Farewell to the grow-mate

The grow-mate pyramid shaped greenhouse was manufactured at my uncle's factory, Backwoodsman horticultural products, in Barcaldine, Scotland, from around 1990 to some time in the noughties. Production has now ceased, because the wood burning stove business took off in a major way. Many family members are still employed by Backwoodsman. If you ever visited a top-notch garden show in the 1990s or early 00s, chances are you would have come across my uncle Andrew, either demonstrating his products, or sitting quietly beside them, reading a book about Tibetan Buddhism.

Where the bragging ceases is here! Uncle A kindly gifted us a grow-mate when we moved onto our house on Stroud in 2003. He had hoped that we would become grow-mate ambassadors. He had it delivered and then came and assembled it for us, en route to yet another garden show. So far, so good. However, like our garden, the grow-mate had become neglected in recent years. When a friend, who moved house in 2019, asked us where she could get a grow-mate, the answer was "from us". She has been over here shovelling soil out of the base, and bagging it up, at least once, and today she brought her entire family over to help move it. It's being uplifted in a removal van tomorrow.. Because we'd done some preparatory clearing, and we had so many hands, the moving didn't take very long, only about an hour, including a coffee break. The grow-mate is now sitting on our hard standing.

After the hard work was done (and I did help) I blagged a lift up to the Amberley war memorial, so that I could visit GG. She gave me directions to a short
cut, but she thought I was at the Amberley Inn
,whereas I was at the Black Horse Inn, so I ended up taking the long way round. Never mind, it was a nice day. I wrote some cards for GG and ate some strawberries for myself, and found something for GG to watch on YouTube. Then she wanted me to leave, because she had so many phone calls, so I watered her hydrangeas and sorted the fridge, and set off up the steep short cut to Minchinhampton Common. I'd decided to walk all the way home.

It took me an hour and ten minutes, via the UK's highest ice cream factory, where I stopped for a mango sorbet.Most of it took me through the Cotswold area of outstanding natural beauty. I also discovered s small vineyard outside the Bear of Rodborough hotel. The lady stage involved crossing the railway and following the canal from Thrupp to Bowbridge. All this, including the bit from the war memorial to GG's house, was only around 10, 500 steps. I'd expected it to be more, possibly because the route is so undulating.

The cows were out on Minchinhampton Common. In summer, they range freely through the villages and across the road,. A brown cow with galloping hooves and a loud bellow followed me along the lanes of Amberley. I was relieved when I finally lost it. Perhaps it was trying to find the rest of its family. Who'd live in Amberley? In our street in Stroud, horses are the only hooved animals.