Tomatoes

I've not had a lot of luck with tomatoes this year. I have three plants in the mini-greenhouse and they have produced about 20 tomatoes between them! So I was quite pleased when I saw that my cherry tomato Tumbling Tom, which is in a basket stand (about 4 feet high) starting producing masses of little cherry tomatoes.

Fast forward to a few days ago, when I kept finding my little Cairn Terrier, Maisie, playing with little green cherry tomatoes. 'Oh No' I thought 'the cherry tomatoes are dropping, they must be sickly for some reason'. I checked and watered and fed and hoped.

Then I looked out of the window yesterday and saw.... Maisie standing on her hind legs picking the damn tomatoes right off the plant.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Lighten Up!

Why is there so much bile and negativity in the world?

Over the past few days I have been really depressed by some of the things I have heard and read.   Let's take Earth Hour for a start.   A truly harmless initiative that at best gives global warming and our wasteful lifestyles a higher profile and at worst gets people to switch off a few gadgets for an hour and save a little energy.   Yet, I have been shocked, nay flabbergasted, at the level of bile spewed out on the subject on Digg/Twitter/etc.  Some comments were undoubtedly written with tongue firmly in cheek, but others were poisonous, hateful and thoroughly depressing.   What in our society can possibly breed that kind of individual?   

Similarly, the subject of Twitter and blogging (micro or otherwise), has been much in the news of late.   The reaction has been generally one of extremes, either a mass media jumping onto the bandwagon (See Sunday Observer where they have published their challenge to a number of celeb chefs to tweet a favourite recipe in 140 character or less), or, at the other extreme an editorial in the self same newspaper of such patronising twaddle it quite put me off one of my favourite Sunday morning journos.     I quote from Barbara Ellen's sunday opinion (to which obviously she is entitled) on bloggers/tweeters  "Every generation throws them up - painful, self-promoting bores, uber-narcissists to the nth degree, so fascinated by their every dreary, pointless move they can't believe we're not".   Now to be fair, she was mostly complaining about Celebrity bloggers, in particular Ashten Kutcher and Demi Moore, but nevertheless, by association, she means us.

I pause here to wonder whether she has for a moment considered herself as a pot, going into print to call the kettle black, as before she got her more prestigious main section of the Sunday Observer Opinion Column, she made her living doing the intro section of the free colour supplement.  Her column, in the main, consisted of either celebrity gossip/condemnation/envy, or more generally, writing about what kind of a day, week, holiday she was having.  

If this kind of columnist thinks it is OK to be paid to write and believe that we are interested enough to read - how is that different? 

And while I'm in rant mode, some of the stuff I have seen on line about Jade Goody has been unbelievable.  Now for those who don't know, Jade was a young woman, ill educated and from the wrong side of the tracks, who was famous for... well...just being famous.   She appeared on reality shows and was constantly in the media for no reason whatsoever.  I will honestly say, I considered her to be a vile, loud-mouthed, attention seeker.  However, last year she was diagnosed with Cervical Cancer and last week she died.  No matter what my opinion of a person, I would not wish that on anyone.   Some of the hate mail, conspiracy theories and general nastiness I have encountered over the past few weeks regarding Ms Goody has been beyond comprehension.   Rest in peace Jade and well done for making enough money to ensure your children's future.

So people if you only do one thing today - BE NICE!

Brief Encounter

This will indeed be a brief encounter.  I haven't posted for a week, have been battling with a tooth abscess, rattling with pills and working working working.  Also doing lots of piano practice as my Grade 3 exam is on wednesday (Aaargh!!).  But I will update properly soon - promise.  Just managed to find a few minutes to get on my macbook and figure out what the flip is wrong with Twitpic.  The email service is down/flakey and nothing I have uploaded from my phone has worked all week, so have just had a manic update session downloading the pics from phone to laptop and then posting them all on Twitpic from there.

Normal service will resume soon. 

Toodle-00!

Tooth Torment

No I didn't drop off the edge of the world for two days, what I did was broke a tooth and developed an abscess.  I now look like lopsided hamster as one side of my face is very swollen (and no I will not post a picture!).   At home this morning waiting to go to the dentist.  "Come at 11.55 and 'bear with us' someone will see you".  So lord knows how long I will have to wait.   I got about 2 hours sleep last night and so am extremely grumpy this morning.   So this is why there have been no posts, no twitpiccing, and no tweeting.  I have just been too grumpy to play.

Now I have to wait two hours to before I can go to the dentist and I can't get on with any work as I was not expecting to be home today and therefore left my work laptop at the office.  

To be honest, I feel like life is beating me over the head with a rolled up newspaper at the moment.  In november, whilst on holiday, I hurt my back - big style.   A bi-laterally prolapsed disc no less.  Agony - particularly on the plane home.   This left me pretty immobile and miserable until well after Christmas, but just as I was perking up again, I went down with a particularly aggressive chest infection and spent most of February at home ill.  (That's when I had the time to discover Twitter, start my blog, etc).   Then spring and March arrive and I finally seem to be getting back to normal and POW I break a damn tooth and end up looking like a deranged chipmunk.  Oh don't I feel sorry for myself.

Stop it!  There are far more people in the world far worse off.  

Friday the 13th was Comic Relief Day.  For those who don't know it is a fund raising day held every two years, originally started by a bunch of british comedians and writers.   The build up goes on for months and culminates in a day of comedy antics, special shows, documentary information about the causes they support and fundraising.   This year they were particularly hoping to be able to buy a million mosquito nets to protect children in Africa, thousands of whom die every year from Malaria, mostly under the age of 5.  They were also supporting providing medical care and malaria medication.  They also support charities in the UK working to prevent child abuse, supporting child carers, providing respite care facilities, youth training activities and more and more.  It really is a fantastic charity with every penny going to causes and not to administration costs.   Fundraising includes everything from celebrities climbing Kilimanjaro to ordinary folk being sponsored to shave their heads or jump out of planes at 40,000 feet.

In this year of global economic crisis, most expected that the total raised would not be as high as previous events.   But no, not so.  God Bless the British Public and British commercial world.   By Sunday the total was at £59 million and money is still pouring in.  It restores my faith in mankind, it really does.

If you want to know more or even, would like to add to the funds, you can find more information HERE   

BTW Comic Relief is also known as Red Nose Day (follow the link to understand why) so for those Tweeters out there wondering why so many peoples pictures had red noses on them - now you know.

Wish me luck at the Dentist.