JEKKA BOOK GIVEAWAY GIVEN AWAY!

So the Baklava Standards Committee dictated that I should publish this image of our due and careful competition process, to assure our readers of its fairness under public scrutiny. 

As you can see, after much debate we went for the old "scrunched up names in a Sainsbury's bag" technique; old, but effective. And the winner was...

Alex from Shedworking, a fine figure of a blogger and possessor at least half an allotment where hopefully he can put some of Jekka's favourite herbs to work. 

Thank you to everyone who entered and I'd like to think it was the laws of chance favouring Alex who was such a regular poster on Garden Monkey. 

LAST CALL FOR ENTRIES ON THE JEKKA BOOK GIVEAWAY

Just comment on this post or the one below in the next 24 hours, leaving your name (obv it doesn't work if you do it anonymously!) and I will enter you into my draw, which I'll do tomorrow morning at 11am.

Emma xxx

GOODBYE MONKEY TRIBUTE GIVEAWAY

Anyone who regularly reads the gardening blogs will know that despite my general cheekiness, I have a deep love for the monkey. I'd been racking my brains for a suitable send-off-slash-tribute, and then it came to me in a flash! 

On 12th February, Kyle Cathie are publishing the paperback of the revised edition of Jekka's Complete Herb Book. It is a totally gorgeous bible of everything you can do with herbs, letting you know the best mint for mint sauce, for mint tea, for hanging baskets. Etc. 

Knowing how much the GM loves gardening books (and also having seen at first hand how much the GM's identity fascinates Jekka) I thought this was a star giveaway and the perfectly appropriate gift! And it means we get to celebrate that simian, not boo-hoo about it. 

So I received a brand-new copy yesterday morning direct from the publisher, and I will put it straight back in the jiffy bag and send it off to one lucky winner, in honour of the Naked Ape. Saving one lucky person £16.99.

All you have to do is comment here, don't give me any contact details, I'll just draw the commenters' names out of a hat, then announce it, and you can get in touch with me. But here's an idea: why don't you use the comment to share with us all the GM thing which made you spit out the most tea whilst laughing? 

Monkey, we will miss you, but we hope that the change brings you a bit more peace for sitting around eating bananas. XXX

STOP PRESS FOR LONDON JEKKISTAS:

Jekka is the speaker at KMIS, Kew Mutual Improvement Society, on Monday evening. 

BAH NEW YEAR HUMBUG

So here's the thing. I had a really happy christmas. It was really lovely. And I had loads of nice food, but also managed to keep up my running, and I was the only person I know who didn't get sick over the entire period. Not even a runny nose. 

And now it is a new year, with the promise of the bowls of Narcissi paperwhite I made under Duke Colbourn's instructions back in November.* Everyone's posting about new year's resolutions and lovely little spring flowers. 

Why then do I feel so grumpy? 

* His narcissi looked much better than mine. Maybe that's contributing to the whinginess.