Project Solardome Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dy553E_oa0

Let's get that one out of the way for starters! Project Solardome!

I was up at 6.30 on Saturday morning, feeling raw as a potato, having had about three hours sleep - part excitement, part insomnia, part Czech rum. Parsley and Cakealot were equally ko'd when I went over to eat a vegetarian breakfast at their DOMEstead. So many changes this year.

We didn't get started proper until around nine, when the redoubtable Alex Johnson came in his Boratmobile - a beautiful mustard VW van, replete with tools. Same went for P&C. It was proper heist territory - glass suckers, stanley knives, power drills, rope; the works. We headed out to Lincoln, getting a bit lost, paying an extortionate amount at a toll booth, with me sleeping in the back seats. 0 stamina and endurance. But that was to change.

Rolled up to the house around 12. The dome was tucked away in the back garden / yard - betwixt a telegraph pole and a privet hedge. The owner was hilarious : a purple faced loon who called his cat Mum. We kept hearing him periodically coming out of the house saying 'Hellllllooooo Muuuuuum!' It took us a while to work out what was going on.

The dome itself was very impressive. In the photos it looks fairly small but I assure you the effect is quite the opposite. A dead robin was a bad omen! So be it. Parsley talked with Alex

about how we were going to go about taking it down (start from the top and work your way down - I guarantee I'd have messed this up if left to my own devices). Then she numbered all the glass panes - 120 if I'm not mistaken - whilst I removed nuts from what I can only describe as metal oysters, then WD40'd a load of nuts on the inside for later, coping was removed, I was as ever clueless and needed directing.

The biggest part of the job was removing the silicone which was holding the glass in place. Palette knives, stanleys, toothbrushes and warm soapy water - everything came into play. Alex and Parsley initially tackled the highest panes, with Cakealot and I scrimping and scraping the lower tiers of glass. Thereafter it was all change. With the first few panes being brought down (the very first cracked, our morale never did) we took some time out to assess the situation and eat. The predicted four hour takedown plan became so much longer.

It was slow work - with a very careful series of readjustments being made to how the glass was stored in the van - lots of bubble wrap and old blankets and an advanced lesson in trigonometry and spatial awareness. All the while purple conk was screaming hello Mam, his yappy dogs were going mental, it was getting colder. Time was not on our side - or rather the light wasn't. Indeed we worked right through to nine o' clock.

Once all the glass had been removed (no mean task), we still had to take down the frame - a colossal geodesic nightmare! I left the boys to that one, taking out the bottom vents / segments that were resting on breeze blocks, and carrying materials, tools etc to the van. The stars were out and I managed to identify Ursa Major. Pat on the back for a manifestly cold Oregano.

This was hands down one of the longest most exhausting days of work I've done in a long time and I did a third of what Cakealot, Alex and Parsley did. Yet, I loved it. I would do it again and I would recommend GEODESIC SOLAR DOMES to everyone. Do I want a unique geodesic focal point in my garden? Yes please! Do I want practical applications and benefits for my plants and veg? Yes please! Do I want to wake up the morning after helping transport a solardome, feeling like I've been shot? Yes please!

Remember this is only part 1. There will be many more to follow, as so far we have only transported it from Lincoln to the domestead. Weeee!

Adendum: A few years back Minda and I came up with a list of dome related puns. Four pages of A4 were filled. Here's a rundown of some of the better ones :

chrome dome

Big Trouble in Little Dome Town

White Men Can't Dome

Obi-Wan ka Dome Me

Dome2D2

System of a Dome

Domeformers

Home Adome

Buffy the Dome Slayer

Eastenddome

Dome and Away

Somebody answer the bleedin DOME

Die Another Dome

Dome White and the Seven Domes

Etc!

Project Daffodil / Viburnum

I am extremely excited. Project SOLARDOME is but a few days away. I'm not saying any more until after Saturday, but good times for good people - they are coming.

The daffodils are emerging. If you cast your eye back to my Blog in September, I was paranoid I wasn't doing it properly; those juicy lean green stems speak volumes to the opposite, however.

There are some other tentative growths too, throughout the garden. At first I thought they were weeds...but something tells me otherwise. Gardening intuition! Now there's a thought. I was talking to my Charlie and Ben* on Saturday about how my instincts were kicking in and the schematics for the garden were sprouting from my sub conscious! Thank G Unit it's Spring, I feel so much more in touch with things.

Mum and Dad brought me a cutting from their Viburnum tree in January. It's famous for a Dad classic: 'Have you sniffed the tree?' Draw your own conclusions. Anyway, this was planted at the bottom of the garden where I hope it will take nicely. I think there's the option to move it if there's not enough sunlight. So far, more or less everything has taken well, but having come out properly for the first time in many months, I see that everything has died back: it's all sludge brown foliage or leaves as dry as a skeleton. Cycles, yo.

Oregano out. There will be many more blogs hitting this space soon! PROJECT SOLARDOME especially...wow.

Payce. (Peace).

*Flame on!

New Beginnings

February - what a ghastly month it's been already. Thank God for small miracles though - our wicked wicked allotment for one. I've been away for far too long, Jack Frost getting his boot in these past polar months; introspection, short days, long nights, and much Machiavellian brooding to fill a period of time better spent in hibernation.

Took a brief journey down to the plot for the first time this year, and instantly I was reminded of all I've been missing. Jake's been hard at work, creating channels, troughs and bridges across our shared earth.

It's satisfying to see the land take shape after all the preparation that's gone into it. It looks nice and clearly demarcated at the moment but come spring the weeding will commence full steam ahead; time to get the pythons in training. Plus there's still reams of plastic, bottles and cans lying about - it's a constant tidy up mission. But it suits me fine as I'm turning into a CONTROL FREAK! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nG8gF2XcCas. Hats off to those of you who remember that little gem.

Addendum : Apologies to KT for calling her Oregano in my text messages. The stresses of day to day life without the rejuvenating force of gardening has pickled my already demented brain.

Roll on Spring and a much greater output of G UNIT blogs, even if you don't like them! X

Put a Slammin' Burn Up On It!

It has been all too long since I published a post; all too long since I have been on the allotment proper with my favourite green fingered pals Kt and Jake, aka Parsley and Sir Cakealot. One installment for October! Agh, for shame. I've been far too busy pedaling my new novella : Blood & Rorschach - see http://www.insertspace.org.uk/blood&rorschach.htm for more details. That, and suffering from a three week shit storm that was flu, becoming a Godfather...yadda yadda!

It was great to get back on the scene, albeit hungover and badly prepared for a burn up in Cakealot parlance. It was a late October afternoon, and the allotment had transformed from a warm verdant and yellow haven to a colder, yet subtly more beautiful grey, orange and black one. Leaves everywhere, good for mulching - strewn all about. Cakealot raked some up and made a ramshackle leaf bin to join my even more ramshackle composting bins.

Parsley and Cakealot prepared the fire with a pile of thorny twigs and hay that we had raked off on the great strimmer crusade back in September, whilst I ran back to get my gardening gloves, left behind in excitement / forgetfulness. The conflagration was coming on a treat by the time I got back, with me nearly putting an end to it by swamping it with Glypho-hay. It was smouldering mightily - with great gusts of green and blue smoke which lead me to say 'Satan's Nostrils.' Shortly after the fire burst into life.

By turns we stood and admired the columns of flame or kept throwing on the dead branches & c. It was sweaty work, always a bit of a paradox in cold weather. I think the old spirit of destruction was rife. I did a little Native American Indian dance and a verse to dispel Ian's ghost - time's tide has eroded my memory but I know it ended with a line like : 'No more 1664 this day.'

The fire was a beautiful sight and felt like an organic progression in the growth of our plot. Plus the ash that was left over was raked into the recently forked soil, which should be a immense boon for our potatoes which Jake will be planting very soon.

The resident favourite feline Gigasmethick appeared to say hello, reminding me of the manifold charms of an allotment. It just gets better every time. With the imminence of a proper Winter I'm interested to see the changes that will take place. Already I've worked less on the gardening front than I might like, but my interest hasn't diminished one bit. The good old Bulldog spirit - but in my case a wiry Schnauzer. Stay tuned!

Operation Blackberry or, Destruction of Cat City

The long awaited Operation Blackberry finally went underway last week. Basically, Parsley and I set about drastically cutting back all the brambles that were surrounding the plot. Satan had truly had his way with the berries by this point, as for the most part they were shriveled and inedible.

I went to it with customary brio, yet in the true way of nature vs nurture, I felt divided. All this from someone who was ready to nuke the lot! For the most part I was using my telescopic loppers - yes they are as awesome as they sound, even if it's not the technical term for them. As some of the thorny stems were so thick and buried it took good old Python power to hack them up. Otherwise we were getting in with the secateurs. Make no mistake it's a messy job. Sir Cakealot had forewarned me in a scene that unfolded not entirely unlike this :

Sir Cakealot brings three steaming goblets of tea to his round table where he's holding council with his wife Lady Masters and his aide Sir Edward of Wakefield.

Sir Cakealot : 'Hark, Sir Edward. M'lady tells me you are set to tackle the veritable beast that is the bramble bush on yonder.'

Sir Edward : 'T'is true me Lord, I have about my person the very weapons by which I shall best the beast,' so saying Sir Edward arrays before him an axe, throwing knives & c.

Sir Cakealot : 'Hmmm, you may need more than that, there are wild cats about, the Manx sort as I have heard; the brambles are as steel and will whip and gouge at the merest provocation too. Look,' Sir Cakealot draws back the sleeves of his tunic and displays an impressive array of white scars, small lacerations offset by coiled serpentine wounds.

Sir Edward : 'Ha, t'is but sport sir! Let us see what the day brings.'

Lady Masters : 'Grow up.'

I ignored the pain of getting my arms shredded. Even with a jumper on I was pockmarked by the cat tooth sharpness of some of the thorns. It was like a jungle, a dense canopy of old, dead leather brown stems and the hardy youth of the emerging new ones. The cutting back was addictive though, so we kept going, amassing some three or four giant piles of thorny detritus.

Sir Cakealot brought magnums over at around four o' clock. That gave me some much needed energy and I went ape with a rake, smashing down and pulling up bramble city aka cat city. The felines love it in there, what with frogs, rats and mice. That or they're just being weirdos.

In the meantime, I shall mostly be admiring my own collection of small scars. It's like a tally of how many bramble kills I've made. I'm not violent, honest.

A good days work makes for a bit o' the old two thumbs fresh.

I ♡ Petrol Strimmers

For Kate, this was the day we achieved the most on the allotment. I coaxed up other examples - the great 1664 shift, building the compost bins, laying down the GLYCO/glypho. But in the end I think she was right. Just look at the progress we've made :

Awesome! At last it feels like we're making some proper headway.

It started late, as we were procrastinating largely, and I had to head to the dreaded Kings Heath Sainsbury's which barely ever seems to be quiet. It fills me with dread, worse than going to the dentist or a Westlife special on ITV. So I was glad to get out of there and down to the allotment, fully tooled up with huge reams of plastic, a fork, the petrol strimmer + cables for chopping. We worked out we hadn't been in three and a bit weeks so we were eager to go.

There was a setback / bonus in that all our rubbish had been shifted from the bottom of the allotment. Trouble was we still had tonnes of carpet and other bits to dump - essentially we were hoping for one giant shift. But it wasn't to be! Maybe if we're really lucky we can get the council to shift the second batch, but it looks like a gruesome prospect. The spirit of Ian is still playing tricks on us it seems.

Nonetheless it was a beautiful day, mellow sun and full wildlife activity, including a stoned out Gigasmethwick. I started out in the stress mode, looking around bewildered at the amount we had given ourselves, but as soon as I started peeling back the carpet and seeing how effective the weedkiller had been, I was 'becalmed'. As ever worry was banished by a bit of the old GET ON WITH IT mentality. As we only had one rake, I went back to get my hideous lime green Wilko one, in the process making an earl grey for Kt (Parsley) and swaddling the cup in cling film to keep it hot on the way back. It's pretty handy living two minutes away from paradise.

Once I'd eaten I managed to apply myself properly. Kt taught me how to start the petrol strimmer - it's not as easy at it sounds haha. Maybe it would've helped if I hadn't been so sarcastic about how to turn the button to on, and then completely forgetting to do so as I was furiously pulling the rip cord to no effect. What a machine. When it was working I felt like Hephaestus yielding one of his creations, ploughing through the grass like a reaper, with dock leaf juice splatting me in the face, or sharp stubs of dried grass whizzing past my ears. Health & Safety would've had a fit as I wasn't wearing goggles, but to be honest it was the pythons I was more worried about. The ache came from the weight of the strimmer and the vibrations passing through my hands. When I stopped - and that was often, my hands were tingling so bad I felt like I'd just been wrestling with an electric eel. I roared with boyish glee. But then ol' Petrol head decided he didn't want to work for two hours, so I went flip mode and raked off surplus grass with a Samson like fury. We built up a healthy sized pile of glypho - hay near the rear end of the plot. As we'd been clearing a lot of the paths that surrounded the plot, we had a much clearer idea of where we could start digging, with the advantageous prospect of not having our ankles buckled by potholes or hidden bumps. It was really starting to come together.

Jake came over for a while and attacked the blackberry bushes to free up our apple trees. I likened him to Sir Cakealot as he was jousting the brambles with a rake and a spade. He made surprising headway. I was perpetually referring to the myth of Satan pissing on the blackberry bushes as a reason for the shriveled berries see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackberry and look under superstition and myths. Sir Cakelot also tried his hand at getting the strimmer started, throwing down the gauntlet when it just wouldn't start.

The Cider apples :) The Crabs :s

We kept going. The bulldog spirit was never more alive! My left shoulder was killing so I figured I'd pulled a muscle. Took it easy for a little while then we decided to give the strimmer one last go. It proved to be a productive decision. That baby roared into life and I did the longest strim of the day! Managed to suppress most of the grass on the top half of the plot, moving slowly down to batter the rest and swell an already huge pile of hay - which I flattened slightly by a couple of massive elbow drops. Sir Cakealot was too knightly and had his best armour on so he looked like he was fainting like a damsel when he attempted said wrestling move.

My pythons were weeping but I ploughed on as Parsley raked for her life. We wound up some time around 5.30, recovering the areas we'd strimmed with a combination of the plastic and carpet. Just like Kate said we need to get the ground HOT AND SMELLY. Haha! Proper little sweat shop going on. With an abundance of bricks we secured the coverings, most of which will be left for over winter. Next week we will cut back the brambles - FINALLY! And maybe start some tentative digging. Today really was an eye opener and progress though slow has never been more steady. G unit for lyf (life).

Mole Hammer Blend

For the first time since the wedding, Kate and I worked on her lush garden. It started with digging around the wall in Peggerrr's garden. I hadn't been long at it when the tree stump (in the advanced stages of rotting) gave way like an old molar, and beams of prismatic light shone through the heavens! Haha. I'm exaggerating, but only a little bit. I stood there with my foot on the trunk thinking there were a million worse states to be in at 9.45 am. Carried on shifting more dirt until some builders came along (who will be damp-proofing & c.), a genial father and son combo, who told me I should leave the stones in for drainage. You learn something every day.

After a cup of tea, I divided the felled stump with a bow saw, using a grub and mattock to smash the hell out of what remained. All I needed was a white vest and a can of diet coke and my ascension to hunk status would've been assured. Instead I had a rugged barnet, lynx Africa jumper and Howard from Take That jeans. But I was happy.

More teas later and after some 'lish sandwiches we got to forking over the large corner section of the garden that housed the marquee for the marriage. This was to prepare for a turf delivery. She had considered sowing grass seeds but the terrorists (Tinker & Eric, resident loon cats) would've voided their bums and not though twice of ruining a best laid plan.

The soil was a lovely rich guinness colour, and largely devoid of perennial weeds, as we'd done such an A team job of suppressing them the first time round. Kate had demarcated the area she wanted the turf to go up to, allowing space for the chiminea and seats. It's a wicked feeling to sit around with a tartan blanket, supping and talking like hoboes. Cold season coming people.

This took us up to about 5 o' clock, as we'd also had a visit from Kate's parents, Alan and Sandy - their first mention in a while! Both Kate and I agreed it had been a good day's work, and our energy was high. In fact I was buzzing for many hours afterwards, not least because, against the odds, one of my plants had flowered after the stem had been shorn and I had pretty much given it up for dead. Now that's what I'm talking about. When in doubt, stake it!

Here's a recap on some of the G UNIT sayings we've been volleying since February.

• Piggin' and a diggin' (on a Saturday night).
• Duncan Hammertime (Duncan Bannatyne)
• Theo the foetus (Theo Paphitis)
• T Pain (Peter Jones -> T Bone -> T Pain, naturally)
• What the f***k are you doing ED?
• SMETHWICK (nickname for Eric)
• WINKS (nickname for Tinker)
• Mo' Hammer Head
• Mo' Hammer Blend
• Glyco
• Insanely false laughter Haaaa
• 'I don't know what's happening in the rest of the world, but this garden is f*cking wicked.'
• Tea?
• Put a donk on it.
• G UNIIIIIT! (This was even screamed during wedding speeches.)

Plenty more where that came from HAAAAAAAAAA.