I was looking gloomily at the vast hunk of fennel forcing its way up through the rich bed when I remembered that young fennel shoots are food. We ate them, braised with chicken and cashewnut on one day and baked with cod on the next. First fruits of the garden! Though I suppose I should also take my root saw to the huge chunk o'root. Particularly if I want the artichoke next to it to prosper (I do).

Pretty little Dwarf Peach Crimson Bonfire (a thankyou gift for gardening from j4 and addedentry) has a smattering of delicate, scented blossom on the branches. I have my first celandine. Everything is coming up, including some very weird looking things which presumably I bought from Malvern as bulbs last year. I'm hoping that the flowers, when they come, will explain things.

I'm making some progress with both my plan to tame crows with Eccles cakes, and my plan to learn to drive. On the former, I do actually sometimes get the crow coming over and interacting a bit, on the latter I'm up to third gear and drove down Cowley Road for the first time last week. It's just as horrible when you're driving, honestly, is there any mode of transport Cowley Road works for?

I took tinyjo to see Seven Brides for Seven Brothers at the New Theatre this week (on a reviewing gig) which is of course (given the subject matter and the nature of the hero) a tricky musical to perform. They went for a sort of Taming of the Shrew meets Glee vibe, with a certain amount of clothes falling off (in the best possible taste) and competitive acrobatics. For anyone struggling to remember the story, "Lonesome Polecat" (below) is a reasonable summary.



I also went with timscience to see an evening of experimental noise at the Holywell Music room which was ace! Some people played the wall, floorboards and balustrades, there was a churchbell thing where we all had to wander around in blue-lit dimness and then a lady with two sine wave generators and two male singers singing sustained notes attempting to find extra voices in the in-room resonances. At one point they found a small ghost orchestra, which was quite startling.

Wondering if we're past frost enough to bring the tree fern out of the greenhouse. It didn't go dormant this winter. Lots of things didn't.