Pip Pip! & Toodle Pip!..........

 .....now aren't those two lovely old-fashioned sayings?
Our friends came to The Funny Farm for lunch yesterday, and to share the day's free entertainment in the back yard, which was a Point to Point: "Pip Pip! Daddy Gave Me This Land!" (hence the late blog update).  And todays' blog title has been chosen largely because Trousers' metal detecting mate on the left is called Pip.  See Pippy and Trousers not know when to stop eating cheese children?!  ( bit like us girls growing up away from home in the olden-days when Daddy used to pay off our overdraft, as in: "I can't be overdrawn, I've still got cheques left?"! )
Lunch wasn't a huge success, I'm afraid, because I tried out the savoury tart recipe I wanted village peeps to make in our local Village Show on 2nd July, and it didn't come close to being as nice as it sounded on paper, so it's back to the drawing board on that I'm afraid! but phew! far better to find out now, than involuntarily pose as The Village Idiot on the day, eh?!

......and then we've got the most beautiful blossom on the trees in The Orchard (later to produce pips.... see what I did there?!) and to be perfectly honest, the sheer amount of blossom is absolutely 'blowing my frock up'.  So, provided there aren't any untimely frosts to knock the blossom on the head, there should be the most amazing fruit crop this year.

And today, I sloshed a bit of water onto the outside of the 'Draughty Dutch Greenhouse' to disperse the green algae on the glass, because I wanted to begin to tie-in some of the lower branches of my Pear & Sour Cherry trees, and the hybrid blackberry inbetween them loosely onto horizontal canes.

I also had a brilliant 'ping' idea about training my Crab Apple tree that I've let start to produce stems all the way up the lower trunk, to form a living and productive criss-cross dividing fence, bringing the crop down to a much more 'pickable' height than last year.

 ......and then comes the first  'Toodle Pip', because once the wild garlic is over, it magically disappears into the ground, and you don't see it again for another year, which is why I get truly obsessed with it whilst it's gorgeously here.  Like a woman obsessed, I wilt it like spinach, make pesto from it, add it to quiches, stuff things with it, and freeze it.

.....and to my second 'Toodle Pip': a ceremonial burial here for my first, and failed attempt at Pickled Walnuts.  But what you're unaware of, is that this hole is about 4ft deep by 4ft wide by 4ft wotsit, making it a sizeable hole in any instance.  But the hole in the ground happens to have just 'appeared' IN OUR DRIVEWAY?!, which could have been disastrous, had I been turning my MoneyPenny Truck (4x4xBond)around: Ooh! Where's Wellie Gone?!
But thankfully, it was noticed before such disaster struck, and we're busy filling the hole with a multitude of sins, gradually, methodically and rather frantically now.  Hence, a choice graveyard for my failed Pickled Walnuts, that had indeed formed a shell prior to me pickling them last year, but I am very much the wiser now......  (Will be picking the green walnuts during Wombledon Week this year for certain).

Thank you, you're very kind to have read my blog again, and I'll meet you here again next week, if you're not too busy.X