About

I am a retired Primary School Headteacher living in a tiny village out in the sticks south of Shrewsbury. I retired at the age of 42 after disability made working impossible. Now I survive constant nerve pain in my right leg and spine, with the help of a Spinal Cord Stimulator implant and by popping pain killers but most important of all is the support of my wife, Jude, known affectionately in my blog as “The Undergardener” who recently retired from her teaching job. Jude is the worker in the partnership!

Together we enjoy our quarter acre garden, our allotment and wandering around wherever we can appreciate the natural world and other peoples’ gardens. We garden organically and with wildlife in mind. We are both on the committee of our allotment site, Bowbrook Allotment Community, where Jude is the Secretary and I am the Green Space Co-ordinator and editor of the lotties’ newsletter, Dig It!

Greenbenchramblings is all about gardening and the natural world. It is my musings about our garden and gardens we visit, the wildlife in our garden and on our allotment community site, and places of natural beauty and interest we visit. My blog is full of photos taken with our my Nikon DSLR and Canon digital compact.

The green bench where the wanderings are born sits on our lottie and is now rather old and faded.

27 replies on “About”

Hey, I think you should spend little bit of time update this about page. 🙂
It help to tell your reader (like me 🙂 ) what, who and where you are… don’t you agree with me? LOL

Couldn’t agree more! Thanks for the nudge! Will put it right as soon as I can.

Hi there,

Nice blog and great pictures. And you and your wife both being teachers is wonderful. All goo teachers are learners. So now you both are learning from nature.

I wish you both happy times ahead!
Cheers! 🙂

Gardening in the Lines shared your blog with us – beautiful garden! Looking forward to seeing more!

Thanks for kind comment.

Cheers! I discovered your blog by way of Gardening in the Lines…it’s so great to find something new and beautiful!

Cheers Sheryl, great to have you on board,

Hello! I have really enjoyed reading your blog and I just nominated you for the Versatile Blogger Award! You can read more here: http://willowcottagegarden.wordpress.com/2012/04/24/versatile-blogger-nomination/. Cheers Her x : o )

Many thanks indeed!! There are so many excellent blogs around now, it is good to know other bloggers enjoy mine. i certainly enjoy writing them and taking the pics.

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Malc,
Finally found your blog! Any chance of some more aerial photos of the whole garden? Just being extremely nosey of course but keen to see how your garden is laid out – looks massive! Sorry for not spending any time helping at the working party this am – too many weeds and things to do on my plot. Just glad Dylan was able to do the car park – though I think Gill won’t be impressed on the method. I really need to drop my hours at work to spend more time at the place I love the best.
Spent this pm clearing out the forget-me-nots at home ready to plant marigolds but after seeing your blog I now realise I need to move house to be able to plant a wider variety of stuff. Really, really must get some calendula for the plot.
Love the pictures of bees going in and out of various insect homes and the dirt volcano in the gravel. We had bees in our lawn in Bristol but sadly none here.
Tracy

Glad you have found the blog. The garden is a quarter of an acre but split into lots of sections to give the illusion of more space.

Since you closed your June 16th post, I wanted to make sure that I congratulated you on your one-year anniversary and the Versatile Blogger Award. Also thanks for the nomination. A few months ago I was given that honor, and I very much appreciate your continued support for my work. I do enjoy your posts, because we share common missions in the garden: organic cultivation and maintenance as well as encouraging wildlife habitats. Again congratulations, Sally

Many thanks Sally.

Just found your blog today via ‘The Garden Smallholder’ nomination! Loving your posts on RHS Wisley. I share a similar love for Harlow Carr and really hope to visit Wisley this year.

We are so lucky to have the RHS gardens here in the UK.

I stumbled upon your blog whilst looking up some info on the greenhouse at Clumber Park, and after exploring your work for a while I could see that you have the compositional skills of an artist, and thoroughly enjoyed my visit to your blog

Many thanks Alan.

Hi – so nice to find a Shrewsbury gardener (via Nigel Boldero’s blog). We lived round these parts for some happy years and always loved our visits to Attingham and up into Wales. Will look forward to the news of spring to come. 🙂

Hope you enjoy future visits to my blog.

Hi – I’ve nominated you for a ‘Blog of the Year’ Award- congratulations!
You can see your nomination at http://wp.me/p2XHES-3Bo and find ouit about the award at http://thethoughtpalette.co.uk/blog-awards-2-/blog-of-the-year-2013-award/

Many thanks for the nomination. It is good to know that people appreciate what we post.

you’re welcome- thanks for your support of my site too!

Hi Malc,

I’ve just nominated you for the Versatile Blogger Award, just to say I think your blog is great 🙂

Details:
http://gardenerjen.wordpress.com/
http://versatilebloggeraward.wordpress.com/

Jen

Thanks so much, Jen. It is much appreciated. Malc

Visited Avocet, your beautiful garden today and feeling very inspired… Thank you for sharing!

I didn’t see contact info, so I’m using this opportunity. Feel free to delete once you read it. 🙂 I offered to make an insect hotel for our upcoming MG plant sale in May so our customers could get an idea or two about offering some support for our native pollinators. I’d love to have a green roof on it too. Do you have any suggestions or photos you could share? I know you have shown several in the past and that you have some at your allotment. If you were making one, what type of plan would you use? Thank you. 🙂 My email address is on my blog – hate to put it here for the entire world. 🙂