Coffee...

Hello good morning perhaps I should say good afternoon perhaps this finds you in the evening in which case I hope that is good too. Today I find myself with an intense pressure headache clouding my vision and my thoughts. I feel like a drug addict. The reason I describe myself in that way is that I think I am suffering withdrawal symptoms from an evil coffee I discovered in the market from the eccentric ee's and wizz man on the first stall to your left as you come from the entrance by the market tavern. I could, if I were that way inclined, develop a conspiracy theory about this man and what he has put in his coffee. Because Rich and I do have a theory that this chap is a leftover from the 60s, wearing long baggy black robes, a shaggy mane, a straggly beard, and a strange faraway, never quite ready to make the connection with the person he is talking to, kind of an expression, giving the impression that maybe he had too much orgiastic sex and took too many drugs in the 60s, leaving him to live out the remaining decades just a little bit zombified. Anyway, he has a shelf stacked with jars of coffee beans and being an experimental sort of a person - sometimes - I thought, ooh, Turkish coffee, extra strong, extra dark, sounds good. Of course I knew in the same moment that it also sounded dangerous to one with such a delicate consitution as myself, but as is so often the case when one's sensible side is up against one's sensory desires, the little sensible fairy sitting on my right shoulder was ignored, went off in a sulk, and all I can guess is that she is now getting me back. Because I kept having really bad sleep last week, and I thought to myself what is the reason for this, and some instinctive knowledge popped up inside whispering that it was that extra dark extra strong Turkish coffee. And I didn't have any this morning, at all, not even any other kind of coffee, and that's why I think my head feels like exploding. I may be wrong. But just in case my cookie theories aren't entirely half-cock, I cycled into the nearest town and bought some less strong dark coffee.

You will have noticed that my usually colourful entry has been entirely black and unvaried thus far. It is a reflection of my dopey state that I didn't even think of giving you a little colour until now. And the reason I have introduced some colour in this new paragraph, is to signify a different intent. I actually began my blog wanting to share with you - as promised - some of the plantings in my garden. But, as is so often the case, when I began writing, some other force took over and a stream of coffee consciousness ensued. I was actually hoping to post a picture with my last blog, but as I am new to these things, I have to confess that I couldn't manage to do it until my personal wizard faxed me the necessary coding, which, now that I have at my disposal, I intend to use, ah yes, it is true.



So at first I thought this might be a beetroot. I have a great fondness for beetroots, and have just delighted to discover a Polish recipe for beetroot with venison, which I randomly decided to experiment with given the proximity of a Teesdale game counter to the excellent cheese counter in the market, which has the virtue of letting you try before you buy and even if you don't, but I wasn't so cheeky. Anyway, the point is that this isn't really a beetroot, I think it is more likely to be a swedey turnipy type thing - Lou help me out here, you're better with all forms of vegetation than me!!!

Actually the point wasn't really what kind of a vegetable it was, more that this particular vegetable was planted amidst the neatest, bulging-with-health-iest rows of vegetables I have ever seen, in the most exuberantly colourful flower-blooming garden I have ever seen, in a tiny ruined house opposite the well-preserved castle at the far end of the Holy Island of Lindisfarne.





And we weren't expecting to find it, my fellow travellers and I, but there it was, apparently famous, due to the renown of the horticultural architect who had originally designed and planted what we had come across within those four wind-wracked walls. Gertrude Jeckell I think she's called. And I can only imagine that the plants thrive so beautifully because of the rich salt soaked air from the sea gusting through those sweet peas,





real peas,



ox-eyed daisies,



and cornflowers.



But it was lovely, quite lovely. Whilst Rich and Dave sat, marginally disinterested, on a bench





by the sundial,




Lou and I absorbed ourselves in an effusion of flowers.

The end.