The weekend flew by. Again.
After work Saturday morning, home, quick lunch and then we drove to Hampton, near Twickenham, our old stamping ground. We'd been invited to our friend Julie's 40th birthday party. This was to be held at 7pm-11pm, but seeing that it's a one and a half hour drive there (and back) we asked if we could arrive early, and leave early. Oh, and can we bring the children along? as having a babysitter wouldn't have been worth it.
So we turned up at 4pm or so, and spent some time (getting in the way) with Julie and her family before the party started. It was good to catch up with them all and meet the youngest (18mth old Connor)! We took the liberty of eating pizza at their home, as the party food wasn't to be served until 9pm, and we'd be on our way home by then...
The party was held in a large community hall, and had a Celidh band, who started playing at around 7.30pm(ish). So we decided to join in the dancing, and a good time was had by all, especially Tom and Phoebe! I was aiming to leave around 8pm, to give Tom a chance of a 'normal' bedtime, but there were so many people we'd not seen for such a long time, and it was a great opportunity to catch up, that we didn't leave until 9pm... got home around 10.30pm. Bit late for little people :(
Would have l-o-v-e-d to have stayed longer, but the distance made it difficult. I don't relax about things like that, so it put a bit of an edge on the evening for me, but it was worth the effort, and was lovely to see everyone as well as Julie!
Sunday. The weather was fine. Much gardening to be done. I set to in the vegetable patch, and dug up two trug-fulls of couch grass/roots in the search for my strawberries... found them and moved them to slightly better position. Planted runner beans where strawberries were. Dug out random nettle clumps, stray weeds and bl***y raspberry runners. I despair of my raspberries. I managed to take one row out over the winter, but the row that remains I couldn't get to with the amount of rain we had, and now they're actually in bud, so we may just have some raspberries this year.... I don't know what I do wrong. Well actually, I do. I don't do anything, which I think with raspberries is a bad thing. So last year I think I saw 10 raspberries, and ate around 4. Not good value to my mind, so they were going to go.
But, the ones that remain, well we'll see. I'll net them from the birds, and if I don't get a bowlful then they're definitely going.
Dug trenches and planted my maincrop potatoes. Well, I say maincrop. Only crop is more like it. How late is this??? Last weekend we were in Shrewsbury, so this was seriously the first time available with the correct conditions (ie, not raining) to do anything productive...
I also moved my tomato 'house' - one of those £20 kits, tubular frame and plastic cover, the right size to put grow bag and 6ft canes to support in. It didn't really perform as I'd wanted to last year at the back door - against white wall, in 'sun trap', but the garden faces NW, so suntrap is SE, but not a success. So I've re-positioned it down the garden nearer to the veg patch, where the self-seeded tomatoes did great stuff last year! It's sheltered by the children's play house.
Well, play house is what we call it, but 'folly' would be a more accurate name. Some of the previous owners of our home built a breeze block and tiled roof 'L' shaped building at the bottom of the garden, and in a Spanish style. It's a useful size, but there's no power, so really it's a solid shed. We store wood for the stove in there, and there's some old cast off furniture as well for the children to 'play house'.
So, we'll see if the tomatoes get on there or not...
This is the view from the veg patch when I got up to let the hens out the other morning at 6.30am. The early bird (me!) gets the rainbow! As the 5 minutes passed there was the faintest attempt at a double rainbow (photo no good), and then it was all over...
After all this gardening, I took a shower at 5pm, and then decided it would be nice to go out for supper, (had no energy left to cook!!!) and suggested this to my lovely husband, who agreed.
In all of this gardening frenzy where were the children??? Well, they were playing in and out of the playhouse, in and out of my veg patch, and in and out of the house. They're finally of an age where we don't have to chaperone or supervise their every move, which is a huge relief, a blessing, and, probably too good to be true! No, actually, I'm starting to feel that I can actually get on and do things I want to /need to, and not have to be distracted by the banalities of young child care requirements.... Free at last, free at last....
On that note I'll retire, and have another chomp of Wolf Hall.... nightnight! Kat
After work Saturday morning, home, quick lunch and then we drove to Hampton, near Twickenham, our old stamping ground. We'd been invited to our friend Julie's 40th birthday party. This was to be held at 7pm-11pm, but seeing that it's a one and a half hour drive there (and back) we asked if we could arrive early, and leave early. Oh, and can we bring the children along? as having a babysitter wouldn't have been worth it.
So we turned up at 4pm or so, and spent some time (getting in the way) with Julie and her family before the party started. It was good to catch up with them all and meet the youngest (18mth old Connor)! We took the liberty of eating pizza at their home, as the party food wasn't to be served until 9pm, and we'd be on our way home by then...
The party was held in a large community hall, and had a Celidh band, who started playing at around 7.30pm(ish). So we decided to join in the dancing, and a good time was had by all, especially Tom and Phoebe! I was aiming to leave around 8pm, to give Tom a chance of a 'normal' bedtime, but there were so many people we'd not seen for such a long time, and it was a great opportunity to catch up, that we didn't leave until 9pm... got home around 10.30pm. Bit late for little people :(
Would have l-o-v-e-d to have stayed longer, but the distance made it difficult. I don't relax about things like that, so it put a bit of an edge on the evening for me, but it was worth the effort, and was lovely to see everyone as well as Julie!
Sunday. The weather was fine. Much gardening to be done. I set to in the vegetable patch, and dug up two trug-fulls of couch grass/roots in the search for my strawberries... found them and moved them to slightly better position. Planted runner beans where strawberries were. Dug out random nettle clumps, stray weeds and bl***y raspberry runners. I despair of my raspberries. I managed to take one row out over the winter, but the row that remains I couldn't get to with the amount of rain we had, and now they're actually in bud, so we may just have some raspberries this year.... I don't know what I do wrong. Well actually, I do. I don't do anything, which I think with raspberries is a bad thing. So last year I think I saw 10 raspberries, and ate around 4. Not good value to my mind, so they were going to go.
But, the ones that remain, well we'll see. I'll net them from the birds, and if I don't get a bowlful then they're definitely going.
Dug trenches and planted my maincrop potatoes. Well, I say maincrop. Only crop is more like it. How late is this??? Last weekend we were in Shrewsbury, so this was seriously the first time available with the correct conditions (ie, not raining) to do anything productive...
I also moved my tomato 'house' - one of those £20 kits, tubular frame and plastic cover, the right size to put grow bag and 6ft canes to support in. It didn't really perform as I'd wanted to last year at the back door - against white wall, in 'sun trap', but the garden faces NW, so suntrap is SE, but not a success. So I've re-positioned it down the garden nearer to the veg patch, where the self-seeded tomatoes did great stuff last year! It's sheltered by the children's play house.
Well, play house is what we call it, but 'folly' would be a more accurate name. Some of the previous owners of our home built a breeze block and tiled roof 'L' shaped building at the bottom of the garden, and in a Spanish style. It's a useful size, but there's no power, so really it's a solid shed. We store wood for the stove in there, and there's some old cast off furniture as well for the children to 'play house'.
So, we'll see if the tomatoes get on there or not...
 |
| they want to knock the rackity shed down and build 18 houses over the fence..... |
After all this gardening, I took a shower at 5pm, and then decided it would be nice to go out for supper, (had no energy left to cook!!!) and suggested this to my lovely husband, who agreed.
In all of this gardening frenzy where were the children??? Well, they were playing in and out of the playhouse, in and out of my veg patch, and in and out of the house. They're finally of an age where we don't have to chaperone or supervise their every move, which is a huge relief, a blessing, and, probably too good to be true! No, actually, I'm starting to feel that I can actually get on and do things I want to /need to, and not have to be distracted by the banalities of young child care requirements.... Free at last, free at last....
On that note I'll retire, and have another chomp of Wolf Hall.... nightnight! Kat
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