Dad is harbouring a cuckoo

It being the weekend I was a lucky lucky person who got to watch several live games of footie and Match of the Day and it was whilst this was on that I wondered to myself "Who would have thought that 20-odd years ago when Nigel Ramsay and I ran a small Desktop Publishing business from above Palmers Fish and Chip Shop in Yeovil we would have helped someone make themselves a lot of money?"

Back in the 1980's a young guy call Mark Goddard-Watts came up the stairs to our office and asked us to produce a little catalogue for him.  We referred to him then as Woody Woodscrew because the catalogue was for the Woodscrew Supply Company.  It was quite possibly the most boring job I ever got to do!  That same Woodscrew Supply Company became Screwfix who now sponsor the football league!  I bet we only charged peanuts for that catalogue - we should have asked for a percentage of every item he sold and we could have made ourselves a small fortune!!

It was my turn to entertain this Sunday and as well as Mum and Dad we had Sheila and Klaus coming to eat.  It has been so very hot but somehow salad on a Sunday doesn't cut the mustard with my Dad - we didn't go as far as roast and Yorkshire puddings but had beef in ale with Dauphinoise potatoes and a selection of veggies.  Dad is particularly fond of beef in ale so John donated one of his bottles of Aphrodite Rock Brewery Yorkshire Rose to the cause.

It seemed to go down well and there was enough left over to (a) give John a meal tomorrow when I go to art at Sheila's and Klaus very kindly feeds me and (b) give our neighbours George and Pam something to eat when they arrived from the UK on their annual holiday. 

We had a visitor in the conservatory today - one of the largest dragonflies we have seen - we generally have a number of the red and blue ones dancing around the swimming pool but this yellow and black monster was a new one on us - he was about the size of John's hand and settled on the flower box just outside the conservatory long enough for me to take his photograph.

I must just clarify the title of the post that Dad is harbouring a cuckoo - I mean this figuratively - he doesn't actually have a live bird living in the bungalow at Emba - what I mean is that he has something in the garden that is not what it appears to be - for months he has been nurturing a plant for me from seeds which he was given (I think from me in the first place) which were supposed to grow into the long-necked water gourds that I learned to carve last year.

Sheila and Klaus have been growing some - in fact the vines have taken over their garden and some of the gourds are absolutely huge.  Dad's didn't seem to be quite so vigorous but then it is a lot hotter down in Emba so we weren't too bothered and to be fair if it fruited as well as Klaus's I would never finish carving them all!  On closer inspection it would appear that the fruit on Dad's vine were long and thin and ridged and probably Loofahs (which he grew very successfully last year) and not bulbous with a long neck like we were expecting.  It would appear that I had mixed the seeds in the bag before I gave them to him.

Fortunately he had the presence of mind to grow two vines just in case the first failed and when we looked at the second vine we could see that the leaves were completely different in shape and texture although the flowers looked very similar - we are hopeful that this is indeed a water gourd vine and that I will at least have one fruit to decorate!