Greenfinger

It would be a lie to claim I have always been green-fingered. On the contrary the only plant I bothered to look after as a child was a tiny squat cactus that sat on my bedroom window sill, which I occasionally remembered to water with a capful of a Smarties tube top. This seems now to be a rather meagre amount, even for a desert dweller, and probably accounts for its eventual demise. What my mum did out in the edges of the garden, causing plants of various kinds to exist, was a mystery to me and I was happy for it to remain so. The only time I interacted with these leafy things was when my ball ended up within them and I had to tiptoe in without crushing anything, ideally.

Now I have slightly more right to claim to have verdant digits, or more accurately dirt-encrusted and callused digits. Not that all my plants grow well, by any means, but I am at least giving it a go and trying to learn from my mistakes.

Saw this on a walk in a nearby woodland. No idea what it is. Any ideas?

Could you say those with an aptitude for all things mechanical have metallic-grey-fingers? If so then I have yet to acquire that particular hue. The mechanical things in my life take great pleasure in stopping doing the one thing it is they have been created to do, forcing me to spend hours struggling and often failing to fix them.

Example one - the flat back tyre on my bike. It's a new tyre from a couple of months ago but somehow a paper clip punctured it and the inner tube. Removing the wheel was fairly easy but getting the tyre off the wheel with these useless plastic tyre levers was impossible. I had to resort to a screwdriver eventually, and in doing so punctured the inner tube further - a fact I only realised later when my spare inner tube turned out not to fit and I tried to patch the original tube with a puncture repair kit. Every time I patched a hole, let the glue dry and pumped the tube up, air hissed out of another hole. I've resorted to ordering new inner tubes of the right diameter and new tyre levers, and am hoping not have a whole lot of new grief getting the tube and tyre back on when they arrive.

Example two - the chainsaw that doesn't saw. Over winter it was the chainsaw that wouldn't start until I paid a chainsaw expert to fix it. He said there was water in the engine. Now it starts but barely saws - it starts cutting through the log but fails to get through more than an inch. I've sharpened the chain twice, it's on the right way round, the engine seems to be revving properly, I just have no idea what's going on. The chain and bar had been used on a Pilsdon chainsaw over the winter so maybe it got damaged somehow then (by me - I was the only one with a licence). I am thinking it may have to be a new chain.

Millions of little pheasants! Welcome to my land.

When I get tired of being frustrated by mechanical objects I can opt to get frustrated by more intangible things, such as government officials attempting to stop me doing what I'm doing. My planning application for the polytunnel and greenhouse, submitted nearly five months ago, is still not decided. The Highways Agency are still maintaining that they cannot allow new development on my land due to the substandard nature of my access, and so are directing refusal to my planning officer who actually disagrees and would approve it if she could. I found a clause in the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges (DMRB) which states that on trunk roads with a 40mph limit it is the Local Planning Authority who make planning decisions, not the Highways Agency. As my stretch of A458 is on a 40mph limit (albeit a long-term temporary limit) I pointed this out to the Highways Agency who claimed that this clause means that the planners get to choose whether to contact the Highways Agency or not - in my case they have, and the Highways Agency say no way Jose. But this isn't actually what the clause says, and my planning officer is inclined to agree with me - she's going to look into it more closely and get back to me. 

All I'm trying to do is grow a few vegetables.

The first courgette flower