New job

My new job rocks. The people are really nice, and it's a pleasant place to work. It was a little weird shopping in my home town for lunch. I felt kind of furtive. But all good. I get paid to look after plants, which is like paying bears to fertilise their surrounding tree population.

I'll try and keep this one going with my old job until next spring, I reckon. I might also have the option of some landscaping work. If I could do a small amount of that, I could drop my old job in the Spring, pick up more gardening and freelance stuff next year and see how things all pan out. Myabe move onto something more career-ish in a couple of years when the Ben goes to nursery.

This is the first time my work has felt good for many years.

Garden - miscellaneous wibblings

My plans for the year in my garden are:

- To finish the herbaceous border
- To grow potatoes in tubs with catch crops on top
- to organise my vegetable production
- to shoo away some of the bark chips and spot plant some prairie style grasses

That last one was something I've been planning for a while, but was signed and sealed by the Around the World in 80 gardens last night - the prairies there were really inspirational, and I'd love something like that in my garden, interespresed with shorter meadow grass so Ben can play next year.

The TV series is a little patchy IMO. I was really looking forward to it because I thought Monty Don was rock'n'roll, and my opinion of him has been tarnished slightly but his butt-kissing in places. But I don't really go along with most of the criticism I've read about him being a bit of a poseur. I think he's a posh bloke, with some affected daffiniess, but I also think he's genuinely enthusiastic about gardens, and I like that.

Mine and 0ct0pus' 20-year plan is now to see octomule to adulthood, then get round-the-world tickets and visit aquaria and gardens for a year or two.