Sissinghurst Smallholders Show

I had wanted to go to this show all week, but it was looking extremely doubtful if I would be able to go, due to family commitments, so I hadn't even bothered mentioning it to Himself. However family commitments changed slightly on Sunday morning,so I dropped it into the conversation over toast and homemade marmalade, that Hugh (Fernley Whittingstall) would be talking at the show. Appetite whetted (we have watched River Cottage over and over again) and as Himself is currently based only 40 minutes from Sissinghurst, it was a fairly easy decision to make - I am pleased to report.


Daughter in tow (who thinks her Dad and Step Mom are everso slightly mad at the best of times, we set off and managed to get there just as the site was opening. I have always wanted to see the gardens at Sissinghurst but again I didn't manage it - never mind, an excuse to go back on my own while Himself is still working in sunny Kent!

The show wasn't huge, but for me (and himself, after daughter left a couple of hours later to go and visit a friend) we had a lovely day. I managed to hear Hugh talk about his new show that is just finishing filming, and then later in the day we had front row seats to listen to Sarah Raven and Mark Diacono (River Cottage Head Gardener and smallholder himself). There were chickens, pigs, cows, sheep and alpacas - they are so cute - I just wanted to go and cuddle them!





We didn't spend much and had we been more organised would have been able to take a picnic with us. I did however manage to buy some more cheese starter bacteria (we make both soft and hard cheese) and the company I buy from were exhibiting there. Also I found a hand grain grinder that I want to save up for. We make our own bread and I want to go a step further and actually mill the grain ourselves. The company that we spent ages talking to Grains2mill, can provide us with the wheat berries in bulk as well as the grinder. For the moment I will be use up the flour I already have in stock, and maybe with some good ebay sales, I might be able to buy the grinder before Xmas.

Even Sicker

The video footage just shown of an injured half conscious young man, helped to his feet, somewhere in London, and then had his back pack STILL ON HIS BACK looted by two men as he staggered forward, the footage then shows this cockey bastard throwing half the contents that he had looted from the injured young man, over the nearest wall and swagger off with what ever it was he thought was worth keeping.

I wish there was such a thing as a zap gun to send these bastards to the moon where they cant live in a respectable society.

I'm watching my country disintegrating in front of my eyes and I cant do a damn thing, and the government isnt doing a damn thing, just cutting the number of police that we have.........I want out......desert island......just somewhere away from this disrespectful, lack of morals country that we are becoming.

I am sick to my stomach

I am watching the news this evening and I am sick to the very pit of my stomach watching the riots unfolding on the TV. Areas of London, Croydon and now Birmingham.

There is an almighty great big fire in Croydon and I am hoping and praying that there is nobody trapped in that huge burning mess that is filling the screen. Its almost unbelievable what is unfolding minute by minute. How can people be so senseless, how can they be so wicked and so cruel. What are they hoping to achieve by all this????

I dont understand it, its just carnage and organised vandalism and theft. Hard working people are losing their homes, their possessions, their businesses and their livelihoods - it is sick sick sick.

Police, Firemen and paramedics are putting THEIR lives on the line to deal with this mess and they are going to get hurt to.

Sick sick sick bastards, I cant even find words strong enought to express how I feel right now

Take Over

Its been a hard and difficult couple of weeks. The atmosphere at work is at least difficult, at worst depressing and sad. I am watching lovely people still in a state of flux, not knowing if this month, next month, the month after will be their last month at work. A little information has been forthcoming from the new owners, but not a great deal. The majority of people who would be entitled to it, generally seem to want to stay and get their redundancy money, others who haven't been there that long seem resigned to looking around for another job - in an already unsteady market.

My boss, who is lovely, incredibly loyal, incredibly talented and incredibly hard working lady, up until Wednesday was very proactive and firmly believed that the take over could be a good thing for the business long term. We knew that hers and my position and a few others are not mirrored in the 'up north' head office and I think my boss was sort of hoping that we may be kept on to carry out our functions for both sites (Quality and Environmental Management, however after a meeting where my boss very nicely pointed put where the new comp are not legally compliant with a piece of legislation (last date for complying today), she was more or less told to go forth and multiply and they would do what they wanted, even though she pointed out the financial penalty cost, the fines, the risk of prosecution by the environment agency, the loss of business as we would have to declare on tenders that we have been prosecuted etc.

The attitude of the new MD and his technical manager both to my boss and to me today, leave a great deal to be desired and personal skills seem to have by passed both of them. It has left me feeling really sad and also very angry - not for me, but for my boss Claire, she is so talented and has been with our company for 12 years, to be put down the way that she was when all she was doing was her job of advising and protecting the company legally to ensure it meets its environmental obligations was appalling.

I don't think the next few weeks are going to get any easier......

What a Jump !!

On Monday me and Himself popped briefly into Tesco's - not a thing I like doing with Himself in tow, he sees things everywhere we 'need' - such as bags of toffees, poppcorn, crisps, biscuits, if fact if he sees it, well we must 'need' it, so I much prefer him not to come with me, but as we were getting milk for his work, he popped in with me, and nearly had a heart attack at some of the prices !

I think he still thinks that bread is about 15 pence a loaf and his brief whizz round the store was a bit of an eye opener.

I didn't buy anything other than the milk as I had planned to do a shop on my way up to home when I knew I would need to stop for petrol, but in all events I didn't.

I wish I had now ! The butter above, when we went in to Tescos on Monday was 1.10 per block, when I went back to do my shopping on Tuesday it was 1.27 !!!! A 17p jump - prices really are getting scary, they aren't just going up in pennies and tuppences, they really are leaping up in double digits.

I am lucky enough that for the moment I still have some wages coming in before I am laid off and I want to stock the store cupboard as well as I can, but I will be doing it not just to stay ahead of redundancy, but also to try to keep up with these huge price increases

Not such a Good Day....

Yesterday was not one of the better days of my life. I joined the company that I work for just over 6 months ago on a job share position, working three days a week. My boss who I share with is lovely and we get on very very well. I have met some of the loveliest people that live on this planet who work for my company and there is a really great atmosphere there - many of the staff have been there for donkeys years - and even though we are in incredibly difficult economic times, we are making a profit, not a large one by previous years standards, but a profit no less.

Just over 2 months a go we had a series of audits - financial, health and safety and environmental (the latter ones are where come in). We knew that we were possibly up for sale and that as we had been sold to an investment bank a few years ago they wanted to make their money back.

So it was no surprise to us when we were informed 5 weeks ago that we had been bought by a competitor - A German company with a UK manufacturing base 'up North' that as far as we knew was not making a profit, although the German parent company (in Germany did)

The new bosses moved in, briefly, met all the staff and then we saw very little of them until yesterday when they announced that they are shutting our company (3 sites in the Midlands) and are moving everything 'up North' - timescale for the various sites is between Jan next year and December next year.

So effectively although it was nicely worded, nearly 400 hundred people were added to the unemployment figures. Oh they have said that their may be relocation packages, but I cant see many of the folks I work with de-camping their whole families and moving 2 hours away - if indeed they are offered the chance.

So the moral of the story seems to be, if you want to get ahead, buy up your successful competitors with foreign money to gain a well known marked place industry and consign yet another British company to the bin.

So, I am on notice of redundancy, date yet to be decided, but all they have to do is give me a months notice as I haven't been there long. My heart breaks for so many of the people I talked to yesterday, hard working ordinary people who's lives were turned up side down, who had got to go home and tell their families they would be losing, in some cases, their only source of income. As I said, I haven't been there long, but I will sure miss some of these people terribly.

Oh and just when you think it cant get much worse, Himself phoned last night to say that the contract work he had been lucky enough to get a couple of months ago, will now end next week, so both of us could be out of work. Doesn't look good for the mortgage......

Garden Organic Conference

I had a brilliant day today at Garden Organic at Ryton near Coventry. It was the Master Gardener and Master Composter conference and almost 200 fellow MG's and MC's from North and South London, Lincolshire, Norfolk, Leicestershire, York, Hereford and Worcester and Malvern were there. It was so good to be in the company of like minded people and we had some really good speakers, one of whom was incredibly funny.

I also got to meet a lady who's blog I have been reading for a long time, the lovely Compost Woman - it was good to meet her at long last and she is alovely in person as I hoped she would be !

I'm off to bed now - it has been a very very long few days - more about that tomorrow !