Tuesday 10th June 2025 - Gardening Club, Coming in Season, Farewell and Pavement Repaired

At the Gardening Club’s June meeting, Andrew Sankey spoke on the subject of ‘Colour in the Garden’.  I thought this would cover, having colour in our gardens throughout the year, instead it was about the palette of colours he advocates.  It was soon obvious Mr. Sankey does not like bold colours, such as bright reds and oranges, although he will tolerate purples.  As examples of layouts, he used photos of his own garden and those of reputed gardeners e.g. Gertrude Jekyll.  I don’t imagine there are many, if any, members of the gardening club who have such extensive gardens with deep borders as those he showed us, all supporting an extensive variety of plants.  Our garden is relatively small in comparison to those Mr Sankey used as examples and therefore I’m afraid his talk, although interesting, was all rather lost on me.  Our garden is not based on anyone else’s; I like to think it is unique.  It’s most definitely, based on our requirements and as such, we both enjoy our special place, without feeling a need to follow gardens created by others.  Next month members will be meeting at Natural Surroundings to celebrate the club’s 25th anniversary; I’m most certainly looking forward to this. 

Still on the subject of gardening, those who grow broad beans will know, they are coming into season.  The first to yield are those from seed planted in the autumn with the plants overwintering.  I love broad beans; they freeze well and I particularly like cooking them with yoghurt and dill.  Last year I recorded a short vlog demonstrating my recipe, which has its roots in Greece.  Here is a link to YouTube and my vlog, titled ‘Janet’s Recipe Using Broad Beans’. 

Nickie(Nicola), the friendly face at the Post Office counter in the village shop, has left.  She contacted me via Facebook, asking me to post a message saying ‘thanks to all the lovely villagers, she has served over the past two and a half years.’  This I did, followed a little later with a personal message from Nickie.  These posts have resulted in a string of comments from villagers, thanking her for her help, for always smiling, how she will be missed and sending best wishes for the future.  I have sent our message of thanks, particularly for dealing with the banking of the donations at the end of the annual Poppy Appeal.

We saw, this afternoon, the second problem in the village, which I reported to Fix My Street, has now repaired by Norfolk County Council.  The cracked pavement slabs have been removed and replaced with new ones.  So long as, during the repair, the ground beneath the slabs has been back filled then there should be no further problems, with slabs cracking when heavy vehicles access the back of the properties on Harbord Road.  Today’s photo shows the section of repaired pavement.