Friday, 10th January, 2004
Off work for a week - lost my voice again!
Too cold - and a bit silly - to go off up to the allotment, so I've spent the time substantially revising the website. I've used CSS - in theory a very neat and simple way of building a site which is easy to maintain; in practice, a bit of a nightmare as so few browsers follow the agreed standards.
Here's hoping it has worked - if you find any problems (they will almost certainly show up in very ugly page layouts, with different boxes all out of synch) please do e-mail me. Let me know what browser you are using, and if possible which page has messed up.
Thank you!
Sunday, 25th January, 2004
The calm before the storm? A gentle, mild afternoon - and I cleared half the fruit bush bed, so badly neglected last year. Now there's an object lesson in where NOT to use half-digested compost!
First sign of rhubarb poking through - so laid a good layer of compost over the top; and the garlic seems to be doing very well, with no gaps anywhere.
It was so pleasant, I worked till well after sunset - yes, spring is on the way, we're getting a twilight again. And as the sliver of the moon and Venus took over the evening sky, I watched a pair of blackbirds - in crystal sharp silhouette against the darkening sky, up in the cherry tree. I'm guessing it was a courtship "dance". It went on for about 10 minutes, him working his way around her with and odd humphy-backed stance, fanning out his tail, coming close and moving out again; she, playing hard to get! Was she interested? Haven't a clue - she flew off into the hedge in the end, with him in hot pursuit! I leave the rest to the imagination.
All the winter bird population seems to be very active today - tits (including a couple of long-tailed tits), wrens, hedge sparrows, robins and pigeons; spring coming? or real bad weather tomorrow?