Merry Christmas, everybody ..

Cars!! Aaaaagh!! And road-works!! Aaaagh!! And effing Christmas!! Aaaaaaaagh!!
Oh boy, am I glad to be back in rural old France ..

I nipped over to the UK this weekend to see family, have a swift Guinness or eight with my pals and do a spot of er, plane-spotting. There's a pub at the end of the runway at Manchester Airport which I've been going to since I was a teenager in the 70s. It's the best place to get close to planes short of actually boarding one, and it was great to be back there after a year away. Getting to the pub, however, was a different matter. There are bloody roadworks everywhere! And cars. There are cars everywhere! From my bedroom window alone I could see 18 cars parked up. The roadsides are full of them, the pavements are full of them and there's a never-ending stream of them up and down all day long. And Christmas! Christmas is everywhere! Bear in mind it was still September at the weekend, so what a shock it was to see Christmas displays at the three large shops I went into.

Do you know the only thing that wasn't there? Seeds. I went into Wilmslow garden centre with a long list of seeds we'd like to plant in our garden. There were none. They'd all been "put away" to make way for the Christmas displays. So God help you. Do not go into Wilmslow Garden centre for seeds. You will be thwarted!

Oh boy, am I glad to be back in rural old France .. 

Just add water..

Look out, folks! Here they come! The race to be the best new Hollyhock in town has started! This time last week these guys were dried up brown husks of seed that I over-wintered in an old card-backed envelope and now .. just look at 'em go! It's so exciting! You can almost hear them shrieking with delight now they've been let loose! Chase me, chase me! Bet I can flower before you do!.. Ah, isn't nature wonderful!

One thing's for sure .. they got plenty of water yesterday, as the heavens opened .. just as I started shooting a new band! Thank God there was a railway bridge close-by, because that became our Plan B and we had to do all the photographs under there. Well, nearly all of 'em, and if you go to see these guys at any of their forthcoming gigs and they sound a little snuffly .. it's all my fault! Hey boys, that's rock 'n roll! Anyway, I dropped the shots online last night, and the word from the guys was "They're fantastic!" So, just like the emergence of the new shoots, I hope I'm in at the start of something big here!
Pix to follow as soon as I get the ok!...