From England to France...

Yesterday, I wrote 2 blogs, one of which was commented upon by Vera, mon amie en France. Now of the two blogs, I thought she'd be more likely to comment on the one about sitting bare bottomed on the ground in order to test soil temperature because that is the kind of thing I imagine she would rush out to try immediately - or at least send hubbie Lester out to try, if only to snap a few cheeky shots to post on her own blog.

But no, 'twas the worm one that brought forth the comment. Mostly because, as she digs her way heroically through her new small-holding at the base of the Pyrenees, she has found only two and a half worms. (What happened to the other half of the half worm? Was the half that Vera found still alive and wriggling? Is it still a functional worm??) And a lot of moles. Now, I haven't found any moles in my garden and I believe moles like worms (to eat, not to take to the cinema or anything) so I think les moles francais might need their knives and forks removing.

Often, as Vera and I travel towards various levels of self-sufficiency in our respective corners of the world, we find ourselves doing similar things at similar times. For example, we both bought willow trees on the same day a couple of weeks ago! And a few days ago, Vera wrote about her dearth of worms on the very same day that worms was my subject of choice. I have to say I felt marginally guilty about writing about worms. I'd been in the garden all day and discovered a worm planet in the compost bin. I was very excited. I thought, 'there's my blog subject for today.' So I came inside. late in the afternoon, cranked up the computer, logged on and read about Vera's digging and her discovery of a single worm and thought, 'I can't write about my mass of worms. It'll sound like I'm bragging.'

But then I thought, no, perhaps Vera will be encouraged that there are still worms on planet earth and they haven't all left for Neptune. And perhaps French worms are a bit more relaxed about making an appearance at the start of the growing season. After all, the bottom end of France has a longer growing season than the bottom end of England, so French worms have a little more time on their hands. I expect they are still sitting deep in their burrows, quaffing vin rouge and nibbling on the last Camembert of winter.

So, Vera tried to get Lester enthused about worms but he wasn't keen. But rest assured, Vera, Andy wasn't too excited, either. Last night I said 'Have you been on the Wormcity website?' and he said, 'Er...no. Not yet.' I said, 'We have to keep the wormery in a bin bag for the first three or four days because apparently the worms will try and escape their alien environment.' 'Really?' said Andy. 'But it will help if we put some of our garden soil into their wormery to help acclimatise them,' I continued doggedly. 'Hmmm?' said Andy.

At this point I gave up trying to get Andy excited about worms. So perhaps it's a man thing. I expect they spend so much time comparing worms when they are little boys that the novelty has worn off by the time they reach manhood. I, however, intend to fling myself enthusiastically into the whole wormery thing (not literally, it's only 72 litres in capacity and I think my capacity it considerably more than that) and I am looking forward to feeding my vegetables on nutrient rich compost and liquid plant food.

As I write this, I am holding a text conversation with Andy. We need some topsoil for our raised bed 'n' Plan Bee Garden and he has embarked on a spot of bartering with Gemma (a.k.a The Gemsta, Mrs Poo's Formula One Racing co-driver) because she has topsoil in her garden we can have in exchange for half a dozen eggs. I felt this was a bit mean so offered a cake into the bargain and the deal is done! Half a dozen eggs plus a chocolate chip 'n' banana cake (or carrot cake if I do those -yes I do) in exchange for several bags of topsoil!

Superstores? Who needs them?