In The Garden, Part 3.

Potentilla

I have been busy in the garden every fine day since I wrote In The Garden Part 2. The major project undertaken in the last few days is that I demolished my little shed. It was beginning to fall apart anyway, and quite frankly I was ashamed of it. The floor had rotted away years ago and I didn’t really need it for the few tools I possess. It never was much of a shed, not much bigger than a sentry box.  I used to call it ‘The world’s smallest shed’. When I started taking it apart, I discovered it had become a home for all manner of small creatures especially spiders, snails, and daddy long legs. “Right lads”, I thought to myself, “It’s about time you found yourselves some new digs!”. To dispose of all the wood, I have been breaking it up into small pieces and taking it round to a nearby mate to burn in his wood burning stove. My little yard looks a bit bigger now. 

Geum

Once I have given the yard walls a fresh coat of masonry paint and stained the fence I’ll show you a photo. It looks a bit like a builder’s yard out there at the moment, but Rome wasn’t built in a day. I still need a couple of new fence panels, but I think I’ll save that project for another time. I’ll just give the old panels a coat of preservative to make them look a bit more presentable. On the growing front, the seeds I have been propagating on my windowsills are coming along nicely. The sunflowers are especially shooting skywards. Outside Lidl they were selling trays of verbena, petunia, and calibrachoa, so I bought some and made up four hanging baskets which I’ll add to when my own plants are bigger. It’s still a bit early for hanging baskets, but I’m impatient, so I hope we don’t get anymore frost. My yard is quite sheltered, so hopefully I’ll be ok. 

Ladybird.

Finally, me and a friend went for lunch at the café in the garden centre in Trowbridge on Tuesday and I bought myself a Potentilla which should grow into a nice three-foot-high shrub with red flowers. I must say I have enjoyed being outside, keeping busy, and getting some much-needed exercise. One last thought, I think this year we might see a lot of ladybirds. I don’t think I saw any last year but have already spotted quite a few recently. I’ll write another garden update before too long. Cheers.

Moya & Van.

Only four weeks after hearing the sad news of the passing of Dolores Keane I was very sorry yesterday to hear that another great Irish singer has gone. It is Moya Brennan who was the sister of Enya and a founder member, singer, and harpist with the great Irish folk rock group Clannad which she founded with other family members in 1970. Before Moya pursued a solo career Clannad had a huge international hit with the Theme From Harry's Game. The song I want to share with you today though is a Van Morrison song The Beauty Of The Days Gone By which Moya recorded to celebrate Van's 75th birthday. This is what Moya said about Van in Hot Press magazine at the time, 

'In 1967, tuning into an old transistor radio in Donegal to hear the latest pop/rock songs, I couldn’t believe my ears when the DJ introduced a new singer/songwriter from Belfast with an amazing song called ‘Brown Eyed Girl’. We were both from Ulster and I felt that connection, I was hooked. What was and is brilliant about Van is all the influences he used. It made a huge impact on me when he blended jazz and folk, Celtic rock and rhythm and blues and many more genres of music together. Van is special because of his poetry in music and his Celtic soul. Very few artists have recorded over 40 albums from 1967 to the present and still come out with gems of songs. He can still bring me on a spiritual journey. I’ve always felt a connection with Van – we’ve met lots of times and we’ve both wanted to do something together. I had the opportunity last August in The Met in Belfast, when poet Paul Muldoon was putting on one of his summer picnic shows. Van came along and sang two songs with myself, Cormac de Barra and Paul’s band. The two songs he chose were ‘Steal My Heart Away’ and ‘The Beauty Of The Days Gone By’ from Down The Road. Loved singing with him, loved the songs. So I thought it would be nice to do one of them on this special tribute'.

Brimful Of Asha.

I was listening to the Cerys Matthews show on BBC 6 Music yesterday and it was mentioned that Ashalata Bhosale had passed away at the age of 92. I was sorry to hear that news. I'm not Indian so I wasn’t at all familiar with her work, but I knew her name because she was the inspiration for one of my favourite pop songs of the 1990’s which was Brimful Of Asha by Cornershop. It became a huge international hit when remixed by Fatboy Slim. 

This is what I read about Asha on Wikipedia. Ashalata Ganpat Bhosale 8 September 1933 – 12 April 2026) was an Indian singer, actress, and television personality who predominantly worked in Indian cinema. Known for her versatility, she was described in the media as one of the greatest and most influential singers in Hindi cinema. In a career spanning over eight decades, she recorded songs for films and albums in various Indian languages and won several accolades including two National Film Awards, four BFJA Awards, eighteen Maharashtra State Film Awards, nine Filmfare Awards including a Lifetime Achievement Award and a record seven Filmfare Awards for Best Female Singer, in addition to two Grammy nominations. In 2000, she was honoured with the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, India's highest award in the field of cinema. In 2008, she was honoured by the Government of India with the Padma Vibhushan, the second-highest civilian honour of the country. The Guinness Book of World Records acknowledged her in 2011 as the most recorded artist in music history. I have shared Brimful Of Asha below if you would like to hear it.