Here are the foxgloves we have planted in dappled shade alongside the new fence.

In the stereotypical Western a moody stranger comes into the saloon and says “Gimme a shot of Red Eye”. The barman, who wears a white apron, slides a glass along the bar, followed by the bottle.

Here are some other Old Western slang names (allegedly at any rate) for whisky.

Tarantula juice

Strychnine

Mountain howitzer

Coffin varnish

Chain lightening

Tanglefoot

Grandad was in a gardening contest, but he was really up against it. In the end he just had to throw in the trowel.

Yesterday I had an all day breakfast. It took ages.

I'm very proud of my hanging basket, which looks gorgeous.

Have you seen the price of onions? It’s eye watering.

What spectacles do gardeners wear? Weeding glasses.

What connects Leeks, Chives, Shallots and Garlic? They’re all relatives of the Onion. So you could call them the Onion’s kin.

What bird sounds out of breath. The Puffin.

Someone at the pub said what does ‘whelm’ mean? You can overwhelm or underwhelm, but can you whelm? Is whelming some kind of middle way?

A bit of research reveals that originally there was just whelm, a disaster that could happen to a boat or ship, meaning it could be overcome by weight of water and sink. Overwhelm just added the sense of a mass of water descending on the vessel.

So what about underwhelm? Well it seems to be a humorous coinage, first recorded in 1956. Here’s a couple of quotations the OED gives for whelm and underwhelm.

a1513   R. Fabyan New Cronycles Eng. & Fraunce (1516) II. f. clxxxviii   By the Mysgydynge of the Sterysman he was set vpon the Pylys of the Brydge, and the Barge whelmyd.

1956    T. K. Quinn Giant Corporations viii. 61   He wrote..commending the action of one of the giant corporations for a..price reduction at a time when prices were rising. I was underwhelmed, and investigated.

I had a terrible dream in which I was a cocktail made by incompetent bar staff. Woke up feeling badly shaken.

I was fascinated to read that researchers have succeeded in sequencing the genome of a man from Pompeii who died in the AD 79 eruption of Vesuvius. There is a really good article at

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/26/pompeii-victim-genome-successfully-sequenced-first-time

His genome was similar to that of others living in Italy at the time but with some genes shared by people in modern Sardinia. The authors of the original part commented “Further ancient genomes from Pompeii could help to reconstruct the genetic history of an ancient Roman city frozen in time.”

That’s the fascination of Pompeii: it’s a time capsule. And this research is a new window into it.