Woohoo! Mantis!

A few weeks ago, I noticed a praying mantis clinging to the wall above the mystery tree, and it freaked me the hell out. Today it's still there, and from a quick check on Wikipedia, it seems it's to be encouraged as it's entirely carnivorous, so I'm ok with it now. Right now, it's standing guard over the basil (although from the looks of it it'd be better off in the spinach pot), as you can sort of see in this mildly out-of-focus picture. My phone isn't good at close ups.



It looks pretty mean. I wonder if I should put a warning sign on the gate.

Easter, more gardening

This weekend is unusually holiday-like for the Kiwi and me. The past few weeks have been unusually hectic, with the Kiwi's dad's 60th birthday going on last weekend and planning and execution of those plans taking up a bit of time. Well worth it though - what a weekend. So amid all the job-hunting and so on, we're taking these four days to actually have a break. I know it sounds a bit rubbish, given that we don't tend to actually do much during the week, but I think it's more that we're having a break from the constant stress of it all, knowing that there's nothing we can do about it over this weekend.



So I have been tending to our garden. It's been going a bit mental lately, with the spinach sprouting all over the place and the basil beginning to look a bit weird. I think it might be planning to bolt at some point, so I'm feverishly trying to work out how to inveigle some of it into our cooking plans over the coming days, so I can harvest it without just chucking it away. The lime tree, as I've mentioned, is seeming a little bit overenthusiastic, so I've repotted it and am trying to find out how best to prune things like this to keep it in line. I want it alive at least until it has a chance to fruit.

I've also put out a pot with some rosemary and thyme in it, although I'm not sure how well thyme does outside, particularly with the weather cooling down a bit. We'll see - it's quite sheltered where it is, and the plant seems reasonably mature, so it might make it. We'll have the full Simon & Garfunkel if I can find some sage, but apparently that's a right bugger to grow and it always reminds me spookily of rabbits' ears, so perhaps not.

The mystery tree seems to have gone back to sleep. I think it only likes it when there's tons of sunlight and constant warmth, so it looks like we're back to the 'is it just a dead stick?' phase for a while. Everything else seems to be thriving, especially the parsley, and the chilli plants are looking more promising by the day.

So that's the garden update so far - other highlights of the weekend are an Easter dinner out west tomorrow at which I'm cooking a paella (others are doing other bits), and some sort of networking event at a local wine merchant on Monday night which could be entertaining.

One last note before I go and read the paper or something - I had a truly bizarre dream last night which I'm moved to share with you all. Working back at my old job, my boss had sent me to work at a Virgin Megastore, under the sea. It was laid out like the old Piccadilly store, but was submerged a long way off the coast somewhere. The only customers were terrifically rich people with submarines, so whilst the footfall was quite low, the average spend was massive. My role here was to improve the customer service processes, specifically around the handling of telephone and email complaints. I came up with a few options but the staff involved were highly resistant to change and to be honest, seemed to be managing ok. Working in this store was seen as a really great job for most of the staff, who spent most of their days sitting around listening to music and maintaining their spotless racking and promotion spaces, rarely troubled by customers. I remember looking out of the front window to the parked submarines outside and thinking what a great idea it had been to open a branch under the sea.

I would like to point out though, that this is in no way indicative of my normal thought processes whilst acting as a retail business consultant.

Another month...

You may have noticed an uncharacteristic lack of posts here of late. This is mainly as very little has changed over here - we're still looking for work, still getting up in the morning and scouring the job sites, still getting remarkably little traction from doing so. A promising conversation I've been clinging onto for three months fell through yesterday, so we're back to square one again. This ceased to be funny a very long time ago; now it's just boring, and not a little terrifying.

I am not, though, at the point yet where I'm questioning whether or not this was a good idea. It'll take a little longer for that to happen, and a few more rejections too, I think. Oh, and the UK economy would need to be in a better shape than the NZ one, which will take some time, I reckon.

It's still sunny here, although as we move into autumn the breeze is getting a little cooler. What's funny from my perspective is, whilst walking around in jeans and a t-shirt and finding it quite temperate, hearing other people shiver and complain. It's still over 15C and beautifully sunny, FFS people! Man up a little!

The garden, such as it is, is going great guns, although something or other is eating our spinach and some of the leaves on my chilli plant. We've been using the flat-leaf parsley, the basil and the (uneaten) spinach quite happily for a while now, which is nice, and I think the lime tree needs pruning as some of the topmost leaves are looking a bit sickly. Oh, and the Kiwi's spring onions seem to have, er, sprung, finally.

More news as we get it, on all fronts.

A brief diversion

In the interest of keeping ourselves sane, we've been using some bits and pieces we picked up at a garden centre a while back, and a bright green watering can we got as an engagement gift from the Kiwi's sister, to create a bit of a garden of sorts. Our outside area isn't huge, but it gets a fair bit of sun during the day, so what we have put in seems to be doing quite well.

From left to right in this picture, we've got basil and chillies, spring onions, the mystery tree and spinach. The chillies took about 10 days to germinate, which at the moment seems like about a year, so I was actually going outside to dig them up this morning when I saw some tiny little shoots poking through the soil. It's amazing how little it takes to lift your mood, isn't it? The spinach is also doing well, showing its first leaves and generally looking all shiny and green.

As for the mystery tree, we have two of them. They were here when we moved in, and were in a bit of a sorry state as I don't think anyone had lived here for a few months, very dry months at that. So we gave them some smart white pebbles and plenty of water, and over the past couple of days they've repaid us with a burst of flowers which smell like honeysuckle, complimenting the smell of the Hatter's lilies which permeates the living room. If anyone out there knows what they are, do let me know! Have a look at the close-up and see what you think.

Just out of shot in the first picture is the Empty Pot, which is currently awaiting something to grow in it. We've been going through a ton of flat-leafed parsley (called Italian or Continental Parsley here), so I think some of that might be called for. On the post-job shopping list is a lime tree too, as they're not only decent to look at, but limes are about $1 each here, which is extortionate. I reckon a tree would pay for itself within a season quite easily. We go through a lot of limes here, if not in Pacific cooking, then in Gin & Tonics.

Updates will be forthcoming.

All... by... my... seeeeeellf

It's all very well having a wonderful successful and important girlfriend who jollies off to New York, but frankly it does leave me slightly out of sorts. I suppose you'd call it loneliness, but it's more fun to just get grumpy about it. Bah.

But to be honest I am missing her like I really didn't expect. I kind of thought it'd be a time to do lots of stuff and, y'know, generally be dead productive but realistically it's mainly been a lot of sitting around guffawing at the internet and going to work, sort of.

On the work note, it's all going a bit mental again following Friday's lull, and we're painfully aware that we've got less than three weeks til we present the final product,which really means two weeks as we'll need a week of tweaking and final design work to get it shipshape. Personally I'm not really 100% on this; I reckon they're on a hiding to nothing and haven't really got the commitment to really make this a success - an opinion which, whilst unpopular, I've been keen to express. In gentle, non-threatening terms, that is. When one is a retailer one can throw ones weight around and generally be a bit of an ogre; when one is being paid many thousands of pounds for ones opinion, it needs to be put across with some delicacy. Another learning experience there, I reckon...

So, on the floral front, as you can see my masterpieces continue to thrive and we have no fewer than 10 (ten!!) buds on their way to add to the four we've already got. This is ace - although to be honest I'm not sure how such a tiny pot of what's basically mud can support quite so much flowerage. Perhaps this is one of those things one shouldn't question.

It's all going quite well then. The Kiwi's back on Friday morning, so plenty to do between now and then, including setting up a wine tasting for the weekend and working on a presentation about the fashion industry (now sure how I got myself into that one). Oooh, and I bought some shoes last week off the internet, how daring of me. Some tan round-toed semi-brogue type things which were in the sale at ASOS for a mere £19 - they arrived today and ladies and gentlemen I think we have a hit. Which I sort of didn't expect. Amazing. Now to buy some clothes to go with them.

It's happening!

Now, I wasn't going to do this until it'd fully opened, but I'm just a bit too excited about it - my first marigold is opening! I'll post a few more pics once it's properly open, and probably take them on a better camera, but here you go.

I know it's not the most manly thing in the world to get all excited about a little flower that you've grown from seed but trust me, this has taken bloody ages and plenty of TLC from yours truly over the past months (months!) so it's a bit of a momentous occasion. I wanted to prove to myself that I could grow stuff, as throughout my whole life I've shied away from it having once killed a couple of house plants in my youth. How growed up do I feel now? Tremendous. What you can't see next to my lovely flower is the Kiwi's pot - full of rocket and chives, which are both lovely but are now frankly overshadowed by my majestic Marigold, which I'm sure will be the envy of the neighbourhood before too long.