Growing and making

After a long wait and some disappointment along the way, the tomato plants are finally bearing ripe fruit! We ceremonially shared the red one in this picture, and its neighbours are now looking ready to pluck. (They're cherry tomato plants, so yes, the fruit is meant to be that small.)

Unfortunately the leaves aren't doing so well, suffering from something-or-other that's making them wilt and die, one branch at a time. Tomatoes appear to suffer from a bewildering variety of pests and diseases, and I don't know what's wrong with mine this time. Sometimes I wonder if this gardening thing is worth the effort. We've hardly had an abundance of crop - though it is my first real try at growing vegetables, and in a very different climate as well. Maybe next time I should stick to prickly pears.

A friend organised a jewellery-making class recently, so I went along and managed to produce something wearable. In fact the process is very easy. You find yourself some pretty paper, and sandwich two pieces back-to-back between pieces of microscope slide. Then you wrap adhesive copper tape around the edges to hold it together. The fun part is using a soldering iron to spread solder all over the copper tape for the silver effect - and the hardest part is trying to get it smooth! Add a loop and chain, and bingo! you have a beautiful reversible pendant. It seems like an infinitely adaptable technique which requires relatively little equipment - definitely one to remember.

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Where am I going now? The Portway

I should probably explain why I am pottering around Nottingham and its western suburbs, rather than roaming the Derbyshire countryside. It's not just the abundance of paved paths, although that certainly helps - I recently went on a country walk across a cow field and found myself tiptoeing gingerly across boggy mud cratered with six-inch deep hoof holes. Then I was confronted by a sign which said: Private Property, Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted. I congratulated myself on being on a public right of way, then, a few steps on, consulted the map and realised I wasn't. The path was across a completely different field. nice scenery, though I digress. Apart from the absence of cows and angry landowners, the reason I am walking around Nottingham is that it's the start of the Portway. There is a blog called The Old Roads of Derbyshire , written by a man named Stephen Bailey, who has also published a book of the same name. I can't remember now whether I came across the book fir...

The Portway: Lenton to the Bramcote Hills

It was cold. My fingers were cold, and my phone was cold too. The OS map was totally failing to find my location, and the more I prodded it the less feeling I had in my fingers, so I gave up, shoved both my phone and my chilly hands into my pockets, and set off. After all, I knew where I was. This was Wollaton Park. And the path was very obvious. Just follow the avenue of trees... ...past the deer... ...and out through the fancy gates. Crossing a busy road brought me into a neat little housing estate with unusual round street signs. This was built when Wollaton Park was sold to Nottingham City Council in 1925. The old gatehouse, Lenton Lodge, is now estranged from the rest of the park, and stands by itself next to Derby Road. The bridge used to go over the Nottingham Canal, which has now been turned back into the River Leen. The unfortunate river got shoved out of the way whenever someone came up with a new building project. This is not its original course. My hands were warming up sli...

Portway: Bramcote Hills to Stanton-by-Dale

I parked in the free car park at Bramcote Hills Park and set off, naturally enough, in the direction of where I'd last been. Up some steps through the woods, along the edge with marvellous views northwards, and down past a school to pick up Moor Lane again. At that point I realised I was supposed to be walking this route in the opposite direction. Oops. Well, it didn't make much difference. It just meant that the Hemlock Stone would come at the end rather than the start. Also, I was doing a figure of eight, so I could switch paths in the middle. That sorted, I pressed on along the disused Nottingham Canal. This had varying amounts of water in it. There were good views back up to the double hump of the Bramcote Hills. Nottingham Canal Also Nottingham Canal Just before I got to Trowell garden centre, I crossed a bridge and walked across a green space to a partly built housing estate. The Boundary Brook had been aggressively re-wiggled. I'm sure it will look better in a year...

Martha's Marvellous Munchies

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