3rd May 2023

1)  When we first started using "etiolate" in the late 1700s (borrowed from the French verb étioler), it was in reference to purposely 1) depriving growing celery of light. The word traces back to an Old French word for "straw" and is related to the Latin word for "straw" or "stalk," which is "stipula." Nowadays the term for growing veggies as pale as straw is now more likely to be "blanch," which can mean "to bleach (the leaves or stalks of plants) by earthing, boarding, or wrapping," among other things. "Etiolate" is more apt to refer to depriving plants in general of light; when "etiolated," they are sickly, pale, and spindly. The figurative sense of "etiolate" ("to make pallid or feeble") first appeared in the 1800s as a natural outgrowth of the original sense.

2) having lost vigour or substance; feeble  "a tone of etiolated nostalgia"

Is that how I feel this morning I wonder etiolated, pale and spindly and a few degree under?

Etiolate always comes to mind this time of the year, it is a word I love. Yes my tomato plants are drawing up pale and spindly to the light.  They need 14 hours of light and it this time of the year they get it.  I cosset the three plants with love but keep my fingers crossed as well. It is a herb year, parsley and chives are doing well, but now thyme, oregano, summer savoury and mint are sown.  

The smells of a garden are subtle there is nothing quite like walking round and brushing your fingers against mint or lavender.  Chewing a feathery frond of fennel, the garden is a delight of small perfumery, something I miss.

I realise I have not seen the white Belgian chicory around either, something that is blanched under the earth and yields the bitter crispy taste in a salad, or, as I do, cooked, wrapped in ham, cheese sauce over it and then baked in the oven.

My postal vote has been despatched and not being shy of who I vote for it is Liberal, yes I know I support the Green Party but that is because they are like a rescue dog demanding attention from me.

Our Conservative MP has given notice to quit when we next get round to voting for the government, I can understand why of course.  Somewhere in my guts something is saying that Labour may get to form the next government but it will be the Liberal Democrats who will gain seats.