Video is fixed, Mia's teacher, and gardening

Thanks for the messages about the video of Mia telling a joke not working. I hope that it has been fixed. Please try and let us know.

Also, we have just found out that one of Mia's teachers has a famous brother. He was the lead singer of the band Soft Cell. They were famous 20 years ago with a remake of a song called Tainted Love. Check out the video below.



And on a new and very exciting gardening note...I have seen the light of a slug-free world and I like what I have seen. I have joined a gardening group, called the Brighton and Hove Organic Gardening Group. It is a chance for me to become more social, a feat which I am sure most people might say is impossible (the current odds of me becoming more social on a sustained basis and actually doing things that include others is about 20 to 1). I went today to the allotment, a community garden plot, and low and behold things grew... wow did they grow. It was a veritable smorgasbord of the finer organic food offerings. Over here there was lush fields of lettuce, and over there was gorgeous green rows of parsley, then there was chard with big, wonderful multi-coloured stems ranging from pink to purple. And you know what... barley a slug to be found.

Of course, I did find one, perhaps the only one in the whole plot. I just figured that it followed me up from our house. I sure hope I didn't bring any more. Can you imagine that I bring the slugs, whom I have now named (after all if can't beat them, join them), and they start to dine on 1/2 acre of food. Yikes, I'm sure that I wouldn't be welcome anymore. Anyway, I didn't see another slug within miles. Now, I was told that is because the soil is clay and slugs don't like clay soils. Of course our garden is not clay. So again that leaves me with the daunting task of adding clay or going out night after night after night and hunting for slugs and snails, a task that will be sure to land me in counselling sooner rather then later.

Anyway, back to the wonders that is food growth. I tell you, this food was growing... you could just smell the fresh earth, the ripe vegetables, and the rotting compost. There was even a sunflower that had to be 8 or 9 feet tall. This all gave me hope. The hope that I can, one day, grow all these wonderous foods. It also gave me the hope that if, in fact, my luck continues as it has been with growing foods I can just go up the hill and pick from a plethora of choice.