Bank holiday

Glorious weekend!! Oh my oh my what a fantastic weekend we've had. Sunshine, warmth and a fair amount of relaxation. Could it be better? My dear sister turned up yesterday evening and it was obvious that the whole country was relaxing around the barbeque since traffic up to the airport was pretty much non-existent. 

As the weather was glorious today as well, we set off to walk in the bluebell forest on the very last day it was open to the public. We strolled amongst carpets of beautiful blue flowers and enjoyed the gorgeous sunshine. 

I couldn't get enough of these images!

In the afternoon we set off to the allotment to meet Mrs. G. When I went up there yesterday to water I was met by some very tired looking plants. Some of them looked more or less dead and a neighbour allotmenteer explained to me that it was probably the wind that had killed them off. When I arrived today Mrs. G. was in the middle of putting cut off bottles around the most tired looking plants. Aha, a mini greenhouse might do the trick. 

Fingers crossed that this will help. The potatoes look great and so do the strawberries. The fourth raspberry plant is also looking very healthy so I'm sure we'll get some crops even if the aubergines, courgettes and sprouts are looking worse for wear. Only time will tell.

Mrs.M.

More growing

The weather is just awful! I haven't been up to the allotment once since last weekend. There's no point in going as it's raining plenty and therefore no need for watering. That might be a good thing considering I'm rather busy at both work and home but.... I really want the weather to be warmer and more like it should be in May. I really feel like complaining to somebody. I just don't know who.

It's not all bad though. Last year I planted a magnolia in the garden. Not being born with particularly green fingers I've already killed the plants I bought at the same time. The magnolia sits nicely at the top of the garden near the chicken coop. The chickens like to scatter earth around it and I'm forever glancing over when they're out, worrying about my little tree. However, it seems to be fairly settled and has produced a few buds.

      

 Fingers crossed it'll survive both the chickens and my lack of gardening skills.


Mrs.M.

Things are growing!

What a lovely weekend I've had! Spent Friday evening doing DIY and that was it for the whole weekend. Great! 

Being a bit of a Eurovision fan myself ( not only Little Miss M. ) we had invited Mrs. G. and family to join us in front of the telly. Wow! We had a great time! Dinner, wine and sweepstake made sure the evening was enjoyed by all of us. Congrats to Mr. G. who won the sweepstake!!!

And then the allotment of course. Mrs. G. and moi meet up just after lunch today and even though the rain had been hanging in the air all morning we had a lovely, warm afternoon on our plot. Four hours went by in a flash. We were very productive and raked, planted, watered and had coffee and cake. It's quite wonderful how good you feel after a few hours of manual work. How lovely it would be if life could consist of a bit of allotment work during the day and some crocheting in the evening. Unfortunately both Mrs. G. and myself have quite a hectic time at work at the moment. Though half term is only one week away so it's not all bad. 

Luckily Mrs. G. had brought her allotment book. We consulted it quite a lot.

 Mrs. G. had been to the allotment during the week and raked and sorted out beds no end. It looked fabulous! She's also cultivated little plants of all sorts of things in her study over the last few months. Brilliant! We added a few strawberry plants to our already quite blossoming strawberry patch.

A selection of what has been growing in Mrs. G's study.

This is going to be our fruit and berry area. We're not quite sure what else to add to it.

We've decided to sow radishes and carrots and then that'll be it. We will have filled every bit of our plot. Today we planted the following:

Courgettes and butternut squash. 

Purple sprouting broccoli.

We also planted sprouts and sowed parsnips, early broccoli and leek. It's all very exciting and seeing how quickly things grow is very rewarding. Just look at the onions:

They're shooting up! And look at the potatoes:

 

 

Looks like we might have potatoes by midsummer after all.

We might have to take a few trips to the plot this week to water. I really don't mind when you're met by all of this. Hard work? A little bit perhaps but sharing a plot with a friend is to be recommended. Chatting and working is the key to a happy allotment :).

Mrs. M.

Two types of post

One of the first people I met when I first moved to where I live now has remained a very good friend even though she moved away over 9 years ago. We try to see each other every year and mostly succeed. We normally have a few children in tow but a couple of months ago we met up in London, just the two of us. We had a great time, drank a lot of coffee, chatted loads and went to see Les Mis. She is a very thoughtful and kind person and is clearly just as happy about our new kitchen as we are. Yesterday we received a parcel in the post from this lovely friend wishing us a "Happy New Kitchen". Look at the contents:

A tea towel and a card  -  chicken style.

Even though my dear friend hasn't met our chickens she's clearly understood that some chicken attributes will fit in beautifully in our new kitchen! Thank you soooo much!

Today saw the end of the dreaded Sats tests that all year 6 children across the country have been working towards. Little Miss M. being one of these children has taken it all in her stride and been rather relaxed, which is a good thing. She and her class mates will have a post sats party tomorrow and Little Miss and moi have baked a big chocolate cake to be shared between them all. 

Once it's cooled down we'll cut it up into 30 squares. They so deserve a fun day tomorrow!

The little Miss has now snuggled up to watch the second semi-final of the Eurovision. Tomorrow we will no doubt have her singing her favourite tunes...

Mrs. M.

Painting and planting

So it's Sunday again and the weekend is almost over. Is it me or do the weekends go by quicker and quicker? I seem to be spending most of my so called free time using these:

 One could say that I needed to brush up on my painting skills.... and I certainly have. Not that I'm any better at it. I find it very difficult to keep a steady hand and seem to end up having to add coat after coat. Despite the tools I use, I'm not exactly on a roll(er). I have to do another coat tonight and seem to be putting it off. It's much more fun to be in my lovely new kitchen baking. I even managed to get up quite early this morning and bake cinnamon buns. Yummy yummy!

And then there's the allotment. I didn't have time to go over there yesterday and the weather wasn't exactly brilliant either so Mrs. G. and I arranged to meet this afternoon. As I've just mentioned, I woke up early to a clear blue sky and a big bright sun. My first thought wasn't the allotment but washing. I put on machine load after machine load and enjoyed watching it all dry while I was painting (what else) the study. It was rather windy but still a gorgeous day. I set off to meet Mrs. G. at 3 o'clock and arrived at a rather empty allotment and a grey sky. Where had the sun gone? This didn't prevent me from doing a bit of work though. I was rather pleased that there wasn't anyone around as I set about planting potatoes using my usual style. The one where I'm crawling from one end to the other moving the soil with my hands. Luckily Mrs. G. hadn't turned up either to see this rather eccentric planting style. This is result:

Three rows of potatoes in the ground. Phew. Rather pleased.

No sight of Mrs. G. yet so I decided to weed around the strawberry plants. The wind had picked up and the rain was hanging in the air. Just as I finished trimming the edges Mrs. G. turned up. Just in time for coffee, which she had kindly brought. I had some freshly made cinnamon buns in my bag and some delicious hazelnut crisp rolls (taste rather like short bread actually) that I baked the other day. We decided to sit in the shed as it was rather chilly outside. Oh it was lovely! All of it. We've now decided on revamping the inside of the shed as well. Painted walls (ugh more painting...), a little curtain, some paintings.... there's a lot to be done. Maybe a camp bed as well....

Time to do some painting!

Mrs. M.

Hooray!

Took a trip to the allotment this evening to do a bit of watering.  It was a beautiful evening and Mr. M. joined me. After lugging the watering can back and forth quite a few times my eyes caught sight of this:

A growing onion! Or two to be precise. That means that even if nothing else grows, Mrs.G. and I will get one onion each. Fabulous!

Mrs. M.

Rhubarb delight

Bank holiday weekend and an extra day off. Yippee! Woke up to a nice morning yesterday and was quick to put a load in the washing machine. Then another one. While the second lot was spinning away it started to rain. Hm. Wet washing on the line and another load to come out. I hate having washing drying indoors! Just as well that I hadn't planned a trip to the allotment. And actually, rain is good for allotments so it wasn't all bad. I was putting away things in our new kitchen and thought it would take me a couple of hours. Little did I know that it would take me the whole day trying to figure out where to put the plates, cups, baking stuff etc etc. But it's done now and it looks great!

I had some lovely rhubarb from the allotment in the fridge and as today proved to be a gloriously sunny day, I decided to bake a rhubarb pie for my men and me. Little Miss M. had gone swimming with a friend and she doesn't really like rhubarb anyway.  We had a cup of tea and a slice of cake with vanilla ice cream. Lovely!

 

Even the Masters M. liked this!

It was truly delicious! Anyway, after some diy-ing at home I set off to the allotment. Mrs. G. has gone away this weekend and I do feel a bit guilty as I had no time at all to spare last weekend while she was slaving away planting onions. So this weekend it's my turn to work and Mrs. G's turn to relax. I decided that mixing in the remaining manure would be a good idea. I also watered what we've planted as, despite the fact that it was raining yesterday, it was quite dry. I also had a little look at the raspberry plants we've planted and look at this little beauty:

Two more canes have got these lovely leaves but the fourth one seems very "un-leafy". We'll have to give it a little bit of TLC I suppose.

The rhubarb seems to be growing by the minute so I just had to cut off some more and went straight home and baked a cake. I adapted an apple cake recipe that I've been handed down by my Mum and the result looks like this:

Doesn't look too bad if you ask me. And it turned out to be quite a winner when it comes to eating it as well. Lovely!! This is how to make it:

1 cup of sugar mixed with 1 large egg ( I had to add 2 eggs as our chickens lay small to medium sized ones).
Mix this and add 100g of melted butter. Add 2 cups of flour and a smallish amount of baking powder as well as 2 tablespoons of milk. Put the mix in a baking tin and cut up the rhubarb and place on top. Sprinkle a decent amount of sugar on top. Bake in 175 degrees Celsius for 35 minutes. 
As you can see, the recipe is a little bit ad hoc but it worked fine. For more rhubarb recipes look here.

Mr. M. is making pizzas as we speak but we seem to be two children short tonight. Isn't it lovely that they have friends! Tomorrow is another day and after wall papering the kitchen, I plan to do a bit of planting.

Mrs. M.