The season of mellow fruitfulness may be a way off yet but the season of vegetarian self-sufficiency is approaching fast. Yesterday evening for example supper consisted of a traditional Greek cheese and spinach pie except that, instead of the spinach, Douglas used a xorta (weed) from the garden. There is a considerable variety of edible weeds on Crete, you see the old girls picking them by the roadside and this one, given to us by our friend, Joanne Biddle, is very like spinach but with a much nicer flavour. On the whole I don’t go for the xortas, I find them bitter; this one I can take. I suppose the English do eat weeds as well but not to the same extent as the Greeks; dandelion and nettle come immediately to mind. Afterwards we had strawberries and mulberries for dessert, all from the garden. We’ve already had medlars from the one and only tree. It’s a very short season unfortunately and the medlar is in a difficult position, difficult to get to the fruit that is as it is right against a garden wall and our neighbours get benefit from it, as they do with the wisteria I planted that seems to love their side of the wall. Sunnier maybe. We have had a not too bad a crop of medlars though and I intend planting another where once I had a castor oil tree. That was very ornamental and good only for show. The apricot nearest the house is full of fruit as is the nut peach. Still nothing on the nectarine. I really don’t know what to do with that wretched tree. The only thing it produces is peach curl, despite the treatment it has had. Grapes are budding nicely and hopefully the hanging DVDs will keep Mr Ratty at bay. They worked last year. Oranges, lemons and tangerines will be in abundance so I might make a citrus wine. The last two were excellent. Plums and fig seem to be in abundance (providing there’s no wind) and later in the year the guava and pomegranate will fruit. The ancient pear tree at the bottom of the garden, god only knows how old it is, bears hardly any fruit this year, not even worth bothering with but the mulberries, both black and white are full of fruit. Have I forgotten anything? All the veg are in thanks to Douglas buying a Rotovator that saved days of turning over by hand. Unfortunately we didn’t have time this year to collect the horseshit but hopefully the veg will do well without it and we’ll make up for it in the autumn. The garden is a riot of colour at the moment with all the roses blooming but guess I am going to have to get into that close weeding like right now – no more prevarication.
In the last blog I forgot two full length plays that won’t be included in the fifteen, ONE TOUCH OF PITY and A CORNER FOR DREAMS, nice titles not so good plays. Also forgot the book and lyrics for a musical PICKWICK (composer Malcolm Sircom).Wonder what else I’ve forgotten. Oh yes! My DOCTOR WHO submission, THE ULTIMATE VIRUS, a perfect story for the computer age. I wonder if it ever even reached the powers that be. The BBC is a strange animal these days.
Chris’s brother Roger has sent us a list of mistakes he has found in the autobiography. John Lewis has sent the mistakes he has found. Douglas and I have found some neither of those two have noticed. It really is a pity but there is nothing can be done about it now. I will never again bridle when I come across errors in other writers’ books.