Today was a choice between God and Mammon-the former being represented by the 1030 service at the Pisci church in Duns and the latter by the annual Borders Organic Gardeners(BOG) Potato Day in Gallowshiels. Life is often a mattter of compromises as a fellow Piscie mentioned over the croissants and coffee as we were hungering after righteousness so we did both arriving at the Borders College, site of the BOG happening just as the last of the best seed potatoes had been bought by non church going fraternity. However virtue had some reward and although the BOG members special (and subsidised) collection had gone there were plenty of 'bog standard' (npi) varieties left to make a rerasonable choice. 150 of them actually from 'Accent' via 'Claret' and 'Kerr's Pink' 'Red Duke of York' (another dissident member of the Royal Family?') Piccaso (lots of eyes?) Rooster (flu resistent?) to Winston (we shall dig them in the trenches') and Yukon Gold (in them thar hills) . I was all for supporting Norn Iron by buying Ulster Prince, Ulster Sceptre or Carlingford but the wife guided by an enormously complicated (green, of course) guide worked her way through the colour coding and made an informed selction at 12 p a go.
I in the meantime whiled away the long hours by touring the College which seems to specialise in appropriate country skills: game keeping, golf course design, marquee catering, cracking the country side code, Hunt saboteur foxing and much much more. The enterprise had a very New Labour Caring state environment about it festooned with notices advising against the risks of anything enjoyable: With some degree of paraphrase the main messages were some thing like 'Choose your condom carefully-alchohol clouds your judgement' 'Drug free Zone' (the Students Male Loos-girl students don't need that kind of inhibition, apparently) ' Respect and you will be respected' ' An unacceptable level of behaviour will not be acceptable' 'Go call your mother now' and so on with every surface plastered with advisories of one kind or the other.
Good to be back in the more libertine atmosphere of the eastern borders. I am happy to support the wife supporting BOG. Organic gardeners are not thick on the ground around us with too many horticulturalists still in the Bonfire and Agent Orange era. It may have been one of that breed warning about the cancer causing dangers of composting-see previous posts-in an attempt to hold back the tide of chemical free gardens-a lot of vested interest involved of course as a glance at any garden centre will demonstrate. The UN Inspectors now surplus to requirements in Iraq could well have a field day at East Ord in the search for chemical weaponry-I wonder if anyone thought of looking at the 'Great Saddam Garden Centre' just north of Takrit-after all much of this
materiel is 'dual use' as we used to say in approving chemical exports to Iraq in the good old days when Soddom H was on our side. Were the 40,000 tonnes of Round Up really for the gardens at all those lovely guest palaces or for some other purpose less horticultural? The Hutton Think Tank ( War Games and Garden Shed section) are working on a research paper: ' The role of Slug Pellets in Counter Insurgency Operations' When completed it should throw light on something.
