A lot of my photos are low resolution ones from before the days of Broadband - hence the reduced display width.  

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Thank you for visiting. You can find out more about me by clicking here. I set up my web site in a bit of a rush in early 2001, but I have added bits and pieces and made changes since then as time permitted. You are most welcome to have a look. There are sections with lots of photos and others with mostly words. Most of the year I am in the garden (weather permitting), but the intention was to find time for web site work when winter came. The best laid plans .....

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I was born and brought up in Scotland, and we return to Aberdeen for lots of holidays and most New Years. I now live in the village of High Wych, just into Hertfordshire, about 30 miles from London and seven miles from Stansted airport - near enough to be convenient, but distant enough at present to avoid the noise.

Who am I, what do I like?     
Well, until very recently I worked a few miles away in Harlow, which is just over the border and into Essex. In the first half of 2002 I completed a 6 month period of "gardening leave" after getting a more than generous redundancy package in December, 2001. That was the first time in over thirty years I had been unemployed, and had the time to devote to loads of outside interests. Eventually I found another job in June, 2002, and I was then well and truly back in the groove working as FD for a high tech. company still in Harlow. And just to bring things fully up to date I took early and second "retirement" in December 2006 - an early Christmas present. I have put the retirement in inverted commas as currently I am not quite sure what the future plans might be. Perhaps I should say I am self employed / semi-retired.

We have a fairly large garden with lawn and vegetables, fruit trees, compost heaps, and two greenhouses to support. I grow most plants from seeds - Spring is very busy. Our garage is reasonably equipped and I used to do my own car servicing, and most repairs. But that sort of went into abeyance when the car (usually a Citroen) was less than 3 years old and had to be serviced by a main Citroen dealer to preserve its 3 year warranty. There were no such restrictions for my various Vespas which served me reasonably faithfully as cheap second vehicles on and off for about 40 years . The last one finally succombed to one MOT too many in October 2006 - terminal rust on the sub frame. I was stuck in the shop and needed a quick replacement so I bought what they had in stock, broke the habit of a lifetime and now no longer ran a Vespa. So, the new scooter was a 250 cc Suzuki Burgman 4 stroke, with electric start ( I did miss the kick start), automatic, hand brake, etc, and all the bells and whistles. Driving sensibly and trying not to offend anyone, I used it to cut through the traffic as I hate being held up in queues. Using the scooter saved me hours every month year in, year out. Parking is so much easier - and cheaper (usually free). For a picture of the scooter click here. However, in April, 2010 when I got the Suzuki its new MOT, I realised that I had only done 150 miles in a whole year. So to cut a long story short, I sold my last scooter on 30th April, 2010. The end of an era indeed !

Finances permitting, my wife Christine and I like taking lots of UK and overseas holidays - the overseas ones are usually late availability off season bargains. I then bore friends and relatives with the video (now all transferred to DVD). I have always had a sort of ambition to be a competent pianist. Realistically, I will never, ever be a concert pianist, but I would like to be able to get up and have a go in front of a friendly audience. I'm not nearly there yet but its not for the lack of practising. I'll probably end up having to get lessons. We have a Technics electric piano - the full description is a digital ensemble piano. Its a full sized piano / keyboard with a mass of build in features which make a duffer like me sound a lot better.

Most days I walk into Sawbridgeworth village centre to get the daily paper. The return journey is about 2.2 miles. I used to go on the scooter, but then thought the exercise would be better for me. Also most ( i.e. all) days end with a late night visit to a local. We are regulars at two or three pubs, chosen mostly for the quality of their beer (beer not lager !) and comfortable bars. You are made to feel welcome, there is plenty of space to get a seat but the place is not deserted, and you don't have to shout to compete with loud music. Excluding visits to Scotland, the old faithful is a pint of Country, which is not strictly a real ale because of the way it is dispensed, but its brewed by McMullens of Hertford, a local family brewer. I like real ale so long as it is medium strength, well flavoured but not flowery, dark brown coloured and of course it must be served in a pint glass with a handle. Alternatives are too many to name, but lets mention London Pride and Adnams. When abroad we settle for what we can get so long as its not lager - and Guinness will do if all else fails. In Scotland its a pint of heavy, please.

Oh, and I am a great Archers fan - been hooked since it started ( I used to listen to Dick Barton, special agent, and just carried on when the Archers came along). It was better when Uncle Tom used to introduce the Sunday visit, but times change. It's also less interesting when they depart too far from the country theme, and I hate it when they give trailers - how can they know about something that has not happened yet. Current dumbed down short term story lines also leave a lot to be desired when all of a sudden people change their characters.

And now of course now there is "retirement", and more leasure to look forward to !

But that is enough about me, just now.

You will find out more about me under "Early days" in My Ramblings, and how to get in touch with me under the contacts section. I have been contacted by several people including two from my primary school days. Murray, one of those who contacted me, remembered me from when I was little boy of 5 - he saw a photo of the Portessie Sunday school outing and got in touch. Its lovely to hear from old friends, so do get in touch if you would like to.

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Ramblings

• Books - Iain's Leisure Reading
• Cars - Our family cars.
• Cooking with Iain
• Day Trips / Days out with Iain
• Gardening - Down the garden with Iain.
• National Trust Properties - our visits there.
• School and Early days
• Slimming - Iain's slimming secrets.
• Tea Rooms - recommended and favourite.
• Web Site - Why have I got one ?
• Web Site - Getting started on writing a web site
• West End Theatre - What we saw, What we thought.

Why have I got a web site ?

Well it all started on Christmas day 2000, when Chris, my wife, Kirsty, our daughter and I got to open our mysteriously small 'pressies' from our son Jamie. Each present was a floppy disk, which we were instructed to insert in a disk drive. To cut a long story short, we had all been given our own "web sites" - domain names registered on the world wide web.

To give us something to look at, Jamie had set each of us up on a page on his own web site as our temporary home page. Anyone clicking on ireid.co.uk would be taken to this temporary Iain Reid's Home page. It was all very thrilling stuff - you can see what exciting lives we lead ! Well, that meant of course that we would all have to think about what to put on our sites - quite a challenge.

Christmas and New Year came and went, and then there were all sorts of other things to catch up with. By the time I came home at night, had something to eat, then caught up with Ambridge, and then the paper in front of the telly for a wee while, there was not really much of a gap before piano practice time, off to the pub for a night-cap, back to see if there was anything still on the box, and so to bed.

But, I now had a web site name, and it would be a waste not to do something with it. The problem was and still is, what do I want it for, what to do with it, and how do I go about it ! Anyway, that was how I came to have a web site.

Getting started on writing a web site.

I thought it might be helpful if I explained how I went about setting up my first version of this web page. I am more a novice than an expert, and probably more in need of guidance than able to offer it. But I have set up a web site of sorts, and what I did will get anyone else started.
In writing this I also thought it would be interesting and humbling to look back at my first attempts and see what I said then. And then I could later maybe do a sequel on what I did wrong, or on how / when to scrap it, and start again. Perhaps part two will be making improvements.

Step 1 - get your own name on the world wide web.

This is not essential, but its nice to have a relevant name. In my case the web name was ireid.co.uk, a gift from Jamie. At the time I did not realize it was only a name, and not an actual web site. The name was purchased for two years from easily.co.uk. You visit their site, suggest a name, and keep going until you find a near variation that has not already been taken. I think .co.uk is cheaper that .com, and possibly .com is only leased for a year. Anyone entering ireid.co.uk is then directed to a web address that you specify, which you have arranged with some web host, and anyone sending e-mail to someone@ireid.co.uk is similarly redirected to an e-mail address that you specify.

Step 2 - get a beginner's book on setting up a web site

I got The Complete Idiot's Guide to Creating a Web Page. I cannot say if it is better than any other book, but it worked for me. Jamie's copy was in the house so I got access to that free - well he hasn't charged for it yet. I then got my own copy. To start with, read part one only - you only want the essentials. It is about 100 pages in total, of reasonably large print (the large print was probably why I liked it).

Read it through once to get the overall picture, then read it again carefully. I took notes as I went through it the second time. This condensed the essentials into 8 pages which I could review quickly to refresh an aging memory. The author covers all that is needed to get going - do not be put off by his American sense of humour (humor as he would say) which is a bit wearing sometimes. Then review the notes several times, and get going.

Step 3 - get a web site (how to do this is in the above book)

You want to arrange for some web host to house your web site. I started off by registering for free hosting with geocities.com (part of yahoo). It was all straight forward - like getting your web name, you suggest a user name for yourself starting with your own name, and you keep going until you get one reasonably similar which has not been taken. They then give you a web site address ( this is your URL) which consists of http://, then their web name , then your user name, then index.html. All of this is one expression with no spaces. The user name is really the name of the directory or slot they give you, and the index.html is the default name for the page a visitor goes to if he / she enter only part of the full address. Everyone is advised to rename their home page as a file named index.html. Visitors then default to the home page. (In my case I later changed the index.html page to be a two part frame to house a non scrolling site index at the top, and the home page below - working with frames is described in the book).
Free hosting is not so common now, but it did let you experiment. I moved to a fee charging site later to escape the pop up adverts.

Step four - get cracking.

With what you have learned, your notes and the book to refer to, set up a file structure on your home computer. I set up a new directory which I named webiain - see Windows help if you need help to do this. Rather than using Word, I used the simpler Wordpad which was under Accessories in Windows 95 and is still there in Windows XP. Microsoft Word formats documents, and you do not want this - you just want simple text. I typed away to create a page for my web site, and saved it as a file called "index.html" as a text only document. Note the " ", but see later. I saved this file and also another file called graphicsi in my directory webiain. Graphicsi was where I was going to store future graphics and photos. Everything to do with my web site was then in one place, in a directory webiain. I also copy / saved everything in another directory as back up.

I usually opened the page I was working on in Wordpad, and then minimised it. I then opened the same page with Internet Explorer in my case, left it open, and then maximised the Wordpad page again. So I had two windows open and could toggle between the two (press alt + tab at the same time). I worked away in Wordpad, and saved what I had done every so often. I then switched to the Internet Explorer view, and clicked refresh to see what I had just done looked like on the web. Then it was back to Wordpad to do corrections, save, switch , refresh, and so on.

One problem that I found was that my references to files and images, were not working, no matter what I did. I then found that the file index.html, had been saved as index.html.html, and this was happening to all files. Renaming the files e.g. "index" only, got rid of the extra .html, and solved the problem. Its easier not to open new files, just copy existing ones as a template, and save the copy with a new name.

Other problems were the usual mistakes which the book warns about. Look to see what is wrong in the web display then toggle to the text display to find the entry causing the problem. If you have problems with tables, add lines and borders to the tables to see what the problem is - you can easily remove them once the problem is fixed. Remember to save changes in the text file to get them to appear in the web display. Finally test everything to see that all internal links work, etc.

Step five - test it live whilst logged in to the world wide web.

You are advised to view how your site looks on several current browsers, and older versions of the main ones, but I skipped this. Sorry if this has caused you problems. You should also test your site whilst you are logged on to the world wide web. This is to test that all your external references work.

Step six - ship it to your live web site.

As recommended in the book, I used CuteFTP to transfer files to the web. This of course was a few years ago now. The book also advised on how to use CuteFTP. There was a copy of this software with the book. It has also been on some magazine cover disks.
CuteFTP seems easy enough to set up. You load it up initially with various web addresses and passwords, and thereafter you just use it. I had two problems. Failing to send files to www.geocities.com, I had to change the address to ftp.geocities.com for file transfer - but you do not have to put in the ftp part for all companies. If all else fails, look at your site's help screen, or ask someone who has done it before - in my case I asked Jamie.

After transfer, you close CuteFTP, and rush on to the web to admire your handiwork. And that is it, you are up and running and you can proceed at your own pace to add to or delete, or change what you have done. And you do not need to tell anyone you have a web site until there is something there for them to see.

Iain's Slimming Secrets

We pile on the pounds when more energy is taken in than burnt off by the body. "It is as simple as that. There is no magical way to defy the laws of thermodynamics" - Professor John Speakman, of the Rowett Research Institute, Univ. of Aberdeen. Well, I would go to Aberdeen for a good quote, wouldn't I.

I am not sure that I really have any secrets to pass on, but what's wrong with a catchy heading! There are books galore on the subject, and all sorts of special diets which come and go with fashion. My method is simple, lets you eat the kind of food you like, and drink what you like to drink, and really, really works. Its all about control. If you lose control of your weight, you will probably put on too much. Get control back by having a theory about how to lose weight, decide how much to lose, and how quickly, do some sums and calculate how many calories to allow yourself per day. Then get on with it, and compare what is happening with what was predicted. Yes, it does require will power and some bother to start with, but after a few days your body gets used to the new regime, less will power is necessary, and you find its less bother.

The method I used depends on never exceeding a daily calorie allowance, and strict calorie counting, even weighing portions to start with. You keep a written running total of calories consumed, can top up with fruit, but must stop eating when you get to the daily allowance. First you will have to get a book that lists alphabetically the calorific value of various foods and drinks. You can often get a good book in a Charity shop or a bargain book shop.

Use common sense. Look at the calorie value of the sort of things that you like to eat. Go for bigger portions of the low calorie items rather than smaller portions of the high calorie ones. If you like carrots and greens, go for these, rather than chips and sausages. But if you like sausages you can still have a couple with your evening meal, and sensible portions of boiled potatoes are mostly OK. The diet is flexible. However you will soon see that there are some things you cannot really eat, except as a birthday treat - eg blackcurrant cheesecake, trifle, etc.

To save a bit of counting and weighing we also bought an excellent recipe book "The Classic 1000 Calorie-counted Recipes" by Carolyn Humphries. It cost £5.99 in the UK in January, 2001. It is split into sections - breakfasts, snacks, lunches, evening meals, etc. - and within each section there are sub groups by calorie ranges - e.g. up to 150 or 250, or 500 calories. There are loads and loads of recipes in each section. Just about everything you could possibly want is there, usually in a recipe for 4 servings. Just halve the quantities if its for two (but use more than half the liquid quantity with some recipies). The complete meal then has a known number of calories, with no further counting required. There are lots of similar books.

The overall slimming technique consists of :

Step 1 - Calculate your body's metabolic rate.
Step 2 - Set a daily calorie allowance for a target rate of weight loss
Step 3 - Get started, monitor, and watch your weight reduce !

Step 1 - Calculate your body's metabolic rate

To start with assume you have a normal metabolic rate, and take this as 2,500 calories per day for a man, and 2,000 calories a day for a woman. If you are very active, e.g. a manual worker you might have to add a bit to this, say 50 and if you are aged over fifty, reduce this by 200 say - your muscles reduce with age, and so your metabolic rate goes down. If you were to lie still and not move about your body would use about 1500 calories a day, just breathing, to keep your heart going, etc. Your actual metabolic rate will depend on the amount of exercise you do, and also on your weight. I have added a little about the effect of exercise at the end of this section. Most people are in the range 1,900 to 2,500 calories. As you lose weight your body has less work to do moving less weight about, and so your metabolic rate decreases. This partly explains why you seem to lose less weight per week the further into a diet you go.

Generally use the 2,500 or 2,000 calorie number as a starting figure for metabolic rate. After a couple of weeks sticking strictly to the diet, and keeping a written record, calculate your average weekly calories consumed, and the average weekly weight loss. Calculate back to get a revised figure for your metabolic rate. So if you initially took 2,500 as your metabolic rate now take eg 2,200 or whatever your estimate is. I have added an example of the calculation using both pounds and kilos ( 1 kilo = 2.2 lbs.) ( On the subject of pounds, what sort of country have our politicians created for us when a UK butcher cannot sell you a pound of sausages, but a street trader in France can sell you as a tourist a pound of apples! I don't blame the politicians, its our fault, as we elected them. Do we pick the best of a bad bunch - well its still our fault for creating the circumstances where no one better wants to stand. Nor can we blame the papers - we buy the papers. But I digress. )

What you did	Example in pounds			Different metric example
	Calories	Weight saved	Time	Calories	Weight saved	Time
Calories consumed	12,600 cals	5 lbs	2 weeks	18,000 cals	4 kilos	3 weeks
Per week   (A)	6,300 cals	2.5 lbs	1 week	6,000 cals	1.3 kilos	1 week
Factor	3,500 cals	= 1 lb		7,700 cals	= 1 kilo
Cals equiv of weight loss *(B)	8,750 cals	= 2.5 lbs	1 week	10,010 cals	= 1.3 kilos	1 week
Add B to A	15,050 cals	no lbs	1 week	16,010 cals	no kilos	1 week
So,metabolic rate (1/7)	2,150 cals		daily	2,287 cals		daily

* i.e. 2.5 lbs loss at factor 3,500 per lb = 8,750 cals

The effect of exercise

A section on slimming requires a few words about exercise. As explained above, all you have to do is to eat less than your metabolic rate and you will lose weight. How much less determines the speed of weight loss. Don't kid yourself that you are the one in a million with thyroid deficiency, or whatever. To lose weight eat less, or increase your metabolic rate with exercise, or both.

The book you bought to look up calorie values will probably have tables showing how many calories you can use up with various activities. The following list gives a flavour, so that you can estimate what you might try. However if you already play squash you are unlikely to be considering slimming, which just leaves walking as an extra for most of us. Its easier to save 60 calories by not eating 60 calories (less that one slice of bread) than going for a half hour walk, but I cannot argue that you could just as easily do both. And I do find that I can eat a little more on holidays as I get more exercise when on holiday just walking about.

Note that the amount of calories you burn in exercise depends on your body weight - the more you weigh, the more calories you burn per minute of exercise.

Calories used per minute	Examples
10 per minute	e.g. Squash
8 per minute	e.g. climbing stairs, running
7 per minute	e.g. cycling, swimming, aerobics class
5 to 6 per minute	e.g. rugby, football, skipping, disco dancing
3 to 4 per minute	e.g. house work, digging the garden, ironing
2 per minute	e.g. walking

Step 2 - Set a daily calorie allowance for a target rate of weight loss.

Most people who want to lose weight fairly quickly, stick to the old tried and tested 1,000 calories a day. So for a women of average metabolic rate this is a daily saving of 1,000 calories, and for a man again of average metabolic rate this would be a daily saving of 1,500 calories. Now to lose 1 pound per week (or 1 kilo) you have to save 500 calories per day ( or 1,100 calories a day for 1 kilo). So with the above diet a man should lose about 3 lbs a week ( about 1.4 kilos) and a women about 2 lbs a week (about 0.9 kilos a week).

Contact details and recommended sites.

One of the delights of having a web site is when someone contacts me. It does not happen often, but it does happen more than I imagined it would. My furthest back contact was Murray who remembered me from when I was 5 and got in touch! Rex got in touch too - he was a chum from when I was about 12.

I would really like to hear from you, especially if you are someone I know.

Click on the following link if it works, to send me an email: -     Mail me., or just send an email to iain@ (this website)

Friends and relatives web sites.

Jamie's web site is no longer there

Temp : Click here to see pictures of Peter & Liz's Oct/04 visit - it used to take a long time to load, in pre broadband days.

Whats new ?

I often tinker with my web site, adding comments, an extra photo or two, and delete this and that, etc.
I don't always remember all that I have changed, nor bother to record it.

But if you just want a quick route to some new sections added recently, you might care to try the following list.

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Home Page

Down the garden with Iain

Pictures are grouped into the following sections :

• My gardening consultant, former neighbour and great friend Bill.
• Updated Last Month in the Garden, starting Jan/2012, but only up to Dec/13
• A Tour of the then current garden in early 2000's
• Above Garden tour continued
• Cutting the Beech hedge
• Our old apple tree
• Winter comes occasionally
• Our changing garden
• More of our changing garden

I seem to spend a lot of my time in the garden, mostly weeding, but sometimes I get a reward for my labours - fruit, vegetables or a tomato or two (or more) for tea. Occasionally I just sit and relax in the fresh air. Gardens are a lot of work, but remember they are there to be enjoyed. Anyway, as gardening occupies a lot of my time, I thought I should put it on my web site, with lots of photos.

I had better start by describing the garden - there are pictures in the section headed a tour of the garden. In total including the house, our plot of land is slightly over 1/5 of an acre. Its roughly a rectangle 50 feet by 180 feet. There is a small front garden laid to grass to separate us from the road outside, then the house, and then a back garden. And a long thin side garden runs from front to back. We exit from our back door to a small patio, and then to the back lawn which extends over 100 feet back to a wrought iron fence between us and the farmer's field behind. At the back, right is the vegetable patch. The side garden is mostly a quiet shady area set to lawn, but there is an enclosed (protected from rabbits) part at the rear mostly now planted with raspberries.

We have a lovely old bay tree at the back, and a huge fir tree at the front corner of the plot. There are also several fruit trees - 6 apple , 5 plumb, 4 elderberry, 3 cherry, 2 greengage and 1 pear (bought Jan/07), and we have raspberry, gooseberry, and blackcurrant bushes. In the vegetable plot we grow rhubarb, peas (sometimes), runner beans, brussel sprouts, cabbage and lettuce. There is also a conservatory / greenhouse not in the best of positions, and the main greenhouse at the foot of the garden. We grow tomato and cucumber mostly, but sometimes peppers and courgettes, etc. Unfortunately the garden is north facing, but the extreme rear is in the sun most of the day. At the side of the drive we have a long high Beach hedge, and at the edge of the side garden a mature hedge of assorted trees and shrubs.

To help me cope I have a Honda rotovator, and I used to have an old petrol Suffolk Punch lawnmower - both of which I bought second hand, and maintain myself. The Punch broke down for the last time in Aug/03 - it covered me in oil, and I got so annoyed I threw it out ( but it was me that overfilled it with oil in the first place). Anyway it was replaced with a bigger rotary petrol mower, and I can now cut the grass without having to do lawnmower repairs each time. I also got a cheap hover mower to cope with long, wet grass in the days when I had the Punch. And then of course there are lots of smaller items, a strimmer, wheelbarrow, hedge trimmer, lawn aerator, etc, etc

But that is enough for just now. Lets look at the pictures.

Before leaving the words, though, I could not write about the garden without first paying homage to my old friend, former neighbour, and gardening consultant Bill Fish. Sadly he is no longer with us, but his son Barry sold me part of his garden. Every time I wonder what to do, I try to think of what Bill would have done. I also bought Bill's rotovator from Barry, so the same machine still cultivates the same plot of land, which seems an appropriate little bit of gardening continuity.

Annual harvest totals :

One more section of words, before the pictures. I thought it might be interesting to log the amount of fruit we pick each year, to see if things get better or worse. I've done this in two tables - a current year summary one, and a prior years history one with data going back to 2001. The current year summary table is below, click the link to see the history table :-

Summary Table :        Or Click here to see the Prior Years History Table

	Record Year			2024			2023		2022
Fruit	Year	Total		Last Picking	Total	Comments	Last Picking	Total	Last picking	Total
Plums - Rivers	2006	132 lbs		20th Jul	2 lbs	disappointing	9th Aug	7 lbs	8th Aug	17 lbs
Plums - Victoria	2005	195 lbs		1st Aug	35 lbs	disappointing	10th Aug	67 lbs	8th Aug	15 lbs
Plums - sub total	2005	301 lbs		1st Aug	37 lbs	disappointing	10th Aug	74 lbs	8th Aug	32 lbs
Greengages	2007	75 lbs		9th Aug	2 lbs	disappointing		0 lbs	8th Aug	3 lbs
Tomatoes	2004	105 lbs		15th Nov	10 lbs	disappointing	20th Nov	12 lbs	30th Oct	19 lbs
Rhubarb	2003	82 lbs		1st Oct	0.5 lbs	very disappointing	1st Aug	1 lb	12th Aug	3 lbs
Rasps	2005	39 lbs		9th Aug	2 lbs	expected more	15th Aug	3 lbs	4th Jul	1 lb
Gooseberries	2005	42 lbs		8th Jul	0.1 lbs	a few berries	11th Jul	0.1 lbs	8th Jul	0.1 lbs
Cherries	2003	3 lbs		24th Jun	0.1 lbs	hardly any	25th Jun	0.1 lbs	17th Jun	2 lbs
Blackcurrants	2013	11 lbs		28th Jul	0.1 lbs	disappointing	20th Jul	0.1 lbs	1st Aug	1 lb
Pears	2016	16 lbs				no crop ?	31st Oct	5 lbs	2nd Oct	0.5 lbs
Runner Beans	2002	69 lbs		28th Sep	2 lbs	worst ever	22nd Oct	8 lbs	27th Oct	7 lbs
Apples - Middle Tree	2024	256 lbs		30th Sep	256 1bs	record year !	28th Sep	41 lbs	28th Oct	162 lbs
Apples - Cox	2017	103 lbs		30th Sep	42 lbs	OK year	28th Sep	14 lbs	27th Aug	36 lbs
Apples - Foot of garden	2011	76 lbs		12th Sep	6 lbs	disappointing	28th Sep	18 lbs	23rd Sep	4 lbs
Apples - Winter Gem	2011	71 lbs		13th Oct	13 lbs	disappointing	8th Sep	1 lb	31st Oct	31 lbs
Apples - J Grieve	2022	23 lbs		13th Sep	2 lbs	terrible	2nd Oct	6 lbs	25th Sep	23 lbs
Apples - Cooking	2008	92 lbs				tree died
Apples - Sub total	2017	490 lbs		13th Oct	319 lbs	good year	22nd Oct	80 lbs	31st Oct	256 lbs
GRAND  TOTAL FOR  YEAR	2005	908 lbs				371 lbs		183 lbs		325 lbs

It's a constant struggle v. pests, etc. Some you win, some you lose. I have learned not to bother with stuff that doesn't seem to suit our garden or stuff that is not really to our taste. Also you must expect swings and roundabouts - not everything is good the same year. If it's a bad year for one thing, the chances are something else will compensate. But our plum trees are very old now, and they have lost a lot of branches over the last few years - they cannot bear the weight of fruit any longer.

2024, like 2023, was another disappointing year, apart from the apples which had an average sort of year, and as a highlight, a record year for the middle apple tree. The weather was variable - it is the UK after all- with the wettest Spring since 1986, and the coolest summer for 9 years. There were also storms and gales in the UK that caused general damage, fallen trees, etc. The total yield splits Apples 319 lbs, Others 54 lbs, and this is the lowest others total ever !

2023 was a very disappointing year across the board. The weather was variable month to month - heavy rain in May, the hottest on record in June, stormy in August, and hot in September. It was unusual to get poor yields for all fruits - the lowest overall yield ever.

2022 is looking like a poor year. After a wet Spring, we had the driest July since records began 200 years ago, combined with amazingly hot weather (40 degrees C, 104 F) for days on end. We went on holiday for 2 weeks, and came back to a scorched garden, with no runner beans, no rasps, etc.
2021 was a better year, and I still get plums although the trees are very old, and have lost most/all of their branches. It was good year for tomatoes and apples, but for the first year I could not get my runner beans started in their seeds trays - they kept rotting ! I got some to grow eventually, but very late.
2020 was a disappointing year although I am amazed I still get any plums. The new Victoria plum tree is still not producing any fruit. Tomatoes had the worst year ever, and blackcurrents too.
2019 was generally a poor year for most things, but the overall yield was surprisingly good, rescued by good years for plums and apples. Plums were a surprise as the very old trees now have very few branches, and the new Victoria tree has yet to start fruiting properly. Tomatoes in the greenhouses disappointed - I think the blight resistant varieties I am using do not give good yields. Perhaps too the compost from my compost heaps had been slightly contaminated by weed control chemicals in quarterly Green Thumb lawn treatments - I must remember not to compost the first grass cuttings after a treatment.
2018 was in total yield the second worst year ever, only 2001 being worse. There were lots of problems. Weather wise it was a year of extremes - early in the year it was heavy snow everywhere ("the beast from the east"), but later on a prolonged scorching heatwave and drought. On holiday for a fortnight, we had left the garden with no water (a neighbour watered the greenhouses), and returned to brown grass, and withered just about everything else. Pigeons and rabbits continued their assault. The old plum trees have had their day, and the new Victoria is still not cropping. It's very unusual to have a year where everything went wrong ! Fingers crosssed for next year.
2017 was a good year overall, and a record year for apples. The pigeons are still a great problem, and so destructive. We also have rabbits on the scene again - we are under siege ! Since I switched to blight resistant varieties tomato crops seem mostly disease free, but yields have gone down. We did get a new Victoria plum tree a year ago, but it's too young to expect much. Plum crops continue to be a big disappointment - the big plum trees are old, broken and dying. So its been a mixed year, but not too bad, and better than last year.
2016 was a poor year. The plum yield was disappointing but to be expected as all the branches have fallen off the old trees. I continue to wage war with lots of pigeons that seem to have taken up residence. They are very destructive, attack blossom, and break lots of small fruit bearing branches. A menace ! I did get some new rasp canes, but they didn't bear fruit. Rhubarb was also disappointing. Overall the lowest garden yield since 2001.
2015 was the best year since 2010 with good apple yields, and suprisingly good plum yields too, considering that most of the plum tree branches have fallen down. I will need to get some more rasp canes, as 5 lbs is very disappointing considering how much space the rasps take up. I also expect better rhubarb yields. We used to get a lot more runner beans than we do now - perhaps I have been growing them in the same spot for too long. They seem to stop producing beans after our August holiday when they are not picked and start to go to seed.
2014 was slightly poorer overall than 2013, with a total yield of 475 lbs v 516 lbs. The plum trees continue to shed branches, but surprisingly the Victoria plum still managed to produce 99 lbs of fruit. Gooseberries formed early in the season, but then dropped off before ripening. And again no cherries, nor pears. The only record yield in 2014 was the James Grieve apple tree in the front side garden. The Wintergem apple tree in the back garden is also a young tree, and should really be producing more each year - but only managed a disappointing 7 lbs.
2013 was a better year than 2012, with a total yield of 516 lbs. It was a record year for Pears, Blackcurrants, and J Grieve apples but against that the cooking apple tree had died. There were more plums than in 2012, but 24 lbs of plums for a whole year is not very good - the trees are very old, and a lot of the branches have broken off.
2012 was a terrible year with only 341 lbs of fruit. It was damp and dismal, rain, rain ,rain for month after month, and this grounded all the pollinating insects. No pollination no fruit ! The general coldness produced slow plant growth, small yields.
I thought 2011 wasn't too good a year, with only 529 lbs picked, and bad blight on the tomatoes, but
2010 wasn't too bad a year - we managed to pick 674 lbs in total.
2009 was a poor to fair year, and based on that I thought a more realistic annual target to set myself seemed about 600 lbs.
2008 was mostly a disappointing year - the old apple tree and the cooking apples had record years, but the overall yield was no-where near the 1,000 lbs target. I didn't notice it at the time, but according to a friend an early frost got the plum and greengage blossom in quite a few local gardens.
Then 2007 was back up to 826lbs - an excellent year for apples all over the country and in our garden too. Also we discovered that we liked greengages after all, and picked 75 lbs. Had we picked all the greengages in 2005 we might have reached the tonne.
Following a bumper year, 2006 was down about 50% - drought almost, and a hose pipe ban. Perhaps the shape of things to come I thought. I tried to keep things alive with 6 watering cans, but yields really suffered.
2005 was a record year with over 900 lbs of produce - missed the tonne, through.

Overall, you win some, you lose some ...

By way of a foot note, our son Jamie emmigrated to Australia in February 2008. He and his wife Jacqui work in Sydney, but also have a farm near the Blue Mountains for weekends and holidays. It's mostly a merino sheep farm, but Jamie and Jacqui have also planted an orchard on part of the farm with over 50 fruit trees. When that starts to yield and if they get some rain instead of drought, I think I had better keep quiet about our humble garden efforts.