Bamboo at the Kensington Roof Gardens

now why did I think you'd got dark hair!--( I went grey in my 40's and am now like mum & gran--silver!)

lovely photo Lily

Hi Bamboo, nice to see you :)) and am i suprised, i thought you were older! with very short grey hair, Sorry lol. What a nice suprise, and your smiling hahaha, Seriously tho, a really nice suprise..

Ditto to daisy I guess ..very nice! ;0)

I also thought Bamboo was much older.

Thats cos I come across as a bossy cow, or so I've been told - personally I think I'm short, terse and to the point,very much do it or don't, I've told you, you choose, but there you go. Lily, before she met me, thought I was going to be tall with cropped grey hair and schoolmarm glasses, very upright, sort of gym mistress, so you're not alone, YDD, lol! Just goes to show, you never can tell...

I just noticed my feet are missing - I'm pretty sure the original photo proved I did have them... and PS, Young Daisy Dee, I'm old enough, thanks, at 61...

Not a bit as I imagined, and you look great

I can't believe you're 61, you don't look it.

Ouch to the finger, Bamboo! ... I imagined you to look more 'bookish' ... can't explain why though! . . . . .

you wear well Bamboo......:0))) must be all the fresh air!

At last, someone's mentioned my poor finger, lol! As for the wearing well, its in the genes, my ma never looked her age, and my sons don't either... but whatever, I certainly will at some point... Given I smoke like a chimney and used to bake myself dark brown every summer, it's not cos I've taken care, can't take credit for how I look, nowt to do with me - but thanks anyway for nice comments folks.

Yes Bamboo I amputated your legs so that everyone could get a closer look at your face. LOL Just think of the size of the bandages you'd need on them if it was real! I think they're all too busy looking at your face to notice that bandage. No, not quite gym mistress Bamboo, more on the stout side. LOL

hi Bamboo lovely to see you and i to had a different picture in my mind, thought you were older sorry, you look great, lovely photo lily :o))

Hi Bamboo, nice to meet you and your finger! Lol.
Because everybody says here that they had different picture of you, thought you were older, I won´t say anything like that. I must say that you look like charming lady in the years when life for women just starts. That age mismatch was caused by the fact, you are too wise, to be just forty.
Hi Lily! Thank you for introduction of Bamboo.

LOL, forty indeed, long time since I've seen that, more like my hip measurement these days. I'm glad this was published actually, now people can stop visualising some sort of ancient, stout or otherwise, schoolmarm, it's been fascinating hearing what assumptions people made...

Well there you go Bamboo! nice new profile pic in the offing, just so we don't forget how lovely you really are! ;0)

Oh gawd, there speaks a man, Bluespruce, lol - I always live in hope that appearance matters not a jot, but sadly, it does, though thanks for your kind words.
Pamg - I meant to say, re your going grey, you don't have to be - all women end up blonde, whatever they were to start with (3 guesses how they achieve that!)
And Katarina - 'the years when life for women just starts' blimey, if only that were true. It sort of is cos you've shed all your responsiblities, but unfortunately, everything's started dropping off and hurting all the time, so you can't make the most of it - bit like trying to speed down the motorway in an ancient car, the wheels threaten to come off, lol.

Hi Bamboo-- I chose not to start with colour partly becuse Mum & Gran's hair was a lovely silver colour--I'm getting there--- but mainly Mum was allergic to the colour and ended up in hospital-- frightened the life out of me at 14!! so I stick to what nature intended and the other day in the hairdressers a young girl was having her hair coloured grey-- they told me that grey is the new blonde \0/\0/ hurray!

I've got lots of silver threads, but just not enough, you can see dark roots after 2 months - but I don't have an all over colour, preferring streaks done with foils so that the solutions are not in contact with my scalp. My sister has gone really grey, and you don't notice her roots at all - but if she leaves it, after about 6 months she looks as if she's dusted her hair with a lot of talcum powder!

Great pic Bamboo, looks like you are on holiday somewhere very exotic. I read all of your Kensington blog last week and have to admit to thinking you were male when I first joined Goy, the comments made me smile (even more now I have seen your photo).

You're not alone Annella, many people thought I was a man - I didn't admit to either gender for quite a long time, even when asked, because you tend not to be taken so seriously as a professional if you're female.

Bamboo, here (or above) you can see how the world is run and how is its thinking stereotype. If something sounds logically, everybody looks only for man behind it. Very wise, you publish your photo. With long hairs, of course.

Yes, and sadly not just on my head at my age... my eyebrows are becoming extremely unruly, or at least some of the hairs in them are apparently making a bid to join my fringe... weird.

Lol. Could it be some form of transformation residues from your pure Merlin entity?

Sadly not, Katarina - just evidence of no oestrogen and ageing... The eyebrow thing happens to men as they age, only much worse, and I am immensely grateful for the fact there is no sign yet that I am growing hair anywhere on my ears, unlike men, who often do. I suppose we could pretend its evidence of magical superpower though;-)

Come on, Bamboo, we all have some small secret hairs (lol), no matter how old we are. You can believe me. I am physician. Once one hair (blond, my God) grew directly in the middle of my chest. And because it was like white and very thin, I did not notice. Unfortunately, my good friend, who likes to chat and gossip, noticed that. In a false impression it is just one lost hair from my scalp, she subconsciously started to make order with me and earlier then I can realise what is going on, she picked my solitary hair between her two fingers and charmingly "picked" the hair away. I screamed and almost hit her, as it was so painful! Since that time, nobody can touch my hairs. Lol.

I bet it didn't come back, did it? I had one years and years ago that grew on top of my eyelid, exactly as you describe, pale, thin, fine and it got long, and I kept thinking something's tickling my eyelid, it drove me mad, and eventually, I got the end of it without realising it was attached and pulled and it was about an inch and a half long, for goodness' sake. Yanked it out, never saw it again. Weird...

Lovely photo Bamboo, then it would be ......look who took it ! lol

Well I agree totally, Valadel - this is one of the best photos of me I've seen in years. I usually look as if I'm gurning or half drunk... either that or shovelling food in my mouth, or with a fag hanging out the corner...
I do wonder about different cameras though - my Sony takes fab pics of plants and scenery, but people look dreadful - you can see every imperfection magnified, even in young people.

I think the same about cameras, mine does the job but everyone else's always seems much better !
I do know Lily has a very nice one.

I shall have to ask her what she's got - never noticed on the day.

That's because we were too busy talking Bamboo! Are there are photos of you gurning, shovelling food in your mouth with a fag hanging out the other side all at the same time??
It's a Panasonic TZ6 and only takes what it sees :o))

Trust you! I wondered if anyone would ask if I managed all those things at once. I have to admit though, if I could eat and smoke at the same time, I'd be in heaven...

Very nice pic and what a massive bandage that is!!!!
The only bit I got right was the specs - I imagined you to have specs on your head like that :)
Couldn't eat and smoke at the same time...but always a ciggie after the food!!

Massive bandage for an extremely sore finger at the time, Scottish - cut a lump out of it with my secateurs 2 days earlier. And I really must sort out a pair of bi focals...

Now I am really surprised Bamboo, I kind of thought of you with dark hair, quite thin and very worker like in jeans, T shirt and boots. The school marm expression was one I definitely considered as well being as you were so helpful with my grammar when I started that other web site. Lol.

By the way, why am I writing in such a childish font? This is something Holly would read on the sites we let her use! - just saying :)

Well, there you are, nice to see you back again, Ian. Actually, you're not far off with your idea about me - apart from being fair and not dark, and not exactly thin. I'm usually found in black, easy comfortable clothing with socks and trainers - stuff you can work in, basically. And I suppose the schoolmarm bit might be right too - I'm full of sometimes useful, often useless, information which has interested me at some point - brain like a sponge for some reason. I wore that jacket in the photo so I'd stick out for Lily to recognise me...

Hello Ian, glad you found your way here. Given that the majority of Goyers are in their later years I suppose this font was chosen so that we can all read it easily with our dodgy eyesight!
Bamboo, I have a brain like a sponge too - everything goes in and quickly escapes out of the thousands of holes! LOL

Hello Lily and Bamboo, although little bit late, I wish you nice after Christmas time and lot of health, love and joy from GOY and gardens in the New Year.
Regarding sponge brains, keep cool. In France there exists one foundation dedicated only to research of Alzheimer disease. A nun, living in monastery for all her life, dedicated her brain to this foundation. She died in her nineties, was perfect in solving all kind of problems, she was reading, writing, normal in communication and she even had some kind of manager´s function at the end of her life. In spite all of that, her brain was like sponge. It was a big surprise for all seriously included in research but - not for gardener!
Gardeners know, that spirit is sometimes more then matter :)

Thank you for your good wishes Katarina, I too wish you all these good things in the coming year :o)
I seem to remember reading that we only actually use a very small percentage of the brain's capacity so I suppose there is plenty of room for holes! Gardening is very calming which is good for the whole body as well as the brain :o))

Hahaha. Exactly. And there is no gardener without any hole, hahaha.

LOL !! Oh yes, many many holes in my garden, too many plants all in the wrong places need moving round all the time.

Thanks for your good wishes, Katarina - same to you and everyone else.

Happy New Year, Bamboo. Looking forward to your wise advices (please, can you have a look on my recent blog?:))

Nice to put a face to a name Bamboo. I, like many others, thought you were a bloke at first, then later I realised you were female. You're nothing like I imagined - you're loads better!! :-)

Ha ha - I'm still a bit of a tartar though, Sheilar - my ex husband describes me as 'formidable' (we're still great mates) and I think he's probably right, well, especially from a male point of view... Course, I think he's a curmudgeonly, dictatorial and judgemental person - and he is!;-)))

Lol :-))

Bamboo, sorry for listening to you two, but you know, Slovaks were shepherds and farmers for centuries. So we have sometime marshy ground sayings. We even made Rome in the eighth century to allow us to have our own (Slavic) liturgy and not Latin liturgy as the rest of Europe :))
One of those sayings - which you can relate to your husband, if you wish - is that " there isn´t improper garden, just improper gardener".
Those adjectives, you had addressed to him I do not understand, but this time I am happy with my ignorance :)))))

Ah, well I shall explain, though I did indeed miss out the most important adjective of all, which was misogynistic (hates women), and lord knows, he's not alone with that particular problem, that one's worldwide and very common. Curmudgeonly means mean spirited, or sometimes mean with money as well; dictatorial means he thinks he rules the world and everyone should do as he says; and judgemental, in this case, means he's quick to condemn or criticise others. But he can't help it, its just the way he is, it's all based on fear, really - and he has got a lot better with age. Or maybe he's just learned not to argue with me any more, lol!! I should perhaps tell you, as a point of interest, his bloodline is Serbian, but he's lived here since he was 11.

Well, that explains all. If somebody grows up in a family of immigrants, it is often very hard, believe me. Those people have very often hidden complexes.

I won´t be able to live in the USA, for instance, as many manners there seemed to me restricting and people controlling (and I come from post-communistic country!) and many restrictions there irritated me. Same in the Czech republic, where all think they know all the best and Prague is umbilicus of the world. I will be able to vegetate without hidden anger and inferiority complexes in Switzerland, Sweden and maybe Netherlands. Sorry for developing my philosophies...

OMG Bamboo, though born in Canada, my dad was Serbian and my mom croatian!!! I do believe a lot of your ex'es traits are blood line related, particularly being a misogynist!
You are very correct Katarina about the hidden complexes. I am unfortunately a prime example of this.

I did not notice :)

But Lil, Croatians for sure do not have complexes. Have you ever been there?

Oh, but I'm sure you have Kat! :)
Yes, I spent my summers in Yugoslavia as a child. I learned how to swim in Split when I was thrown into the sea!

You are right, of course.

Bamboo, help, there are more judgmental people here :))))

Ah, misogyny - still alive and thriving round the world I'm afraid. Any country which is strongly religious (either of the 3 monotheistic ones, Islam, Christian, Jewish) will inevitably have a large portion of misogynistic males - women are to blame, you know, for 'original sin' (yea, right, all rubbish written by men) and probably anything else they can stick on us... It's because they're afraid of women, and probably rightly so. Good job we weren't given equal physical strength, or they'd have no chance, really.

:)
There are also misogynic women, Bamboo. Jealous about other women - either because of the certain man,because the other one is more beautiful, slim, etc.I do not think, that this bad characteristic feature is related to just one sex.
From my point of view there are really professions/sports which are exclusive just for men. Can you imagine a female miner or a man who is akvabela?

Well, some people just hate everyone else, and women, well I have long observed we often appear to be our own worst enemies, and falling outs are usually over men - who often turn out to be the booby prize anyway... And Katarina, female miners have existed in Russia for years. Now I'm wondering what akvabela is...

Yes, in Russia they exist. But Russia is not normal country.

In Russia all women worked in factories and instead of men, as all men were in arms, or better say, while they all boozed in army. According to me it is not normal. Physiology of woman is not established for hard physical work. Those women who do hard physical work usually even loose their normal menstruation cycle.

On the other side, in extreme conditions - like famine, plagues, wars - women are better survivors. Even after birth there is slight predominance of girls not just they were born more often, but boys usually die early, if there is some problem. Taking human race, the blacks have more variable genotype, more active genes and so far they are better prepared for catastrophies, then whites. You probably heard about human genome research, which was sponsored mainly by the US and your country. So far the silence about it. But that research brought a lot and sadly, it was put aside as something "done". Have a nice week, Bamboo.

I thought that was gymnasts and runners and athletes generallyrather than mining women, Katarina, also ballet dancers if they're thin enough have the same trouble. Most women do hardish physical labour most of their lives (land girls army in the war for instance) and are fine - though its not so extreme as mining. I've been grafting for years and it didn't affect my cycle.

Bamboo, in Russia after eighties there were published a lot of papers by former top sportsmen about how Russians make them to be superwomen and supermen. They drugged them, like it is now. Some drugs, or hormones can stp menstruation. Also if woman percentage of body fat declines under certain level, it stops menstruating. Hard physical work and night shifts totally deteriorate female hormonal system.

Yes, that's what I'm saying, really, for athletes - nothing like regular anabolic steroids to mess up the body... and gymnasts who are thin also have a problem.

Hello Bamboo! I too, to my great shame, thought of you as a bloke. Dunno why but for some reason the name Bamboo conjured up an image of a man.

Then I read many of your replies to questions and thought, this guy knows what 'He's' talking about, 'He' doesn't take fools gladly, is straight to the point and if you annoy him 'He'll' let you know. Great bloke!

With this infomation I could picture this guy. Seventy five to eightyish, six foot two inched, slightly stooped, bald pate, fringe of hair over the ears, face lined with age from a lifetime of frowning at fools. Spectacles resting on the tip of his nose as 'He' peers at the keyboards frowning at someones silly question, like "plant in pot can I move?".

Now the confession, (hangs head in shame, shaking head at own stupidity). I now realise from the above discription who I've just described. So I await your forgiveness or your order for my execution.

Now you're thinking "Who?, Who's he describing?"
With the discription above, the only person I could picture was . . . Victor Meldew. Iv'e got to admit I was only slightly disapointed. Keep up the great work. I love your curt answers to stupid questions (I know the questions arn't stupid, only badly structured and lack enough infomation).

Peace n love
StJ

This ones a blast from the past Bamboo......

I know a very nice lady for nigh on 7 years ?

Ha ha StJ - Victor Meldrew and I do have some things in common personality wise, lack of patience and expression of said impatience being the main one, although, dear oh lord, he could moan for England...

As for 'curt', I never mean to be curt at all - I'll accept concise and to the point gladly though. I've tried once or twice to write a novel, but its no good, its not my forte, all that descriptive stuff and he said she said; what I write comes out like a report or a dissertation rather than a good read, so I've given up... my brain's much better at information and 'facts'...

And on looking at that blasted photograph of me at the top of this thread, I can see I was somewhat overweight there, luckily, that's disappeared - along with any semblence of youth, sadly!

Curt, did I say curt? Of course I meant concise!
You're not doing bad on the novel front. You have your materials right here in blogs which are informative, interesting and witty.