A midweek catch up

Time for a bit of a mid week catch up I think.  I have been busy today catching up on the dreaded house work again.  I have found time to catch up and even get ahead with the daily photo theme.  I have also read lots of blogs and left comments here and there.  I remembered earlier that I forget to leave a note of tomorrow’s theme and I know some of you like to check it out in advance so..... Tomorrows is: 20. Something you have on your kitchen counter. Then Fridays one is: 21. A river. (Suggested by Nancy)

On Sunday Simon and I went to the allotment for a while. I didn’t do that much really just harvested some carrots and the last of the parsnips. Simon did some digging.  The bed where the potatoes are going to go has green manure planted in it which is now all dying back and has to be dug in before the bed will be ready for planting.

He also planted 3 hazelnut trees that the man opposite gave to us. He put some broken slabs around them just to make it clear where they are he said..........like we can’t see them?  He also pruned the raspberries and loganberries even though I told him that I’m sure it’s the wrong time of year! 

The raspberries did well the first year but nothing last year.  The other berries were only newly planted last year so they didn’t do anything.  Hopefully they will this year.  Our redcurrants are already budding but oddly the white and black currants are doing nothing!  Very strange. There are lots of new photos which I am going to put into an allotment album.  There are also some more of my wobbly videos should you be especially bored!

You all thought I didn't do anything didn't you!

I had fun Sunday evening planning out what we are going to grow this year and getting a lot of it ordered. I spent a fortune so hopefully we will do well this year. Last year we planted 95 potato tubers and they have lasted 7 months.  I am just using the last few pounds now.  I think we would have done better but if you remember we got caught out by that late frost and we thought they had all died.  Our neighbour told us that they would come on again but the yield would be lower.

I have ordered 170 tubers in the hope that we will get enough to see us right round until the harvest comes in the following year.  I have ordered 8 different varieties all new ones to us.  Well for growing anyway.  They are: Pentland Dell, Sarpo Mira, Yukon gold, Kestrel, Pentland javelin, Red Duke of York, King Edwards, Sante and Sofia.

I have ordered onions.  Red, white and brown and 2 different kinds of garlic and elephant garlic. I’m a bit worried about them.  The first year we planted in February and we got nothing.  It all went rotten.  Last year we planted in the autumn for over wintering as I had read that is often a good idea.  Well we got lots of really good garlic and elephant garlic which was huge.  I meant to do the same again but it got forgotten.  So, we will see how it goes this year.  If it rots again then we will know for sure that autumn planting is the way to go.

I have ordered a sweet potato growing pack.  These come with bag things to grow them in and 5 “slips for each bag.  We have never tried growing these before so we’ll see how it goes.

I ordered seeds too; Runner beans and French dwarf beans plus 4 different kinds of cabbage the theory being that we will be able to harvest cabbage right around the year. I ordered seed tape for, Iceberg Lettuce, spring onions, swede, parsnip, carrots and celeriac. We haven’t used seed tape before but I thought I would try it out as it saves having to thin things out. It is more expensive than seed though.

So we are waiting for all of that to arrive.  I still have seed from last year for tomatoes, peppers, chillies and courgettes so I think we have most of what we want covered now.  We may possibly give sweet corn a go.  The only thing is it takes up quite a lot of room and with our climate.... well you know!

On Monday I had the boys here while Coralie was sleeping after her night shift.  I decided to have them here as last week was a bit of a disaster!  It went well and Flynn slept ok in my travel cot.  The only difficulty was when Rosie woke up and needed to be got down the stairs to go out for a wee.  Rosie has to be half carried.  There was no way that I could do that and carry Flynn. The only choice was to leave both boys in the living room while I got Rosie down and out as quick as possible.  It was hard to shut the baby gate behind me too with Rosie.  I knew Flynn would scream blue murder and he did! 

Yesterday I went To Coralie’s house in the afternoon for our sewing lesson with Denise.  We had a good time although it is quite hard with the boys and the pup!  Denise talked to Coralie about the memory quilt that she is going to make and Coralie has lots of squares cut out but not enough for the plan that she had in her head so she will have to revise it.

Denise gave us practice sewing exercises to do where you sew on paper without thread in the machine.  She said they used to do this in school.  In fact she said in the good old days of proper sewing lessons they would award the children “driving licences” but they had to be able to complete various things first one of which was sewing really accurately and that is what these practice sheets teach.  I haven’t had a go at that yet I have to do them this week.  Coralie did have a go and she was useless! 

I didn’t escape the useless tag either... I can’t cut properly.  I was doing it all wrong!  I’m still not sure that I can cut straight even though I have now been taught to cut properly!  By the way Denise didn’t use the useless tag, that’s mine although she did say to Coralie “hmm, it’s not that great is it”!

She helped me get all my material cut out including Vilene to go inside the strap. I have got that all tacked together. My task for the week is to get the wadding for the bag and get the entire bits tacked together ready to sew properly next week assuming I have completed the practice sheets satisfactorily! Once a teacher always a teacher! If I had been doing this without Denise I would never have bothered with tacking but she said if we want to learn to do it properly she is going to teach us properly!  I think it is what we need.

Hopefully next week I may have something to show you all.  I am doing 2 projects; a shoulder bag for my mini lap top computer and a small pouch for my Kindle. Next Tuesday we are going to go to Denise’s house in the evening which will give us a chance to talk and work without the boys around.

We have discovered that we are also missing essential bits of sewing equipment according to Denise.  Oh yes and I keep my bits and bobs in a plastic box which is not right either!  Apparently I am to be shown how to make a draw string bag for them! So what are we missing?  Well in my case a tape measure, tailors chalk, spare bobbins and little snippy scissor things that aren’t exactly scissors more like tweezers with scissor bits on the end! 

So tomorrow we are heading into the city for a trip to John Lewis. We can buy everything there and I can also get my wadding for the bags.  We are going to go on the bus which should be fun with the 2 boys!  Evan really likes the bus now.  It’s a novelty as like most children he goes everywhere in the car.  That sounds bad!  He does walk a lot too but you know what I mean.  He is a real good walker for his age but he can’t walk all the way into the city centre.  He’d probably manage a good few miles though.

Right that’s me done, I think. Time to go and sort out dinner.  I shall post some photos later and those videos that I know you all can’t wait to see!