How green is our compost?
I’M not sure why, but last week’s column (about cricket, motor racing and sheep) prompted reader ‘Mozzy’ to comment: ‘I’ve lived in my London house, small garden a long time. … Continue readingHow green is our compost?
A compendium of musical delights by Alan and Margaret Ashworth
I’M not sure why, but last week’s column (about cricket, motor racing and sheep) prompted reader ‘Mozzy’ to comment: ‘I’ve lived in my London house, small garden a long time. … Continue readingHow green is our compost?
Today I am handing over the first part of the column to my husband Alan. ONE of my many walks with our yellow Labrador Teddy takes me along the Ribble … Continue readingA tree and six stumps
TODAY’S topic has fascinated me since childhood – how do seemingly flimsy plants manage to drill through solid tarmac as if it is butter? Looking this up on the internet, … Continue readingForce of nature
TRAVELLING by Northern Trains is not the most thrilling experience. The company was doing so badly in terms of timekeeping and cancellations under its previous operator that it was taken … Continue readingAction Stations
I’VE always been rather smug about not having a lot of trouble from insect bites. Companions have sometimes been bitten all over while I remain relatively unscathed. Last week I … Continue readingFinger food for biting bugs
HERE in Lancashire we have had the most glorious weather for weeks. There has been an easterly breeze most of the time which has kept it perfect. One advantage of … Continue readingMr Bullhead, the ‘new man’ of fish
SOON after we moved from Bromley to Lancashire ten or 11 years ago (it was such a ghastly protracted business that I have blocked out the details) we started to … Continue readingWhitey, is that you?
IF it is possible to have a least favourite plant, mine is bracken. And I will be seeing a lot more of it before long, because when ‘rewilding’ comes to … Continue readingWith fronds like these, who needs enemies?
STONE walls are very common round here, some of them proper traditional dry stone, some with a bit of mortar in the centre and some with mortar throughout, like a … Continue readingWithin these walls
BEFORE Covid, before even the spectre of nuclear war, there were posters in every public building warning about another dire threat to the British way of life. It was less … Continue readingBeetlemania