Lurking Green Old Friends

 With nothing prepared and not much time to conjur up a new post - especially that Garden Photos Event reminder I said I'd do last time (and the time before) - I thought I'd publish this post which has been lurking about unfinished in my drafts since the end of March. 

 I haven't finished it - I was going to add some more photos and a couple more plants but can't be bothered haven't got time.

⌇  ⌇  ⌇

 I can't remember when exactly, but not too long ago - within a year or two, I'm sure (maybe three?) - Jon said something somewhere about plants that he'd had for years having survived/coped with several moves, and I'd replied with some examples of my own.

 Well, after showing my pot-bound bonsai* Acer in the previous but one post, I thought I'd do some research - i.e. trawl through loads of old photographs - to find out just how long that Acer had been if not flourishing, then at least suriving in its shallow, blue-glazed pot.  And find out I did. 

 Along the way I also discovered the origins or early days of a few other green old friends, so I've collected them together here so as not to have wasted all that time and effort for nothing.

* Thank you, Mitzi. 

Acer palmatum: After much to-ing & fro-ing between batches of photos from 2010 and 2011, I can safely say that my Acer has been with me since mid-late 2010 at the earliest or early 2011 at the latest.  I didn't buy it in the blue pot it's currently growing in - I'm pretty sure it came in the usual plastic pot and I then decanted it into a terracotta pot before moving it on to its current home.

 

This is my Acer's first photographic appearance - a cropped & enhanced shot from a set taken on 2 May 2011 at the second Castle DeVice (the one I shared with SP).  I think it must have been drunk on fertiliser as it's staggered over.

Sunday Ketchup - IDV's Copy/Paste Edition

 I've realised that I'm in danger of never blogging ever again unless I do something NOW!  So, taking a leaf out of Ms Scarlet's book - almost literally, and with her permission (kind of) - here's my quick-and-dirty, copy-and-paste Sunday Ketchup. 

From Ms Scarlet's 5th December Sunday Ketchup post: 

"Sunday Ketchup. It will be a random account of my week and will include quotes from my journal [my very secret journal that I show no-one ever!]; photographs; collages; calligraphy; and, of course, the obligatory piece of Sunday music. How thrilled you must be to read of my good intentions. Again. Let us proceed…"

 My week - nay, my weeks - since my last post have been spent continuing the dither that engulfed me at the start of the year.  It's got to the point where I've become a passive observer rather than an active participant, which means I've barely done anything of note at all.

 I haven't produced any calligraphy of course, but I did spend 10-15 minutes making a £999,960 Bank of Bungle bank note for my sister Indescribable's birthday earlier in the week.  She wanted a million pounds so I topped up the £40 John Lewis voucher I got for her with this:

Spot the mistake (which I corrected after I took this photo)...
 

 In my very secret journal I wrote: A rescue - from [a spiral in(g) time] - a survivor, Galuth Nym, an old woman who should be young.

 From my emails I wrote: Thanks very much for sorting Car out. Again. I’m sure it won’t be the last time – unless I get a new car sooner rather than later...

 Photograph of the week: 

Taken for an art project that never took off...
 

 A tune that I discovered yesterday and have listened to rather a lot: "Impossible" by Röyksopp & Alison Goldfrapp

 

In fact, I'm listening to it now...

 Right.  I'd best be off as there's loads to do before I can lounge about in the bath for a couple of hours this evening.  Plus, I need to do the catch up with all of you that I didn't do last time.

P.S. I love all your comments in the last post.  Carry on! 

EDIT 20:40 - P.P.S. For a birthday I usually forget... (not mine, although I did shoot this on my birthday 12 years ago)

That Old Back Passage Called Love

 Madam Arcati's latest Delargo Gardens post once again had me reminiscing about the tight, jungly confines of my own Back Passage when I lived in Norwich twenty-odd years ago.  So much so, in fact, that I found myself trawling through reams of old pictures on a USB stick trying to find some photos.

 Well, I did find some, and rather than let all that time and effort go to waste, I thought I'd pop a selection of them up here (because I have nothing else prepared or even remotely ready in draft).  I also searched through my dusty old blog crypt for ancient posts that featured the original Castle DeVice's tiny garden.  Although I lived in Castle DeVice from the back half of 1998 to early 2009, I can only find photos from 2006 onwards (I think that this must have been the time I discovered digital photography)...

 While you explore my back passage, why not listen to Ella Fitzgerald singing about it (she misheard "Back Passage" as "Black Magic", but she is getting on a bit...):

Note: I spent ages getting all the photos in date order, from August 2006 to December 2008.  Then, as soon as I viewed them all together, I realised that they'd look better in month/season order to show the progression of growth, so that's how I've displayed them here.

Late April (2008) - Left: Halfway down my back passage and nearing my back door, an avocado tree (grown from a pit), arum lily (Zantedeschia aethiopica), various ferns, a hanging basket in need of a good sort out, and some bamboo.  

Middle: Just inside the entrance to my back passage are a couple of New Zealand flaxes (Phormium somesuch), heuchera, a tufty old bit of blue-green grass, and some daffs.  

Right: The paysho - or staging area to my back passage - repleat with a potted box (Buxus), rose, bluebells, geranium, daffs, scylla, and violas.

Not The Device Mansion Gardens: The Sequel

 Yesterday saw a return to the Old Vicarage Gardens in East Ruston. But this time, instead of going on my own to spend as much time as I liked there in peace and quiet, I reluctantly agreed to go with my sister, Inexcuseable, and three year old nephew, Count Podgkinson.
 Needless to say, much of the visit passed by in a blur - which wasn't as bad as it seemed as most of the gardens had obviously had their day and were looking a bit tired.  However, I did manage to get some snaps of a handful of unusual or distinctive flowers.

These are seed heads from some sort of ghastly lily, I think?

A feathery, clockwise-curving fern

Eye for an Eye

 I was just allowing the Host to think about his top twelve sexiest Star Trek characters-

He was "thinking" a little bit too enthusiastically, for my liking.

Well, yes, but Captain Pike is rather a fox!

Oh, OK, I 'll allow it.

 Anyway, as I was saying, the Host was doing some thinking-
 All will become clear in the next post.  Or possibly the one after that.

A rather inappropriate looking glass

 Yes.  Thank you.  Now, where was I?  Oh, yes, you were thinking while we were enjoying a (rather too hot) bath when I noticed this:

 I'm pretty sure Inexcuseable didn't mean it to spy on me, but rather to keep an eye on Count Podgekinson's bathtime.  Or to catch her husband weeing all over the toilet bowl rim (because it sure as hells isn't me doing it - I prefer a more leisurely sit-down affair)...
 Still, the fact remains that my own sister can see me in the altogether, should she so desire.  Which I'm sure she doesn't, but even so...

 Despite the small dimensions of Castlette DeVice's bathroom, it isn't small enough for me to reach across from my gently simmering bath and scrawl a nullifying spell* on the mirror.
 In fact, the mirror may as well have been a million miles away as, when I'm in the bath, I get out for nothing and no-one until I'm done**.  Which meant a rather chaste bath, and a lot of awkward manoeuvring with a towel when I did eventually get out.


* The only spell I know for counteracting Inexcuseable's Looking Glass spell involves (amongst other things) drawing over the eye with my own tears.  And I don't think the Host has enough nostril hairs to pluck to make our eyes water enough to cover her rather large "masterpiece".
** With the exception of Captain Pike, a life-time supply of fondant fancies, and - possibly - Knight.

Not #adecadeago

 In a rare moment of desperately attempting to appear "on trend", I thought I'd have a go at Ms Scarlet and Jon's #adecadeago meme.  You know, the one in which ancient bloggers who haven't moved on to new forms of social media (or have, but gave up because it was all so petty and overwhelming) look back at their dusty old archives, and dredge up whatever it is they were blogging about a decade - 10 years! - ago.
 Well, after the successes of the aforementioned Ms Scarlet (AKA The Duchess of Devonshire) and Jon (the Official Plant Spotter of Castle Device and its extensive Witchdom), as well as LẌ and Mitzi, my foray ten years into the past was a disappointment to say the least: an excuse for not blogging, rudely interrupted by that interfering old baggage, Audrey (who has since been expunged from my consciousnesses - sub, or otherwise).  I think Tim said it best when he proclaimed me a "slacker".

Although, he's a fine one to talk.
Quite.

 Anyway, not wanting to let the side down, I came up with a new way to play: travelling back in time by two years to 2017, and then eight years to 2011, which brings us to a grand total of ten years.  Clever, eh?  And, between them, both cover the (not really a) requirement for an old meme and some art work.

 So, two years ago, on the 1st February 2017, we arrive at another meme started by Ms Scarlet: the "Book on a Chair" meme, or #bookonachair as it would be known in today's modern hashtag parlance.

By this point in the proceedings, we were really reaching...

 And eight years ago, on the 1st February 2011, we land slap-bang in Star Trek territory, on the second stop of a voyage that never was, replete with sketches of starships.

oOo

 Because I don't think any of the images from my two #adecadeago posts linked to up there are particularly worthy of reposting here, I thought I'd share a couple of photos I took from Count Podgekinson's bedroom window on the morning of the last day in January:

Look! You can see the birds roosting in this close-up - wood pigeons, I think?

Chatsworth

So, here are the rest of my photos of Chatsworth, this time from Monday.

Part of Chatsworth Park as seen from Edensor

Edensor, a Chatsworth estate village, as seen (looking back) going over the hill to...

Not quite as "Oop North" as I thought, Duck...

 I'm back, Duckies!*

 After two nights spent in the ancestral lands of the Derbyshire Dales for a solemn family matter, I'm safely back in Norfolk.  Threats of apocalyptic snow storms and hurricanes the likes of which even Dennis Quaid and Jake Gyllenhaal couldn't navigate through didn't come to pass, thankfully, so we managed to get "oop" there and back with little drama.
 The biggest drama occurred when I got back and discovered that I'd barely gone "oop" at all!  I mean, there is a lot of going across, but very little "oop".  In all these years, I always thought there was more "oop".  I think all the going actually up - as in up hills etc - confused me.  Cromer, according to Wikipedia, lies at 52.931° North, whereas my destination lies at 53.227°N - the bloody Midlands!**

 Anyway, enough about that.  Here are some photos from Sunday afternoon, taken shortly after arriving:

What's that in the distance?

Red deer and...

Run! Run! As fast as you can!

 I am moving again.

 As plummeting down the cliff in one's own home is practically unheard of in witchy circles*, I am moving out of Château DeVice and into a more life-prolonging gingerbread house.  It's only a few hundred yards from my current cliff-top abode and - importantly - those few hundred yards are inland.  My new home is nearer the woods (and the allotment), and not likely to find itself scattered across the beach after collapsing over the cliff for at least a couple of centuries (possibly only one, if sea levels continue to rise dramatically). 

 Gingerbread houses are hard to come by these days as most of the originals have been devoured by thoughtless, greedy children over the centuries, or dissolved in the rain when their occupant met Death for the last time and the preservative spell wore off.  Those that are left tend to be inhabited by mad old crones, or have been turned into sites of occult historical interest by the Gingerbread Board.  Speaking of which, the 'Board occasionally permits a new gingerbread house to be built as long as circumstances, conditions, and quotas allow.  Quite what those circumstances, conditions and quotas are is anyone's guess as the 'Board are quite inscrutable and experts in obfuscation and dead-end paper trails.  As I can attest to after I applied for a new home...**

 I don't know why I thought it would be a good idea?  I suspect the SubCs had something to do with it and, typically, they buggered off and left me to it when I found myself before the Gingerbread Board to demonstrate my suitability to own and maintain a new gingerbread home.  I'm not going to go into all the rigmarole and hoop-jumping I had to go through (and am still going through), as it was - and still is - very stressful and mind-boggling.

Flashbacks

 This isn't going to be a wobbly soap opera-style flashback post (like certain others), just a series of fleeting glimpses into some goings on, and items of limited interest over the past couple of months, so we can get up-to-date before ploughing ahead with with current affairs.
 First up - despite the gruesome rabbit head photo on the right there (more on that in a mo) - are a couple of Triffid-based items that we had almost forgotten about.  It was only the talk of the Garden Photos Event over at The Very Mistress's that reminded me.

Beautiful Liriope in the Extensive Gardens of Castlette DeVice at the end of September

In the bath 10 years ago...

 Before we get to my bath, here's something I threatened a couple of months ago:

Book on a Chair: The Final Tour

 These are the very few books I've managed to read since Anne McCaffrey's The Rowan back in January:

Books on an chair arbour in the garden
Not pictured: Among the Wild Cybers
(because it's also on my Kindle)

∘ The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers 1), by Becky Chambers
∘ Star Trek: Federation, by Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens
∘ Greater Than The Sum (Star Trek: The Next Generation), by Christopher L. Bennett
∘ Gods of Night (Star Trek: Destiny), by David Mack
∘ Mere Mortals (Star Trek: Destiny), by David Mack
∘ Lost Souls (Star Trek: Destiny), by David Mack
∘ Among the Wild Cybers: Tales Beyond the Superhuman, by Christopher L. Bennett
∘ Calvin and Hobbes: Revenge of the Baby-Sat, by Bill Watterson
and I've made a start on Record of a Spaceborn Few (Wayfarers 3), by Becky Chambers

 I thought today was an excellent time to do a book update because I also did one nine years ago exactly which features one of the books here.

oOo

 And now the feature presentation:

It's A Faaaake! Not The Art Of Star Trek - Seeing Double

 Rather uncharacteristically, I've made a start on this month's Star Trek art challenge well before the last minute!  I thought I'd better set a good example as I was the one who came up with the theme to August's challenge (having won the July art challenge).  Here is my theme:  

For this month's art challenge, I thought we could take a walk on the wild side.

Or a wild Trek, even!

I'd like to see your takes on anything wilderness-related in the Star Trek Universe: A landscape from Qo'noS, perhaps? Big game from Berengaria? A starship decked out in Greenpeace-equivalent livery rescuing a Gormagander? Or whatever those little creatures were that High Society Betazoid ladies used to imprison in their giant wigs!
As long as your piece of art showcases some sort of wildlife or its environs, it's in!

 The reason why I'm publishing this "It's A Faaaake!" post before the end of the month/beginning of next month is that I need your help - More on this a bit further down.

 Harkening back to 2017's Driven to Distraction and Foreign Relations "It's A Faaaake!" posts, I've cut out a few bits of coloured paper/card and fitted them together to make a couple of Starfleet officers to pose about in the countryside wilderness around Château DeVice.
 I've chosen a Chandir ("Tailhead") and an Andorian, and dressed them in a version of my alternate universe 2373 Starfleet uniform for February's Art Challenge (as modelled by T'Cael & Ry'iak down there in the top right, with influences from my Starfleet Occult Operations design, bottom left). 

 Below, my Chandir (standing) and Andorian (crouching) subjects have escaped their paper prison, despite being unfinished(!), and made it out into the garden. As I hadn't yet got around to furnishing them with tricorders and communicators, they have availed themselves of a divining rod and crystal ball (it's amazing what one can find laying about in a witch's garden) to aid in their bid for freedom...

::

 This is the bit where you come in. 

Beaky Babies

 As you can tell, this is not a geologically fascinating chalk bed (non-geological fascination may vary and is not guaranteed) as alluded to in my last post, but an alert blackbird of the "you little turd" variety.
 Yes, the vile little bastard has spawned yet another brood of unspeakable evil as the following photos will illustrate.  The only good news is that they seem to be running Beaky ragged!

The little git has resorted to eating pink food like some common or garden tit!

I have to admit, he's getting quite good at it.  Much better than in previous years - not even a flash of cloaca.

Tears of a Clone

  From the extensive gardens of Château DeVice this very afternoon... 

Uh, oh.  A stand off.  But which one's the real Beaky?

"Ooh!  Gladis, look!  I think there's going to be a fight!"

Bank Holiday Blossoms, Birds and Boats

Bramley apple blossom

  Perhaps we were a little overdramatic yesterday?  After this morning's wander about in the sunshine, I escaped to the coolness of the château and set to sorting out the overwhelming amount of photos I've taken.  Except that there weren't that many, after all.
  I can vaguely remember pointing Camera at various views but not pressing the button as they were the same old views seen here a thousand times before.  Hooray!
  Anyway, here are three days worth of photos.  And only sixteen of them.  Can you imagine?!

Saturday, 5th May 

The slapdash and rickety steps down the cliff to the promenade behind Château DeVice
(as mentioned here - second photo down)

Threatening Orchids

  I took these photos this morning, then visited Dinahmow's to discover that she's threatening orchids, too.  Hers are bound to be far more spectacular than the three here in Château DeVice, so consider this post a warm-up for the show at Dinah's!

The kitchen windowsill at Château DeVice

This tiny, pretty little orchid came from Waitrose a couple of months ago

This one was a gift from one of my cousins last year

And this blousy beauty showing off in the smallest room, I've had for years!

It's managed to survive two or three moves (I know I had it when I was with SP, and I may have had it before that) - one more to go before it equals Margaret 2.0's record (maysherestinpeace).  Its smaller, pink companion, gave up the ghost late last year (last seen here next to Prince Harry's underpants) 

  I don't know the names of these orchids - and I can't be arsed to find out - but I'm sure Dinah or Jon, The Official Plant-Spotter of Castlette DeVice and its Extensive Witchdom, may have some ideas...

Foggy un oeuf?

  Another day of murk and moistness. Still, it didn't stop me from popping out for some fresh air.
  I ended up on the beach, as usual, but there wasn't a lot to see except for mist-swathed groynes and a multitude of egg cases.  And if I have to see them, then so do you!

[The dewy orb web on the right is from the window of Château DeVice]

::

Not Beaky. Mostly...

 I know it's only been ten days since Beaky was last inflicted upon you - and some of you may still not be over the shock of seeing Beaky brazenly bathing, baring all - but, apart from the headline photo, all the rest are Beaky-free.
 Well, except for one as I couldn't resist humiliating the strident little pest!

 The following photos were taken this morning:

A male chaffinch pecking up scraps

A greenfinch.  It's good to see a greenfinch as, last year, most of them around here suffered from some sort of disease that killed them off.  There were sad little greenfinch corpses all over the place.

Snowbirds

  Two inches of snow might as well be two feet.  As far as Château DeVice is concerned, this is enough not to risk going to work.  The fact that the main roads may be relatively clear is neither here nor there - I'm not walking up the road to check them just in case they are clear.  Although, Château DeVice has been invaded by sisters, nieces and nephew, so I've escaped upstairs to construct this post, and I'm actively considering going to work to get away from it all once this has been posted!
  Anyway, here are the snowbirds: 

Here's Beaky lurking amongst the plant pots

Is There Somebody at the Door?

◁◁DING DONG▷▷  ◁◁DING DONG▷▷

Clearly there is.

Hang on!  Hang on.  I'm coming...

*click*   {{CREEEEEEEEEAK}}

Hel-  Yikes!

 Oh.  Hello Hercules.  Mind your lyre on the door frame as you come in.  And I expect you'd better bring your swan in, too, as there's a hungry-looking dragon and a fox loitering in the driveway.  Not to mention that creepy Tripod lurking on the corner near the Nightship stop...

This Tripod is a perv - it peers through the window of the Smallest Room

::

 For those who need to know, this is how the view from my front door looked before my eyes had adjusted to the dark:

What awaits you when you open your front doors?