Pig Sty Avenue

Old Greenhouse, After "Well, maybe before Christmas..."  I blogged. And on a beautiful sunny late-November afternoon I thought, "No! I'll get it done today!" I set about digging down into the NW corner of the Old Greenhouse area, right down into the glacial till of the subsoil, (below on right). This involved digging out maybe 7 or 8 barrows full of topsoil and clay, and dumping them on the NE bed. Then raised all the paving slabs from the path. Then with the spit I dug a channel about 8ins wide down the length of the path, just over a foot down. The sun was shining, and I was happy, working like a navvy on speed. But as I got to the Old Greenhouse area, I said, oh-o. The water in the trench I'd dug was lower than the water in the "pond". I jumped down into that and dug up the wet clay, trying to lower the level. But it was no good. When the Old Greenhouse area "pond" was joined with the drainage channel coming from the flooded a...

Got feedback on my 1st submission. It was ok, well written, de boop, de bap, but not critical enough. Which is probably fair comment. Also, I’d used titles relating to the now abandoned Common Core research. My tutor commented - when I told her I would be changing my proposal, - that she could tell from the submission that my heart wasn’t in it.  So I’m going to rewrite that, and update the 2nd Submission before Wednesday this week. Then I have Thursday & Friday to do the 3rd one.  I did a fair bit of reading last week, so I’m now almost caught up after my Common Core debacle. Before I begin writing in earnest tomorrow, though, I need to read (Scott, 2003), in particular the chapter on Policy documents, which are going to be important to this research.  [NB1: this title is not available to me in Mendeley Desktop, where I usually highlight and note up texts, so I’ll be using more direct quotations here than I normally would. Also, I’m using (Scott 2003) as...

The very morning that I was flying home from Jeddah, that very morning, I got the email from our Community Allotment Association's Secretary asking what my intentions were regarding an allotment. The last conversation I'd had with her, face to face at the allotments, she told me it was normal to spend a couple of years on the waiti ng list, and then get a quarter plot, or even just a raised bed, and later a half plot, and one day, eventually, a full plot of your own. "It's rare to walk straight into a full plot... In fact, it never happens." That was fine. I was just keen to get some fresh air and exercise and grow vegetables. But I knew I wanted a plot to myself, and would wait as long as it took, and take whatever came my way meanwhile. I wanted my own allotment, a whole one, all ten poles of it . I'd shared an allotment with Dad, and that was fine, we never fell out over anything, but what we were going to plant and where it was going to be planted, and ...

Vicious weather kept me away from the allotment today: first Sunday I've missed since I don't know when. Did a bit of googling, though, and calculated that I need to move 20-30 tons of earth from the Pond area. Which is fine, I'm up for the exercise. But with the winter weather and the short days, it's going to take months, it might be done by April, I don't know... But here's the thing: it's Glasgow, it's just going to keep on raining, and a big chunk of my allotment is going to be waterlogged throughout the winter and well into spring, and that will do the soil no good whatsoever. And I need to be putting the spoil onto the beds, and they're so waterlogged, the barrow sinks into the mire. So interim measures are wanted. I'm thinking of levelling just part of the Old Greenhouse foundations, about 4 square yards, and digging down a foot or so into the clay, and puddling it. I've already cleared an area a couple of square yards. And then l...

3 bags of oomska As I'm likely to be blogging about it quite a bit, a euphemism for horse shit is needed. Manure is an ugly word. Most euphemisms for this substance have no place here, a blog for adults, because they echo out of the nursery. Withnail and I came to mind when I was at the riding stables the other oomska bloodworms week, in my nice clean Doctor Martens, I could hear Monty saying "You mean you've been up here in all this beastly mud and oomska without wellingtons?" And so, oomska it is. (The etymology is uncertain - it sounds Russian. Monty may have been a Polari speaker, but no polari lexicons have the word. Pig latin for "scum" is suggested somewhere online.) Back at the riding stables out past Cumbernauld this morning, this time in my trusty gardening boots, (which I'd taken home and polished and gave new insoles and laces to yesterday - a gardener needs to look after the boots); I got three hessian sacks of oomska. I was met...

trinitycollege.com , 2015 lists catergories of visas with the CEFR level and appropriate SELT. For example, a sportsperson is required to have A1 capabilities in the Speaking and Listening domains, whereas a Minister of Religion is required to have B2 in all 4 domains, see ( gov.uk 2015) for advice to those seeking the Minister of Religion visa. My (rusty) legal research skills will be useful here: what is the statutory basis for these categories? What was said in Parliament and in the media when they were being enacted?   Butterworths Immigration Law Service 2015 gives the background to the law behind the non-EEA economic migration system which gives us the Visa Categories. A points based system, (PBS) was introduced by legislation in 2008 and “has undergone significant evolution” since then, (Butterworths Immigration Law Service 2015 [1]). [NB I’m primarily concerned with non-economic migration, but this is useful scaffolding]. “The Government's fundamental objectives roo...

I moved the comfrey plants, and some others that were around down to the small unwaterlogged scrap of ground, but didn't plant them, I was in too much of a digging mood. I've already lifted a few of the paving slabs, and I dug down into the soggy clay/topsoil beneath them. The real clay subsoil is about a foot down, so that's where I need to get to when the whole path is lifted and trench dug. I came back to it an hour later, and it had filled with water. So I'm on the right course, digging down a foot will drain the beds. And then I set about the spoil heap near the pond location. Note to self, here: if you're going to dig a hole, move the spoil somewhere, because you're only going to have to come back to it later. I barrowed this onto the hollow looking areas on the beds. Then I went back to the old brick path I've discovered. and continued uncovering it, almost to the fence. Glad it's there, it's giving a mark of where the levels should be, wher...

Getting an overview of the assessment regime [interesting word] for emergent bilingual new Scots. [for notes only, EBs or EBNSs] [text below not proofed] First, (Esolscotland.com, Citizenship. 2015). On a page headed “ESOL and Citizenship - Home Office requirements for settlement and naturalisation as a British citizen from 6th April 2015” [nb, the words “settlement” and, particularly “naturalisation” are interesting here. Check legal defiinitions and etymology], we learn that there are two parts to the KoLL test, (Knowledge of Language and Life in the UK): the applicant must pass the Life in the UK test, AND have a level of English, [OR, presumably, Welsh or Scots Gaelic, though they aren’t mentioned here?] at CEFR B1. Tests, (both?) are referred to as SELTs (Secure English Language Tests) and are conducted by Trinity and IELTS SELTS Consortia. From November 2015, (now) only SELTs will be acceptable for settlement and naturalisation.  There’s a long and technical list of ...

EdD r eading this morning, getting to grips with administration of the Life in the UK test, for Scotland. But as today looks like being a small island of not-quite-raining in an otherwise washed out week, I'm getting to the allotment this afternoon.  I've got to replant the comfrey. I planted it near the Old Greenhouse back in July, 12 plants which I'd got from 2 or 3 tubers from the old allotment near the original Pig Sty Avenue.  I was worried I’d planted them too deeply, but needn’t have. They grew like mad. Sunday, I got a sackful of leaves for next years tomato feed, which I put in a sack in an auld tin bin of water. Then I dug up the plants, each one of them now a massive set of tubers. I threw them onto the spoil heap from the pond.  I’ve only got one truly cultivatable bit of ground, by the fence in the north east bed, the patch I dug dozens of bricks out from a few weeks ago. It’s more or less at the right level, and well draining. So I’ll put the comfre...

Blimey, I’ve read 1 paper, (Han et al, 2010) and got nearly 1500 words of comment on it. And a eureka moment. A possible research question arises directly from this paper - well two, the first theoretical, the second practical: Should we be obligating new Scots to learn English, and if “yes”, are we going about it efficiently and fairly? Points for further reading and thinking are marked in bold .  Han et al 2010 is a qualitative study of interviews of ESOL teachers at a London college, and of a focus group at the same college. In a discussion to the background of citizenship and language it is noted that “immigrants are encouraged, even coerced, into adopting the majority culture at the expense of their own.” This gets to the heart of my current thinking, of L2 speakers as “emergent bilinguals.” I recall teaching one-to-one a middle aged woman from the sub-continent, who had lived on Tyneside for many years and who was at a very simple level in all domains. This leads me to t...

Search: scotland esol citizenship assessment [library, primo central, 20 peer reviewed, of which 19 fto] Gately (2015) is a small scale qualitative study of the work of the Refugee Integration and Employment Service (RIES) cut by the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition in the UK in 2011. RIES, amongst other things, provided advice to young (18-29) refugees on accessing Further and Higher Education in the UK. Gately gives a useful outline (p28) of the treatment of those seeking asylum in the UK: refugee status is granted to those recognised as refugees, and “humanitarian protection” is granted to those not recognised as refugees who cannot return to a country for humanitarian reasons. Both categories of people get leave to remain in the UK for 5 years, and “Indefinite Leave to Remain” can be applied for thereafter. For those in neither category, “in limited circumstances” there is the possibility of getting leave to remain for up to 3 years.  Both refugee and humanitar...

In keeping with the new allotment-fundamentalist philosophy - essentially, get what you can for nothing but your own labour - this afternoon on the way home from Riddrie, I gathered a lot of hawthorn berries (from trees on the edge of Alexandra Park, some rose hips (bottom of Onslow Drive), and some other berries I found on the way (edge of someone's plot at the allotments). I've done this before. Here's a video, (made using the mobile phone technology of 2006) of our Clare collecting the berries. I stratified the seeds and grew a couple of dozen trees. And then I went back to Libya, and we moved house, and I don't know what happened to them. So, anyway, I know what to do, how to stratify them, and seem to remember I got around 50-75% strike rate with the seeds. Also, the flesh of a hawthorn berry is said to be good for the heart . Essentially, the procedure is to wash the berries, and then chew on them, spitting out the hard inner seed. I'll do this tonight ...

This is an auld wall sign that was being used, apparently, to separate a growing area from the midden. Or something. Anyway, it appeals as something that's probably as old as the allotment itself, (1917) or older. A good couple of hours work today. First, I got at the comfrey with the scythe, got it into a proper sack, (a batch of 10 I bought on eBay, the other 9 will come in for storing spuds, onions, neeps and what-have-you next autumn). And then I put a stone in the sack, and put the sack into the auld tin dustbin at the end of the path, which is nearly half filled with water, just the rain it collects itself, but with the Glasgow rainfall it'll be full soon enough. Then I started digging on the East side by The Pond area, which is where I dug out the Camp Coffee sign. I uncovered an old brick path, running E-W, about a foot below the surface, (under where the the comfrey was. I should add, the comfrey, split out of 2 or 3 plants from the old allotment I shared with Da...

Venus was very bright in the SE sky this morning first thing. And when the sun came up it was a beautiful bright morning as I walked up to the University, all the puddles on the pavements frozen in the first sub-zero temperatures of the year. Good to be alive and breathing the cool air, glad I didn't wait for the bus. Inevitably thinking about the allotment rather than my studies. I need to be realistic about how much I can get done this winter. Maybe 2 or 3 hours at the weekend, and maybe the same during the week. Weather forecasts after the BBC Scotland news are one of the few things on telly that I take a serious interest in. The Pond and the drainage are going to take months at this rate. So that got me thinking about the hedgerow: I can't really plant it until I get the levels right. Which might be well into the spring, too late for hedge planting. And that led me on to thinking about the rightness buying stuff. I could get 400 hawthorn bare roots for a £200 or thereabou...

Section 1 Mind Map Section 2 Searches I have had to change the area of my research in the last few days for reasons beyond my control, and perform the searches and draft this submission fairly quickly as a result. Therefore, I limited my searches for now to Google Scholar. However, where search results turned up a book, I would go to the university’s library site to check its availability, (see Reflections). Below are 6 searches which yielded initial titles relating to policy.  There were too many results in the earliest searches, and I gradually refined the terms to get 66 results on the 6th attempt. On the earlier searches, with many results, I would skim through the first few pages of results, to get a feel for them.  *"English Language" "Asylum Seekers" Refugees Scotland* [Google Scholar, All, 2,260 results] *ESL "Asylum Seekers" Refugees Scotland*  [Google Scholar, All, 260 results] *ESL ESOL "Asylum Seekers" Ref...