Gardener's bog

It's more than a year ago since the outdoor cupboardy thing in the garden with a hole in the ground became a bona fide gardener's bog. Not for the gardener (don't have a butler or housekeeper either) but for us when we are in wellies and really shouldn't traipse through the house even though the floors are hard, and even more importantly for participants joining us on our smallholding courses.
But since the weather has turned phenomenal I have been misbehaving. If I need a pee (ok, TMI) whilst tending to the ducks, which is a regular thing on hot days what with all that refilling of water buckets, I'll head straight for the GB. And the misbehaviour? I leave the door wide, wide open so I can enjoy the - it has to be said - rather wonderful Devon view. I know that nine times out of ten no-one will be able to see me, but I also know that local farmers have beady peepers and that there is a gap in the hedge so that anyone trundling their tractor up the road might, if they glance to the right and up a bit, see me with my shorts caressing my ankles, gazing out on the perfect blue skies and wrapped away fields. The act doesn't give me a frisson of naughtiness or pleasure, I've just gone beyond caring what anyone thinks and hope if they catch me at it that it'll cause a grin and a wink as they go on their merry way.

I'm claiming it on expenses

Like most people, I've been watching the unravelling of the MP's expenses scandal open-mouthed. I'm so jealous I can hardly splutter forth venom. As an M.P there'd be no need to pay for my Tampax anymore; I could have my poshest rugs repaired and paid for by other tax payers; I'd enjoy a variety of houses and flats pretending I'm living in whichever one took my accountant's fancy that week; I'd get my mole problems sorted at no cost to myself, and I wouldn't have to show receipts for slap up meals or treats that cost less than £250. Best of all, none of this would put a dent in my £65,000 salary. Show me the money!
There'd be one downside though, come to think of it.
No-one would trust me ever again. I would be despised at least as much as Fred the Shred. None of my good intentions or pleas for a refocussing on the important things would have any credence. My name, my judgement and my honour would be mud and filth. I'd have to spend all my time making feeble excuses rather than bellowing "Hear, hear" in the House, and have to satisfy myself instead with cries of "I didn't break any rules" in the comfort of one of my other houses.
But at least I'd have the satisfaction of knowing incontrovertibly that I'd been one of the gang responsible for ending parliament as we know it. My name will be forever secure in the history books.
And that is my 400th blog post. What a sad way to mark this mini milestone.

When you know you've arrived

I always looked with envy when I visited a farm at the beginning of a new year and saw a clutch of manufacturers' calendars nonchalantly heaped on the dresser. I reckoned that receiving freebies from the agricultural trade meant you were a real farmer.
So, I say tadaaa! I've officially made it as the real thing, for two, yes TWO 2009 calendars (freebies, gifts, free lunch stuff etc etc) are in the kitchen, proclaiming my verisimilitude to a farmer. OK, I have yet to wear a gratis boilersuit with a Massey or John Deere badge, and I haven't got a plastic thingummybob from some quad bike dealer, but you have to take these things slowly.

Inadequacy and awe from Saturday's Guardian (or I love Lucy)

After days of physical toil and rote, the brain needs a bit of a stir, but like a muscle, it doesn't take much abandonment before it starts to atrophy.
So there I am, trying to rev myself up again with help from the Review section of the Saturday Guardian, switching between feelings of inadequacy and awe.
My sense of stupidity is at its height when I come across the spread on Sharon Olds, whom "many regard as America's greatest living poet". And I've never even heard of her. Do I blame my clearly inadequate Eng Lit degree course or myself? Myself of course. Just her photograph (that's it above) and quotes are enough to tell me I should have known of her, even if the specifics of her poetry sailed beyond my ken.
Next up, Julian Barnes' warm reminiscence of Penelope Fitzgerald has me smiling in appreciation of them both; clear minded, with sure literary feet, one admires their intellect and artistry.
But then, a treat of great humour. The Guardian is having fun at Mr Spin's expense. Alastair Campbell reviews Haruki Murakami and from the title to the last phrase, the piece is pure Campbell spin, using a paean to Murakami to enhance himself and puff his own work (some of which hasn't even been finished yet). How utterly venal, how shallow, how obvious, how very, very funny. My awe levels swiftly return to normal and feelings of inadequacy are drowned by giggling.
Just a flick away in the G's Weekend mag, beams Lucy Mangan's column. She's my favourite writer in the paper (as is Lynn Barber in the Observer), guaranteed to make me laugh, and always in the right way; what a satisfying turn of phrase she has. Writing on the flailing economy, Mangan suggests that we'll all be bartering piglets for firewood as if that was some kind of backwoods, medieval activity beyond the daily grind of her readers. Lucy, I'd happily swap half a trailer load of logs for any piglet you happen to have about you any time you like; delivery not included though.

Of runner ducks

I've always enjoyed a good runner duck. I've had various runners over the years but never managed, somehow, to get hold of my favourite colourway, the black runner duck.
These are the ducks that shepherds use at country shows to demonstrate the skill of their best dogs whilst keeping the punters chortling. They (the ducks, not the shepherds) stand very upright and have amusement written into their genes. They are also mighty fine egg layers.
They are very different in physical type from my chunky Aylesburys, and the contrast is part of the appeal. I'd finally decided a couple of months ago to start a small flock of black runners as soon as decent fox-proof pens could be made. Following two unwelcome visits, as a temporary measure the Aylesburys have been protected by three types of electric fencing, but if I give myself another jolt I'll probably lose the ability to string a sentence together, so told myself I'd just have to wait, and my runner duck dreams were put on short-term hold.
And then, you know how it is, you browse the postcards pinned up on the noticeboard at the feed merchants, and there it was, a free to good home notice from someone understandably fed up with a randy drake molesting her small defenceless call ducks.
His name is Beany, and now he's mine. And before you worry, he's safe. At night he goes into a duck hut, and by day he shares the front garden with Hard-Hattie until the pens are made and I can get him some girls of his own.