While Madame was pruning she was joined by a pair of robins Yesterday we finished all the pruning except for a couple of dangerously barbed gooseberries which demand thicker gloves than we had with us. It's the tenth anniversary year of the first allotment - the one where Madame is standing, on the day we were offered it; 14th April 2016.

You've no idea how lovely it is to feel well again; to wake up in the morning full of ideas; relishing each day and going out on our walks once more; a bit further each time. I still don't know with any certainty what was wrong with me but in the end - and by default because they'd looked at every other possibility - I think it all boiled down to iron deficiency anaemia caused by polyps in my colon which were removed by a lovely team at the RUH and then, after a troubled start on iron tablets which initially made me sicker than ever, they were changed for another type and apart from the bother of waking myself up to take them at 5.00am, I feel better than I've felt for around 18 months.

18th March 2017 - River Wye at Hay On the 18th March 2017 at 12.30 pm standing beside the river Wye beneath the road bridge from Hay I watched the water flooding past and realized that it had gone again. It wasn't a great shock. It had been no greater than a ghostly presence from not long before I retired. It was sudden but completely undramatic.

After a day's marmalade making and campervan maintenance yesterday, this was supposed to be a day's R&R, but a fateful discussion with our neighbour Charlie over coffee this morning sent us back home on a mission to cook the last of our stored apples before they became the object of another of my great interests in moulds. These apples still lack a conclusive name in spite of searching all the databases we could find.

When you're as old as me, you'll probably find yourself saying "many years ago; when ...." - rather too often, since that's the point when you realize that your children no longer care about, let alone believe your stories. But I'm not going to be caught out that way. I'll merely say ....... I was on a silent retreat in a Franciscan convent in Dorset and since I was the only man present I was sequestered alone in a cottage on the edges of the estate.

For the most part, over the years, I've seen New Year more as a celebration that the old year is over and done with and that January 1st is no more than a blank canvas. But this time it was different because 2025 was pretty rubbish, what with innumerable health problems and having to spend a fortune getting the campervan fixed.

Hazel catkins on the riverside path Well, this is a new one! At last, yesterday I had my new hearing aids fitted after a six month wait. I mentioned the long wait to the audiologist at the hospital and she looked so troubled I immediately changed the subject. Poor things, they must have had a battering from angry patients. These new ones are a bit of a game changer because they're bluetooth capable and they've also got some kind of wizardry built in that generates faint white noise which subdues the tinnitus noises.

Royal Crescent in a rare peaceful moment To be honest - apart from the tourist guides - this is not a typical moment in Georgian Bath; or at least not during daylight hours. Half a mile East and you might imagine you're in Oxford street, London; the same distance to the north and south would see you at the end of the Cotswolds or across the river, deep fingers of countryside and Georgiana separated by large estates of social housing.

Mistletoe Geoffrey Grigson lists so many myths, folklore fragments and healing properties for mistletoe that after the second dozen I gave up counting them. Many of them were concerned with fertility, citing the similarity between mistletoe berries and what he coyly calls the male part. I've tried to verify that by looking at photos (of plants, of course) but I don't really get that one; unless he had some uniquely blessed male friends with an extra testicle for luck!

Royal Crescent in a rare peaceful moment To be honest - apart from the tourist guides - this is not a typical moment in Georgian Bath; or at least not during daylight hours. Half a mile East and you might imagine you're in Oxford street, London; the same distance to the north and south would see you at the end of the Cotswolds or across the river, deep fingers of countryside and Georgiana separated by large estates of social housing.

Mistletoe Geoffrey Grigson lists so many myths, folklore fragments and healing properties for mistletoe that after the second dozen I gave up counting them. Many of them were concerned with fertility, citing the similarity between mistletoe berries and what he coyly calls the male part. I've tried to verify that by looking at photos (of plants, of course) but I don't really get that one; unless he had some uniquely blessed male friends with an extra testicle for luck!

The dream I like to think of Dabberlocks and Furbelow as invisible friends; but in reality, as solicitors for my superego for my whole life, they've hinted, adjudicated and occasionally forbidden my wilder flights of fancy. Occasionally they'll issue a non-disclosure order on one of my ideas but mainly they just sit in silence and I know what's required. I call it censorship but they refer to it as discretion and normally they win.

The dream I like to think of Dabberlocks and Furbelow as invisible friends; but in reality, as solicitors for my superego for my whole life, they've hinted, adjudicated and occasionally forbidden my wilder flights of fancy. Occasionally they'll issue a non-disclosure order on one of my ideas but mainly they just sit in silence and I know what's required. I call it censorship but they refer to it as discretion and normally they win.

I guess this is a kind of Solstice card - although it's been a gloomy, cold and wet day; the kind you're happiest to see the back of. I woke up at 4.00am with a dream in which the only thing I remember is someone or something saying "you can't argue with a blackthorn". I have no idea what that was about except that it's impossible to force your way through a thicket of them because they're so horribly spiny.

Blackdown on the Mendip hills We walk into the supermarket or log on to Amazon and it's all there; the cornucopia, the works - everything the contented human being could possibly want. Except in times of scarcity, after snow or flood or during an epidemic when the shelves are empty and then we're angry. Yesterday we had a light frost.

It's the month, if not the day of reckoning on the allotment and two days before the solstice marks the turning of the seasons. After a terrible summer and regular visits to the hospital we almost gave it up, but we're both so glad now we are both miles better that we didn't. If you're new to allotmenteering you need to know that as well as all the…

Out, out, brief candle. Candlesnuff fungus Xylaria hypoxylon Warning. This post includes a discussion of grooming and abuse We binge-watched a whole four part thriller last night on TV. It was my fault. I fancied something like an Agatha Christie without the drawing room scene and just for fun I used Google Gemini to search for something suitable. There followed a typical AI dialogue where I refined my choice on the basis of a few questions and finally I settled on "near the sea" "cosy whodunnit" "wet weather allowed" and one series dropped into the the slot.

We want change but we want nothing altered - William Cobbett Three Cornish pasties I was shocked today to discover that I have a bit of an obsession with food. My shock was brought about by the sheer number of food photographs I've taken while I was looking for pictures to illustrate this post on the subject of what's come to be known as…

Macro photo taken with an Olympus TG-7 , others on a Pixel 6a It's a bit confusing, but if you look carefully at the lower right hand photo you'll see a moth on its back and then if you look left at the big macro-photo you'll see the full glory of a Hummingbird hawk moth's proboscis which looks like a roll of liquorice.

There are two questions here that I'm trying to answer. The first is the title of this post, and the second is an attempt at explaining why I call myself Severnsider - and I'll tackle that one first. I think these photos were taken some time around 2007, although I'd known the place for years prior to that. If you live nearby, or know the river Severn on the Gloucestershire side you'll probably know where they were taken on the Gloucestershire riverside and along the Sharpness canal at Frampton on Severn.

A sceptic's take on being human - or should that be virtuous?

We've been working hard to get the allotment ready for winter and - of course the spring which we hope will follow in due course. All of the water butts are full to overflowing , the pruning of the apples is finished and at the moment we're mainly preoccupied with renewing paths, weeding and mulching although not all the fruit trees are pruned at this time.

South Riverside development - not what the PR goons want you to see. Bath, of course, thrives by stoking a whole cruise liner full of hype. This year it's Jane Austen but the Georgian builders also get roped in to set the scene (please don't mention the slave trade) and otherwise we have to make do with the Romans who turned a boggy hot spring into a R&R destination for grubby and probably smelly legionnaires who needed a soak after marching around subduing the natives.

I've never had the opportunity to take a photo of this view before, although we've driven along the route and caught buses many times. For reasons too dull to repeat, the nurse that used to keep my ears free of wax - moved from the end of the road where we live and went to Fairfield Park where I took the pictures today.

Honey fungus mycelium on a tree stump. It's called a rhizomorph because of its shape - like a rhizome. Sometimes it seems - although I don't believe a word of it really - sometimes the stars get themselves into a truly malignant alignment and the boils, frogs, flies and rain just keep coming without remission. This last year, what with the campervan constantly breaking down, the extreme weather and an onslaught of health problems has been an all-round shitter!