When Shuck gets ironic

Yesterday I got an official, confirmed offer of a place to study Biology.  I've been depressed these past couple weeks, but for some reason the prospect of furthering my education is something Shuck can't touch.  It's nice to have that, it's comforting.  Still, my furry friend has been biting down hard, with the unfortunate consequence that I've spent too much of my time moping and not enough time attending to my responsibilities.  Well, my family pointed this out today (the responsibilities thing; I already knew about Shuck) and now, well, things are getting cleaned right enough, but I feel worse for letting things slide.

In essence I am now depressed over things I did when I was depressed.  Life does work in funny ways.  Were it not so fubar it'd be fucking hilarious.

Strawberry news

  Last night a fox got into the Strawbrary by climbing over Kelly's shed and scratching in through the netting.  George, predictably, went berserk.  He couldn't get through his usual corner at first because there was a trellis in the way, so he just nutted his way through the trellis!

Give it up for canine skullmanship!

  I hear it was a hell of a fight, though I myself slept through it.  George came away unharmed while the fox was apparently quite injured, so I guess that fox won't be back in our garden any time soon.  I'll be making modifications to the Strawbrary over the next few days.  Sadly, a couple of plants didn't survive the fight.  

Meanwhile, strawberries!

Awesome!

A bottle garden that has been sealed for forty years and still thrives!

On the EDL

I've just seen this article on Facebook.

  Persons unknown - but safely presumed in the present climate to be members or supporters of the EDL - have torched a boarding school with 128 kids sleeping inside.  Everybody was evacuated and nobody died, but this could well have become one of Britain's worst ever domestic acts of mass murder.

Is this who the EDL are defending us from?  Children?

  They like to think of themselves as soldiers in some kind of war for England.  A white, straight, mildly obese England where your plumber definitely isn't Polish.  Fair enough, each to their own, but do you know what?

Attacking a soldier is an act of war.
Attacking the politicians who gave that soldier his orders is an act of war.
Attacking innocent children is not an act of war.
Attacking innocent children is something else, something far worse: it is a crime against humanity.  It is genocide.  It is terrorism.

  We have this idea that today's terrorists are brown.  This is a fallacy that our politicians and journalists are extremely keen to propagate.  Terrorism however does not depend on race or religion.  Terrorism is defined by a person's actions.  The recent spate of arson attacks - which have now escalated to attempted mass murder, attempted crimes against humanity - make the EDL the most prolific terrorist organisation in Britain today.  Certainly there have been as many attacks in the news with some tenuous, alleged link to the EDL as there were bombings on the Mainland by the IRA.

  It is high time we shamed these white terrorists and rejected them from our communities!

Fuckin'... fuckin' shite!

  I have sensitive skin.  It isn't normally an issue these days because I wear all cotton and know which chemicals to avoid.  The trouble with sensitive skin though is that once it's been triggered massively by something you're then left pretty much allergic to the world until it recovers.  Sometimes though you have no choice but to suck it up for the greater good.  Loft insulation is my kryptonite but I ended up spending a couple of hours in the loft yesterday.

This is me today:

  It's on my arms, legs, and back.  My chest and neck are itching and they're gonna go in the next few days.  It's creeping in around my eyes and I'll be lucky if my face doesn't end up covered.  I've also got an airway full of shite.

  As you can imagine, everything's irritating my skin right now and I'm feeling thoroughly depressed about it.  I've decontaminated myself, covered myself in aqueous cream, changed all my sheets, excluded all pets from my room and holed up in bed with a pint of Ben and Jerry's, watching reruns of Mythbusters while I pick a movie to put on.

I had been planning to get some serious weeding done today.  FML.

Ambling around Kew again

More pics:

Striking

Bromeliad flowering

Passiflora coriacea - the Bat-Leaved Passion Flower

WILDLIFE

Goslings!  BABY GEESES!

Go near these two with a packet of crisps and they're fast on the cadge!

Albino Cichlid

Many bees on an Allium flower

Dendrobates leucomelas - poison dart frog

Pervy Names

Finally then, I've finished the long box: 

Borders and builds

Good news first: I got an interview to study Biology!

The back border is in place.

I've included a slab there so that Bill and George can still access the social hole without trampling the bed.  Hopefully they catch on.  On the right we have Heathers behind, Coleus in front:

And on the left we have another Heather/Coleus pairing, followed by Borage, Bergamot, Tarragon and two varieties of Rosemary.  I've left gaps of a foot each side of each fencepost; these gaps will be filled by Jasmines and later trellis.  

I've put a few planks on the shed walls and put nails in.  Saying I built racks is giving it a lot more than it is, but they do the job.  

I'm also halfway through building a long box with a lid, akin to a footlocker.  It'll sit along the back of the shed and house things like paints, fertilisers, my sledgehammer and other dangerous items; hence the timber being two inches thick.  It'll also double as a seat, though I'll be sure to mark it boldly with "NO DRINKS, NO LIQUIDS".  You could mix up half the shit in a gardener's shed and make dynamite, and I like having windows.  

It's purple for the pretty.  Meanwhile, the grass is getting unruly.  Dammit, I want a strimmer!