I want to tell you about my experience of the state of gastropub art, not the pictures on the wall, though that is now in my head and will have to wait to another day, but the creative splashes that get beamed out of their busy kitchens. I have seen the cheese plate transform via wooden platter to a slate based selected, some come adorned with fruit, celery and the chef’s own local berry chutney and others leave the cheese to speak for itself. Slate was initially a novelty of which I had some suspicion, mostly hygiene, knowing its soft and porous nature made me wonder was the slate one step beyond the boundaries that should define a serving dish. Seems though that slate must have undergone extreme H&S scrutiny as now this grey/blue medium is taking the gastropub table by storm. There’s not a meal that can’t be housed on it fossil rich surface. Some come in traditional white bowls but perch precariously on the riven tile making anxious young waitresses. Surely the slate is not meant to be a comic interlude in your evening meal but when Sofaman’s traditional Fisn’n'Chips washed up on the table at The Crown in East Rudham we were reduced to giggles and momentarily a hearty belly laugh, mildly alarmed the waiter fled. This was art meets food gone mad, why would you do it? F&C looks cannot be improved upon if presented on a large gleaming white plate, and what’s the square of local newsprint about? Sofaman soldiered on; taste not impaired by presentation but wondering further why crushed peas, I fear the chef too worn by creative hemisphere activity had not the strength to mush them. I am looking forward to further slate and art encounters throughout the week, and possibly finding next week that this phenomenon has spread to the continent.

Poor sofaman has been on the case, very angry yesterday, some poor operative took the full force of a man well trained in the art of destructive debate, as a Roman in the Forum Sofaman took on Pipex operative No435 who sank under the weight if vitriol, crushed, wounded and bloody they babbled willingly, yet again, and became compliant.

This will likely bring only another storm of incredulity, a raging torrent of anger and frustration. Operative No435 will slink off, delete the carelessly tossed together record and leave no trace of the event. Such is the might of apathy.

As the rain stopped shoppers emerged from the safety of Specsavers, one man came and stood over me.” Do you paint’ he asked, my Windsor and Newton paint tin open and splattered in Crimson and Indigo, paint brush in hand. ”How did you guess?”, ‘I saw you painting’ he charmed, well spotted. ‘Do you write?’, I thought ‘Yes’ had to be the answer, he had spotted me doing that as well. “Professional?”, was the inquisition ever to end?, I fulfilled he desires ‘ Yes’, why not?… he looked pleased to have found such a multi-skilled human.

Sometime in early autumn I broke my little petrol lawn mower by believing it invincible and attempting to mow too earnestly through the deep undergrowth. The poor machine was bundled into the boot of the car and carted off to the local mower hospital, new starter motor and blades and several pounds poorer I returned with a brightly buffed Huskervana. As the winter seems to have turned a corner and the ice and snow cleared I am tempted to drag the mower out from its hibernation and clear a few Walnut leaves using its double cutting action. Surely this mild enthusiasm for outdoor activity is, like the emerging Snowdrops, the first signs of spring.

Visiting open gardens is almost always a pleasant event, especially if the host serves Elderflower cordial, even the drifting hordes of lilac scented ladies do little to dispel the pleasure, though the stout dames in denim maxis, sensible shoes and overly snug shirts pulled unnervingly tight across their ample bosoms often send me scuttling off. But I was wandering around our garden yesterday and thought I too readily accept what I believe to be the truth, this is that others tend their garden to perfection and so set the pace by which we should march. I had been ‘twittering’ earlier in the day and discovered that Yoko Ono was now a follower of my tweets [don't get excited she follows everyone that follows her], on her profile she had written ‘I think it’s better to dance than to march through life.’, could it be that in gardening there are marchers and dancers?. The marchers being the Open Garden set, and the dancers, people like me, for whom gardening is a private activity, it is a process of self discovery, making amends and healing, a reciprocal relationship with the beautiful and unendingly fantastic delight that is the small, hard seed that sprouts into life and silently aches in its desire to live, to grow and to set seed, to make its mark.