Yesterday, on so-called 'Black Friday', my inbox filled with predictable sale mail from companies keen to embrace this American tradition. Fair enough, if you're tall girl clothing company Long Tall Sally which operates 'across the pond'. Slightly silly from UK bulb and plant companies J Parker and Thompson and Morgan, who should really stick to advertising their Christmas gifts of indoor bulbs and other plants tortured and confused to flower out of season.
But the Royal Horticultural Social exhorting me to 'make Black Friday a Green Friday' with a selection of special offers? Say it's not so! How frightfully un-British of them. What shocking cad, what utter bounder, in their marketing department thought that was a good idea? I had a hissy fit of the Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells variety and deleted the message, without pausing to check out the bargains.
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| American import |
I'm certainly not against all things American - my extensive collection of Sarracenia cultivars, boundless enthusiasm for the mighty spud and support for the oft-oppressed grey squirrel surely illustrates that. My problem with 'Black Friday' is that it is irrelevant with no 'Thanksgiving' to precede it, becoming merely another opportunity to encourage reckless consumer spending on supposed bargains.
I therefore signed up to 'Buy Nothing Friday' the antidote to this hysteria, determined to spend not a penny on the day. The news that we were short of milk and that without a purchase, there could be no midday cuppa forced a relaxation of the rules and permission was also granted for Himself to buy a stamp for his letter to our MP, opposing air strikes in Syria.
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| Parsnip of Mass Destruction! |
"Yes, but how's the garden?" my few followers might wonder. Better today than tomorrow is the fairest answer, with another spell of very windy, wet weather threatened. It has, though, been a really good year in many respects, not least due to a highly successful brassica crop from the allotment. We've enjoyed calabrese, romanesco and, for the first time ever, some very presentable cauliflowers, largely down to Jon's meticulous caterpillar-picking. The taters also thrived but we have only two squashes, due to the cool, wet start to the summer.
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| Highland Burgundy Red taters and 'Bob's Beans' |
