"Are you Hilary?"

Would you buy a used book from this woman?

Apologies to the spud geeks who were expecting a post on the subject of this year's especially colourful new additions to the tater plot, but another 'plot' entirely has stolen their thunder, as I've unexpectedly won a useful little bit of publicity for my books, with an impending article on the 'Big Book, Little Book' review site, as this link will show...

http://www.completelynovel.com/articles/selfpubsunday-promotion

A big 'thank you' to the Completelynovel team for giving me this chance!

I say 'unexpectedly' advisedly, as I'm actually pretty hopeless at conventional self-promotion.  Okay, so I'm on Facebook and Linkedin, and I write a blog or two, but what 'image' do I present?  On here, I celebrate my failures as much as my successes - crap carrots, saucy-shaped rather than prizewinning potatoes, crops ravaged by caterpillars and slugs, while my most read post isn't about anything I've grown at all, but the accidental narcotics that sprouted up in a friend's garden.  While other people select professional smart-suited head and shoulders shots for their Linkedin pic, I've been using the one above of me in tatty overalls scraping peeling paint and rust off of the roof of a narrowboat.  It's a nice photo of me, with a bright, cheery smile, but when it comes to promoting that professional image, I'm wondering if it's ideal for someone not specifically seeking work renovating canal boats! 

And I'd be surprised if it works that well as the public image of an author, which is a shame as it's the one I've been using for CompletelyNovel and Amazon.  To be fair, I do have the outline of a narrowboat-based drama sketched out (with my Stoke-based Geordie feminist Daphne Randall taking the helm), but until that's more than the scrawly contents of a notebook, the current 'image' is an epic fail, and that day is some way off as I haven't finished with the Solent Welfare Rights Project gang just yet (though I do have a 'cunning plan' for releasing their next adventures sooner rather than later).

The original stories are picking up a small but select fanbase at work, which is both encouraging and occasionally disconcerting.  A couple of days ago a colleague asked me quietly, "Are you Hilary?".  I didn't know whether to be flattered as Hilary is intelligent, assertive and 'really rather' glamorous or to 'Plead the Fifth' as they say in the USA, on account of her - ahem! - inappropriate use of National Trust membership.  In fact, I've had a quite a few raised eyebrows on account of the 'naughty bits' in the second book, which isn't what anyone expects from me, but isn't not judging people by appearances a key theme of the books?

But no, I'm not Hilary, though as we're both 'ladies of a certain age' who've worked in benefits advice for the same amount of time and were students in coalfield cities during the Miners' Strike, we do share a few opinions and a little bit of history, though I share a lot more studied 'history' with fellow medievalist Tom Appleby.  There's common ground between me and some of my other characters too: when I stood on the Milton Road End terraces at the old Dell cheering on the Saints, a young Toby Novak could easily have been at my side, while the way Vaughan James' garden quietly invades his kitchen is something we share. 

A little more literary.  Sarah at Tate Modern (with tea, and Jon's hat)

The closest match, and the one I own up to in the preface, is Sally Archer, who has a great deal in common with my younger self, including spectacular clumsiness, an interest in everything and a knack for passing exams, awkwardness about her height, a truly dreadful singing voice and a carbon footprint significantly smaller than her actual footprint: I do indeed possess a pair of size 10 safety boots!  But my Dad was a train driver not a builder, and has great financial sense too.

 

There are times when the truth is stranger than fiction, though.  A west country newspaper recently told of a man wrongly taken to court by the DWP for benefit fraud when a medical report showed his right leg had recovered from an injury, and they took this as evidence he had lied about his mobility difficulties - completely overlooking the fact that his left leg had been amputated! 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-23771631

Meanwhile, in a real advice centre somewhere in North Staffordshire, I wandered into one of the staff loos yesterday and found the previous occupant had left a book called 'Quiet Enjoyment' sitting by the pan!  It's a housing law book, in case you didn't guess, though if anyone is after a title for a book set in a Housing Advice Centre...? 

Still, better 'Quiet Enjoyment' in the WC than 'Severe Discomfort', I think we can all agree!   

We're Jammin'...!



Whitecurrant jam

It's not the end of August yet, but there's a feeling of autumn in the air, especially as the mornings become sharper and cooler, and the evenings misty.  It's harvest-time too.  I've been lifting second early and late-planted first early potatoes this afternoon and for anyone missing their spud-fix, there will be a tater-related blog post in the next few days, but the priority is to deal with more perishable crops.

Fruit picker at work!

We have the most amazingly rich harvest of soft fruit this year, bushes dripping with whitecurrants, redcurrants and blackcurrants, and a glut of raspberries into the bargain.  Even the little strawberry plants managed to put on a good show, and the freezer soon became overwhelmed.

Throughout the year, I collect jam jars ready for just such an event, and every year I think I've got plenty.  Then we start picking fruit and boiling it up, and in no time at all the jars are full, including the emergency supply of curry sauce jars that you can never quite get clean of a hint of cumin or coriander, so the first spoonful out of the jar might be raspberry korma or blackcurrant buryani.  Still, 'fusion food' might still be trendy...?  There's also a stash of Lidl's marmalade jars from my dad, which are quite an attractive shape and the right size for jam, but the pretty lids are decorated with oranges, which may cause confusion if the labels fall off!

Chief beneficiaries of this year's exceptional harvest have been my CAB colleagues, who have been able to enjoy pots of delicious home-made jam at a bargain price, considering what you'd pay at a typical Farmer's Market for a fruit preserve made with local, organically-grown ingredients.  But the price covers the cost of gas and sugar for me, and at 75p per pot it still raises more for the CAB than an ebook of 'Severe Discomfort', though that's not entirely surprising as Amazon don't take a cut of the jam money!  

Already, there are getting on for twenty more jars to take in next week, I have more fruit to defrost and even allowing for some being allocated to wine-making, that still leaves us with plenty of preserves in the larder.  We don't eat vast amounts; even allowing for previous years' warming winter teas with hot crumpets and scones, and the inclusion of a jar or two in Christmas hampers for friends and family, we're still eating jams dated 2009 and 2010.  Despite containing no artificial preservatives, Sarah's jam keeps remarkably well!

Where have all the flowers gone?

A Show Garden disappears...

It's strange, isn't it, that my last horticultural project before I returned to work at Stoke CAB on Thursday (worthy of a post in its own right later), was the destruction of a garden.  Although I had helped to construct Reaseheath's 'Secret Garden' in 2011, I hadn't been there for the breakdown, so it was a shock to arrive at what had been the St Luke's Silver Anniversary Garden on Monday and to find, in place of the vibrant colours of the flowers and glossy green turf, what appeared to be a giant mud pie. 

One thing was very clear; whatever my duties were to be that day, they were unlikely to include watering.  The site was sodden - unusual for Tatton Park, which has the most extraordinary sandy sub-soil and so usually drains readily - but there had been torrential downpours during Sunday and in fact within minutes of starting work, the rain came down again and everyone scattered for shelter under the nearest gazebo and an early lunch, jumping at the occasional streak of lightning or vicious crack of thunder.  From our vantage point, it looked as if Manchester was being annihilated by a 'War of the Worlds' style alien invasion.*

A break in the clouds

It was a far cry from the broiling heat of the build or the summery days that had made all but the last day of the RHS Show such a success.  The show gardens had been to the customary excellent standard, with beautiful planting setting off both graceful design and some decidedly off-the-wall ideas.  The one I would happily have shipped in its entirety to my own back garden was 'Splash', with its cooling plunge pool and equally cooling pallet of deep blue and white flowers sprinkled with some sunshine-yellow, though it would have been nice to find space for a 'My-pod' too! 

Splash! - definitely my Best in Show

The Young Designers of the Year had also produced some fine work - honey-coloured planting in a bee-friendly garden, recycled wine bottles forming a wall behind another eco-friendly design and finally a tasteful matching of edible and ornamental in 'Escape to the City'.

This year's concept was the 'Galaxy Garden', interpreted in a wide variety of ways from the elegantly terrestrial 'Star Gazers Retreat', it's gentle-coloured planting appropriately including a lovely white Cosmos and a Stargate entrance greened with Sempervivums (a bit of trend this year?  I do hope so, as I have lots propagating!) to the other Reaseheath exhibit, Jonathan Price's Einstein-inspired 'Mu-No Thing'.  All credit to our Jonathan, but I'd have the Star Gazer's garden reconstructed down the garden (just down from my personal 'Splash') if funds allowed and they'd turn the lights off in the shopping centre at night so I could actually see the stars.

The judges went for 'Gravitational Pull' as the best: there's no accounting for taste, is there? 

Steel City Show Garden

The actual 'Best Large Garden' was a 'neighbour' of the St Luke's Garden, 'A Stainless Century', marking the centenary of the invention of stainless steel and a tribute to the steel-making heritage and skill of Sheffield, a city for which I've always had great affection since being a student there in the 1980s.  The garden was stunning, using steel creatively for boundaries (including some clever panels illustrating steel products made in Sheffield and a representation of the disparagingly nick-named 'Egg Box' annex of the Town Hall), sculpture and ground cover, though it wasn't a garden you could run about in with bare feet!  The planting was truly lovely, and even at breakdown time the plants looked gorgeous, clustered together but now under steel grey skies.

The designer confessed to having briefly faced a moral dilemma.  The Chancellor, George Osborne, made a visit to the Flower Show (Tatton Park has the misfortune to be in his constituency) and was sighted moving in the direction of the Stainless Century Garden, then talking to Rick about our St Luke's Garden (shame I wasn't there - 'Interested in hospices are we, Chancellor?  Like a chat about what your Welfare Reforms are doing for people with terminal illnesses?').  With the affection of most Sheffielders for Tories, the gut reaction of the 'Stainless' crew was 'We're not having him in our garden!', but then they considered their responsibilities to their sponsors, appropriate RHS decorum etc, and reluctantly conceded they probably ought to at least be civil to him.  As he left the St Luke's garden, they braced themselves for the encounter, at which point he made a sharp right turn (has he ever done anything else?) and vanished into the floral marquee!

Rather than name-check the whole show, take a look at some of my favourites on Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30634865@N03/sets/72157634870475289/

It's now a week after the show, and it'll all be gone.  But this isn't supposed to be the end of my own gardening career or this blog.  If you're still following it for the odd gardening tip, they will still be there, though it's fair to say they'll probably be jostling for space between even more odds and ends of politics and social policy than before.  How I'll balance my jobs now is hard to say - right at the moment, I have some notes to write for a talk to the Pensioners Convention on Monday, and yet I really want to go outdoors and prune my ridiculously tall Philadelphus now it has finished flowering. 

And instead of doing either, I'm blogging and kicking around ideas to promote those books of mine.  Just two days of the 'Severe Discomfort' ebook freebie to go and just under 200 downloads so far - get yours now, or wait until Monday to spend a whole 75p and buy an adviser a brew! 
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Severe-Discomfort-Social-Insecurity-ebook/dp/B00C69HMRM/ref=kinw_dp_ke

* For the sci-fi officianados out there, that's as in the Tom Cruise movie rather than the arguably much superior HG Wells novel.