Runners in Crystal Palace

Known for its Athletics track, Crystal Palace is now host to a few more permanent runners in the shape of my beans, which got a good planting out yesterday. There's a definite 'Allotment Chic' look coming to the Sprouts garden now, with a wall of bamboo canes and bits of string standing tall and making it look incredibly ramshackle. I like the look though. Kind of a zen garden gone british, if you see what I mean - although my patch is a bit too lumpy to create rake patterns. The closest I get to them is when cats use my plot as a toilet and dig me nice little holes.

I'm a petrolhead. It's official

I became a petrolhead last week. Ok, so it was only for about 15 mins, but even so it was exciting. I used the petrol strimmer to trim our garden around the Sprouts plot, and suddenly I was away, loving the throttle and the smell of burning fuel. What a feeling power is!

Of course, I left a nice patch of tall grass and wilderness as a little wildlife sanctuary, so it wasn't all death and destruction. Even so, i was ready to get out the chainsaw, find myself a monster truck, and become a bona fide ROAD HOG.

And then I woke up with a spot on the end of my nose. My new found ability to wreak shock and awe was cut down in a second...

From sprouts to Volkswagens

In our efforts to be green, we've taken the next step up the ladder and bought a camper van. It's an early 80s VW - in green, of course - and will have us pootling around England over the coming year. Now, in all honesty, it does eat petrol like a total fiend, but I think it's better in many ways than flying all over the shop just to hang out on a beach with lots of annoying english folk. Might as well camp with them in Britain and be shot of it, that's what i say.

So with all the greenness that now exists out the front of my house, what's been going on out the back? The rhubarb, raspberries and blueberries are all coming along a treat. I've got rows of lettuce seedlings and rocket sprouting up too. Very little else has made its way into the ground, but that will soon change with the planting of courgettes and tomatoes.

And finally we've had some rain! So probably, next time i pop out the slugs and snails will have stripped my plot bare. I guess you have to give them their due, if they can cope with the horrid conditions, then they're better men than me. Or gastropods... or hermaphrodites... or whatever they are...