Fennel Seeds

Regular viewers might recall some chatter about our Fennel plant in the front garden, which is a testament to the principle of never writing off something that looks small, puny and like it could keel over at any second.

The fennel was planted in Summer 2008 - it was about 3 inches tall and looked like it would be a miracle if it made it through the night, nevermind the summer.

So, imagine our surprise earlier this year (I would say summer, but apparently its been and gone and we all missed it) when the fennel started growing at a startling rate - and went from a meagre 4 or 5 inches tall to something like 7-8 foot tall and as big and bushy and beautiful as it could ever have wanted to be. And surrounded by wasps, as it has now gone to see and the waspies love it.

Corin has been in the garden whilst I have been at the gym (yes - twice in 3 days!) and have cut the fennel back to stop it from encroaching too much onto our neighbour's side. So we now have a huge canvas/hemp shopping bag in the kitchen full of the heads of fennel ...when I photographed them, they all had little golden bubbles on the tops of each seed pod - and the smell of aniseed is filling the kitchen.

Archive blips added tonight

Purple cornfield

The Scary Guy

Other news:

James first week back at school was successful. He was given a "Super sticker" in assembly today, and apparently he has gone to the top of the merits board in his class ("I'm in the Gold zone already mum") which means that his working group all benefit next week by some 'golden time' - i.e. they get 20 minutes activity time of their choosing as a team because one of the team (Jimbo) got into the gold zone.

Mummy was VERY proud this afternoon. James was also knackered - he went to bed of his own volition at 9.30 tonight, which is unheard of on a friday night as he usually tries to stay up later than me - he was zonked - school is great, it makes him tired :-)

And Mum, I have spoken to Nana! 45 minutes...she sent me packing eventually though as she wasn't feeling too great.

I need to sleep.