November and the coldest, wettest and windiest summer on record, is behind us. Very early on I said that Autumn was on its way as all the elderberry fruit ripened early and the bean plants in my garden stopped growing. all the flowers germinated but the small bean failed to grow.
Tag: Jimper’s Jottings
Jimper’s Jottings
2014 and already our food growers are wondering what is going on. The second week of January saw my gooseberry bushes bursting their buds to form leaves. A blackbird built its nest in the ivy on an old damson tree and laid four blue speckled eggs. All the mallard duck were paired off by the end of the month, as the shooting season closed a good month off other years. In my wild-bird seed mix a certain brand includes peas, even in January, any of the peas that fell to the ground and were not eaten by the pheasants started to sprout. Continue reading Jimper’s Jottings
Jimper’s Jottings
A stroll around Rye today is completely different from the same walk fifty years ago. Today you have to look in the window or at the sign above to know what they sell. In my young days you knew where you were by the smell. Every shop had a distinctive aroma. Continue reading Jimper’s Jottings
Jimper’s Jottings
THINGS LONG AGO
Once on Romney Marsh not so long ago, it was a very unhealthy place to live. There was a dreaded thing that was called the Ague, a disease we now know was a type of malaria, caused by the mosquito which lived in the water that covered a lot of the flat land. The local remedy for the Ague was said to be to swallow a spider, whole, wrapped up in its own web. The sheer thought of doing so must have made many people suddenly recover from the illness rather than take the cure! Continue reading Jimper’s Jottings
Hastings Paddle Steamer
Jimper’s Jottings
Keeping diaries like I have I suppose has helped me to write as I do. Every night, no matter how late it was, I always wrote the day’s events down in ink or pencil.
Continue reading Hastings Paddle Steamer
Jimper’s Jottings
By JIMPER’S JOTTINGS February 2007
Winter is now behind us and as the days become noticeable longer, we have the heat of summer to look forward to. You may wonder why I think of February as the end of winter for we can still have snow and ice for as the old saying goes, ‘As the days lengthen so the cold strengthens’. I am not alone in thinking summer is not far away. Continue reading Jimper’s Jottings
Jimper’s Jottings
Let the wind blow and the rain fall, we desperately need it. January was one of the warmest on record and very dry to boot. Most of the moisture in that month fell as snow and that evaporated rather than thawed. The absence of wind reinforces the fact that is staring us in the face, this Earth, the globe we all call home, is heating up. Iv’e said it before and will say it again, the time will soon come when men will be fighting over fresh water to drink, soon there will not be enough to go around. Continue reading Jimper’s Jottings
Jimper’s Jottings
So much for the Arctic weather the experts told us of, one short snap of frost and that’s your lot, there is an old saying; Ice in November to bear a duck, the rest of the winter slush and muck. Continue reading Jimper’s Jottings
Jimper’s Jottings
Each year now we suffer from gales of wind in the summer, a thing not thought of thirty years ago. Now, the autumn gales seem not to materialise. It is after the New Year gets a month old that the gales roar in bringing what rain we are likely to get. ‘February Fill Dyke’ was a thing to be relied on but now I would not place money on it. Continue reading Jimper’s Jottings
Jimper’s Jottings
An article appeared in the press the other day complaining of all the smoke from the house chimneys in the countryside owing to the open log fires that are all the rage with the new life people. How the do gooders forget that once all the country depended on fire to make this England great. Continue reading Jimper’s Jottings