Moan, moan, moan----get it off your chest or have a chat

[Lesley Cox]

You mean E B Anderson is actually alive and well and living in Slovakia after all this time?

[Martin Baxendale]

More and more worrying. They've obviousy got the kids too!

[Anthony Darby]

 

[Martin Baxendale]

Well, the family are back from Slovakia and insist they weren't at any kind of training camp. But they did tell me a joke that's doing the rounds in Slovakia re. increasing tensions between Russia and some of its neighbours, including some former Warsaw Pact states like Poland and Ukraine, and Russian/NATO tensions: 

It's about a Slovak optimist, a Slovak Pessimist and a Slovak realist. The Slovak optimist is learning English, the pessimist is learning Russian, and the realist is learning to shoot.

I suppose it takes a long time to forget so many years of effective Russian occupation following the Prague Spring in 68.

[mark smyth]

I like it!

[tonyg]

I used to tune in to the yes I'm so happy thread if I needed cheering up .... but the best laughs are definitely in the moan moan moan thread
Keep up the good work one and all!

[Rodger Whitlock]

You mean E B Anderson is actually alive and well and living in Slovakia after all this time?

On the assumption that we have some younger members who don't recognize the name "E. B. Anderson", a few words.

Anderson was a very eminent English rock gardener, and a specialist in small bulbs. He wrote seven books:

Rock Gardens (RHS-Penguin Handbook)
Camellias
Dwarf Bulbs for the Rock Garden
Gardening on Chalk and Limestone
Hardy Bulbs 1 (RHS-Penguin Handbook)
Seven Gardens or Sixty Years of Gardening (posthumous)
The small rock garden (Pan "Small Garden" series)

The two on bulbs, in my opinion, laid the foundation of the modern enthusiasm for dwarf bulbs, a foundation on which Brian Mathew erected his famous book "Dwarf Bulbs" and really got the ball rolling. Patrick Synge's "Collins Guide to Bulbs" is from about the same time as Anderson's two bulb titles, but did not have the same influence.

Anderson organized and ran the first AGS seed exchanges around 1950; as  a bulb connoisseur, he issued a fatwa against the contribution of seed of Tullipa sprengeri because of its weedy tendencies!

His books are all long out of print but second hand copies are readily available, and well worth acquiring.

[Lesley Cox]

He was also a wonderful correspondent to a newly addicted NZ teenager, in the 1960s.

And of course was the breeder of Iris 'Katharine Hodgkin' (Iris histrioides 'Major' x I. winogradowii, though he recorded the cross as I. danfordiae as the pollen parent), named for the wife of his friend Eliot Hodgkin

[Anthony Darby]

This is fascinating stuff.

[t00lie]

[quote author=Lesley Cox

And of course was the breeder of Iris 'Katharine Hodgkin' (Iris histrioides 'Major' x I. winogradowii, though he recorded the cross as I. danfordiae as the pollen parent), named for the wife of his friend Eliot Hodgkin
[/quote]

And this is how it looked here this morning after a light frost.

Cheers dave

[David Lyttle]

And very nice it looked when I saw it this morning with the little Cladonia lichen in the background though I think Dave's garden will look even better when all of his 7,500 trilliums  come into bloom.

[t00lie]

David

You are a bit too heavy with your figure of 7500--let me correct that straight away........

7499

Cheers dave.

[Anthony Darby]

hi, I just cannot found the right place!!
I take up some Hungarian poems in English on my site
and here is some ladscape to know better my place

My apologies, but I had to smile at the typo "ladscape". That is what a couple of selfish yobs are doing to the woodland paths near me and also the public footpath up to Sheriffmuir from Dunblane. They are digging up turf and rearranging it, along with various logs, and pushed over dead trees to make a bicycle 'steeplechase'  course that runs for miles. It makes walking the dog in the evening at this time of year treacherous! I contacted the police but they didn't want to know. When I suggested walkers and joggers could trip over these in the dark. The reply was everyone carries a torch and would see them! Hands up those people who have seen a jogger with a torch? No-one? Thought so! I guess the seat at the other end of the phone was too comfortable? A jogger (without a torch) and I dismantled one stretch, but the two idiots were back the next day as I saw them walking down from the woods with a big shovel. The names were given to Central Scotland police, but I got the feeling I was punching fog as they were not interested, so lads, feel free to destroy the countryside. You have Central Scotland police's blessing.

[Anthony Darby]

Went into Dunblane to visit the bank. Nothing unusual in that, you may think? I then spotted a local 'worthy' standing with a bag of clothes outside the dry cleaners opposite the bank. He pointed to the sign on the door: "Closed Monday 7/9/09 due to bank holiday"! My next visit was the Post Office to post some packets of plants and seeds. Yes, you've guessed. The Post Office was closed due to bank holiday! Funny that, as last Monday we had no post to day we did, and the box opposite my house has been emptied twice today already! Today is NOT a bank holiday, but the schools are shut. It is not even a council holiday as our bin was emptied! Very curious.

[johnw]

Went into Dunblane to visit the bank. Nothing unusual in that, you may think? I then spotted a local 'worthy' standing with a bag of clothes outside the dry cleaners opposite the bank. He pointed to the sign on the door: "Closed Monday 7/9/09 due to bank holiday"! My next visit was the Post Office to post some packets of plants and seeds. Yes, you've guessed. The Post Office was closed due to bank holiday! Funny that, as last Monday we had no post to day we did, and the box opposite my house has been emptied twice today already! Today is NOT a bank holiday, but the schools are shut. It is not even a council holiday as our bin was emptied! Very curious.

Anthony

Is it not Labour Day in the UK?   It is a holiday here, everything is closed and not even a newspaper today.

Do you have a Labour Day?  I suppose you don't have a Victoria Day there either!

johnw