A Very Strange Looking Vegetable.

I walked into someones poly-tunnel the other day and I saw the weirdest vegetable I have ever seen.  Do you know what it is?  Apparently its a Tromboncini or Italian squash or Zucchetta.  Sounds like an Italian scooter.  Or perhaps a scooter what an Italian Mod would ride?  

Any way.  The kind grower gave me a Tromboncini to take home, cook and eat.  So I took it home, chopped it up, deseeded and saved a dozen of the seeds to grow next year and got an adult (the wife) to roast it in the oven for yours truly.

It tasted very much like Courgette or Zucchini or Marrow.  It's supposed to be full of vitamins or Viteamins if you live on t'other side of the Atlantic.  

Did you like it Dave?  Hmm...  Not really!  Would you grow it again?  Yes definitely if only for its trellis like growth and its looks like something from Jack and the Beanstalk. Anybody know where the goose that lays the golden egg lives?  

What's the weirdest vegetable you have seen or grown?  

Red Hot Chilli Peppers Grown In Our Polytunnel.

Here are some red hot chilli peppers that the wife grew from seed this year.  Lidl gave away free seed pots earlier in the year.  It's not  been a fantastic summer but it was still warm enough to grow something new and exotic in the polytunnel.

When I went to Germany in 2017 to The Night Of The Prof Festival in Loreley.  I saw posters for The Red Hot Chilli Pipers?  At first I thought I had read the poster wrong.  I later googled The Red Hot Chilli Pipers.  I love this video from Shrewsbury Flower show featuring the band and the amazing lady dancers.  Enjoy!

Kale Grown In The Polytunnel.

I thought I would publish a gardening post today.  We planted some Kale plants in the polytunnel a month or so a go.  Mainly because there was no room in the veg plot/ perennials nursery.  It's normally a winter plant but we're eating ours already.  It's amazing the difference a bit of plastic makes.  It creates its only micro-climate.  We are delighted with our growing results:

I am thinking of getting another polytunnel.  Polytunnels are great even when its raining and your growing season is extended.  Anybody thinking of getting one?  

Ancient Canterbury Buildings And Places Of Interest.

Ancient hospital.

Anybody for Punting?

Outside Sainsbury's.

The Cricketers pub.

The Black Griffin with fabulous hanging baskets!

An ancient milestone near Canterbury on an old coaching route.

A pub named after a saint.

Noticeboard outside of the Quakers meeting place.

Inside Kent Spitfires cricket ground.  We stopped for refreshments.  

A Freehouse from 1372.

A fairly modern inn.  It only dates back to 1500.

Hope you enjoyed my pictures of my recent trip to sunny Kent?

Old Kent Churches, A Famour Author's Grave And The Home Of Rupert The Bear.

I took over two hundred photographs on my recent Kent trip.  Many of them are of old churches.  I often feel like the Poet Philip Larkin in his poem: Church Going.  Yet I have to visit them.  I noticed the National Lottery is funding a lot of preservation and restoration of these ancient ecclesiastical places of worship. So you're not throwing your money away when you go on the lottery.  It helps to preserve ancient building for us and future generations to appreciate.  

St Martins in Canterbury.  The oldest church in the English speaking world.

Joseph Conrads grave in the city cemetery.  The film Apocalypse Now was based on his film The Edge Of
Darkness.

Yet another beautiful Anglican church.  I saw an incredible grave stone.  I think I will have it engraved on mine:  Goodnight. See You In The Morning.  Isn't that beautiful?  It's lovely to think that we will see our loved ones again.  Hope we see our pets too!

The entrance to Canterbury Cathedral.  They wanted twelve pounds fifty admission to the Cathedral.  I didn't bother.  Besides I have visited it before.

Saint Augustines ruined Abbey.

Saw this sign on the side of the Travelodge building in Canterbury.  Rupert Bear's author once lived here.

Westgate Gardens In Canterbury On A Sunshiny Day.

It seems to be raining every day here in Ireland at the moment.  Such a contrast to the eight days of sizzling heat when I was in Kent.  I can't  mow customers grass or my own and the weeds are having a field day.

Oh well.  Here are some  pictures I took from Westgate Gardens in sunny Canterbury.

The gardens were left to the people of Canterbury.  They are a credit to them too.  I believe parks and gardens are living lungs and what a canvas is a garden.  Mother Nature and the gardener paint some lovely pictures together.  Gardens are works of art.

Does anybody know of any new parks or gardens that have been made recently for the public to enjoy?   I noticed workers picking up litter in the park at seven in the morning .  They looked happy like the birds and squirrels enjoying the sunshine.  Wish I had  a  job like that.  

I Never Got To See Jimi Hendrix But I Did See Uli Jon Roth At A New Day Festival.

I finally got to see one of Rock musics greatest guitarists last Sunday.  I featured Uli Jon Roth a couple of blogs posts back.  He was a guitarist in the legendary Scorpions in the nineteen seventies.  

So I got down near the front of the stage to take a photo of the great man.  He speaks very softly and is an amazingly humble person.  Himself and his band played a lot of classic hits and even played All Along The Watch Tower by Jimi Hendrix.  I have seen videos and heard records of this classic.  I think it must have been very close to the original and Jimi would have been proud.

Did you ever see Jimi Hendrix play live?  What was he like?  I've seen some great bands like Rush, Kansas, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Blue Oyster Cult, to name a few.  But Ulri Roth must be up there with some of the worlds greatest musicians.

Here's a video of the song by Uli Jon Roth.

To digress.  I had to show you this flower pot.  Isn't amazing?  It's not like the plastic ones that I have in my garden.  It's a stone carved flower pot masterpiece.  

Just Can't Get Those Rock Songs Out Of My Head.

Living in rural Ireland next to the sea.  One doesn't get much chance of seeing a proper rock group or three these days.  So it was an absolute joy nay priviledge to see a band called Thunderstick at  A New Day Festival last weekend.  

I found two great videos on You Tube of this amazing band.  Earth Mother is firmly stuck playing in the old mental juke box and you will know the second song.  If you get the chance to see this band you will be in for a treat.

When was the last time you heard or saw a band and you couldn't stop playing their music?  

A New Day Festival At Mount Ephraim Gardens In Kent.

I arrived back at eight last night from sunny Kent.  An hard four days camping under trees (never again!), four days in really comfortable accommodation and enjoying three cracking days and nights at A New Day Festival.   Great people, great music and great weather.  Here's some pics for you:

Wonderful flowerpot

A shop in Faversham selling tickets for the festival.

The first band on the Friday:  Zal Cleminson's Sin Dogs.  For me the best band of the festival.  They are brilliant.  Remember the clown in The Sensational Alex Harvey Band?  Zal's your man.  Check out this band.

 A wonderful Nepeta, "Catmint" specimen of a plant.

More bands

Hawlords.  Ex Hawkwind members.  Space Rock at its finest.

 Sweet.

More bands.

Two lovely ponies