and was called in several times to check decisions and progress. I felt quite safe. She did try several different instruments before finding one she could get between my teeth, but then the tooth was out before I realised it. I was surprised to not be given antibiotics since I’d been told it was badly infected: apparently the infection comes out with the tooth! It does feel fine today.

Afterwards I felt lousy of course (not being able to wash the blood out is horrible… and I think worse with a front tooth than a wisdom). A few tips on leaving… if you came in via London Bridge Station (there’s a pedestrian walkway from there by the way: ask station staff), then remember that you entered the Hospital on the 2nd floor. Taking the lift down to the ground floor is a very good way to get yourself totally confused. Also do not go to Borough Market. All those lovely food samples are just a way of torturing yourself. Finally, I’d advise you do go to Southwark Cathedral. Perfect place to relax and take your mind off a sore mouth.

Overall, excellent. I actually wouldn’t feel too outraged about paying NHS charges now I could feasibly find the money, though free is nice. Of course many will find the fact that its treatment by someone not yet qualified scary. And there’s the lack of privacy, and the waiting around… still, a bloomin good service.