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Broadly Speaking a Has-Bean

26/6/2015

That's the broad beans planted out for another year...

Anne planted a few broad bean plants this year as per usual. We never go mad as I'm not their greatest fan. It looks like we needn't have bothered for Shropshire has gone broad bean blinking crazy. The field opposite us is just one of loads around that is crammed full of thousands of swaying white-flowered sentinels with not a black-fly in sight. A back of an envelope calculation settles on at least a million plants in that field alone. And in this unexpected advert for industrial pesticides everywhere they are standing at least five feet tall and proud, and seem to have attracted an orchestra of skylarks plus a green woodpecker (on timpani).

Not to be outdone by the Earl of Stafford and his agribusiness stooges, Anne tends her sixteen small plants daily with organic love and care. I can only assume she bought the dwarf variety...

Flipping 'eck Teasel, the chard has well and truly Usain Bolted...

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I Would Walk 1200 Miles......................well, no I wouldn't..

25/6/2015

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I fell in step with a young hiker this morning along the path to Evelith Mill. She was carrying a rucksack and tent and striding out. I asked her where she was headed and she said Penkridge. I said that's a good walk. She said 18 miles - she'd come from Ironbridge this morning - and was actually on her way from Land's End to John O' Groats.

My first thought was – blimey you're lost – but she assured me she wasn't. Apparently she was following a book which planned the route as scenically as possible. She was taking 12 weeks in total and was nearing the end of her fifth. I asked how she'd found the people along the way. She said they'd been really friendly. Last night she had arrived at the Ironbridge Youth Hostel only to find it fully booked and a passing woman had simply offered her a bed for the night.

We parted company at Evelith Mill and she strode off in what seemed to me entirely the wrong direction but which of course wasn't. You'd think meeting an End to Ender for the first time ever would have put a spring in my step but on my weary way I plodded, feeling mighty fat and old. Chapeau.

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Broadly Speaking a Has-Bean

I Would Walk 1200 Miles......................well, no I wouldn't..

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