Month: March 2018

Monday: 19th March I’m not sure if I like marking off the weeks with the date, time seems to fly past even faster!

It’s still cold, the wind is still coming from the east and it’s bitter, hopefully it won’t be much longer before we see the temperatures rise, I’ve seriously considered moving somewhere warmer 😜

Not much to report in terms of the farm really as you can imagine the jobs that need doing are having to wait for the weather to warm up. The paddocks usually would be dragged and rolled in March but we are fast approaching the end of the month and not a hope of getting on them. The problem will be that when we can, the sun will be a lot warmer and dry everything a lot faster, coupled with the fact that John can’t just stop what he is doing during ‘the window of opportunity’ and quite rightly he says I shouldn’t be using the tractor if I am here all day by myself ‘health and safety’

We have made plans to topseed the paddocks which will mean enticing the hens to a different paddock during the daytime, we will see how that goes when the time is right. At the moment they are still on the front paddock which is showing signs of growth through the mud 😝but it will be good to get them off and get the grass sorted. There is still enough grass for the geese to graze if they venture further afield providing it’s not snow or frost, on those days we have to supplement their diet with pellets. They are laying well and have split their nests into two now, to begin with they were all laying in one nest, last year three of them sat on eggs but only produced one gosling between them, I’m hoping now they are more experienced we might get more.

Tuesday: Still a cold wind went I first went outside but by the finish of my rounds the wind had dropped and the sun was out, lovely to feel some warmth though it didn’t last very long. While I was waiting for the water buckets to fill I went to have a look and see if the wild garlic I planted last autumn had come up, it has 😀 I pinched a bit off the top of a leaf and oh my goodness the smell is amazing, very strong, I won’t harvest it this year but wait until next year although I can see the hens have been trying it already.

The worming we did over the seven days last week has boosted the egg numbers to almost maximum, 96 out of 100 from the front hens, I will settle for that.

The seedlings on the window sill have shot through, a bit too quickly really as they are getting leggy and with the temps still not up I can’t really move them anywhere 🙁 I may have to come up with a solution or it will have been wasted effort. I ordered some garlic, onions, kale and broccoli seeds on top of my last order as I am trying to figure out what we mostly want, need, eat, no point growing veg we don’t eat even if I do sell it, I need to make sure we are reaping the benefits as much as anyone.

The baby rabbits that were produced from the escaped bunny have produced a brood of their own under the decking 😩 I saw them nibbling on the lawn this morning, oh my days this rabbit thing is out of control, I need to get that sorted too, either cull them or try and move them off out into the paddock.

I have been trying out a new diet and recipe book for Lupus, Shelley got it for me for Mother’s Day, AIP is autoimmune protocol diet and cuts out things that cause inflammation or fatigue, although we eat fairly healthy in terms of not consuming processed foods in any great quantity there is still a lot to cut out and learning different ways of using alternative ingredients. I am on day three and last night for the first time in ages my hands did not seize up and I do feel like I have turned a corner energy wise, so I shall carry on with it and see how I do.

I made an alternative pizza for lunch today, for my last birthday one of my sisters gave me ‘a bunch of flours’ which included teff flour, don’t worry I’d never heard of it either! So I used that and ground almonds, egg, garlic powder and olive oil to make the base then walnuts, garlic oil and basil to make a pesto and topped with mushrooms and a bit of cheese (though the cheese is not strictly allowed 😲) verdict: not bad 😛

The fox got one of our older hens last night, shame as she was one of my faves, she was a light Sussex hybrid and was from a fairly old batch, she obviously didn’t go to bed last night and there are the feathers all over the yard to back that up 😟

Today is the Spring Equinox and it doesn’t even feel like we have entered into spring, equal measures of light and dark, well that’s great but can we please have some warmth to go with it now 🙏

Wednesday: Oh how long have we been waiting for a morning like this? Seems like forever! Frosty start but the sun shinning gave promise and hope and delivered 😀 After doing the morning rounds I went straight to the garden and greenhouse, I put classic fm on a little radio and had a wonderfully content 45 mins pottering and sowing seeds, mostly courgettes and squash but also some broccoli. The squash seeds will go under cover into a unheated propagator and if the temps threaten to plummet again I will have to bring them indoors. The broad beans have flowers on already and the other seedlings are sprouting nicely now. I did sow some basil into a pot and brought it inside to put in the windowsill propagator. I watered the peas in the small tunnel and the strawberry baskets in the big tunnel, everything is starting to bud, the blueberries, the fig and the apricot tree outside has little bombs of pink all over it just waiting to burst open.

Then Mia arrived for the day and we decided to go for a walk along the lane, listening and looking all the way down and back, I even saw a muntjac deer in the scrub but I figured by the time I got Mia unclipped and out it would be gone so she didn’t get to see it this time.

Normally each year I do a crop rotation plan, actually draw it out, but I’ve been doing it that many years now that it’s all in my head and I don’t really need to or so I think because when it then comes to planting I know I will probably put something in the wrong place and besides it’s good to have a record year on year so I shall draw one up and see how well I stick to it.

Thursday: I was very happy to see the promise in today’s weather, sunny, not too cold, hardly a wind, happy days as a bonus John was also at home so we should get plenty done.

After doing the morning rounds we moved stuff, tided stuff, sorted out stuff that needed doing. The hose from the rain water tanks to the ducks was one job that needed doing as the old hose had multiple holes in it and so whenever it was used the bit of yard inbetween ended up soaking wet, I already had new hose waiting so I did that job and filled up the water butts. John did a couple of hours here and there cutting up wood, we gathered up tarpaulin that had been over the Horse box but got ripped to shreds over the winter by the windy conditions. Moved a pile of wood that was given to us but left at the front of the driveway, moved some bags of compost that came out of the old boxes we demolished before building the new fence in the front. I did a bit of work in the garden dug up some more bindweed roots and dug up and potted up some raspberry canes, that was harder work than it sounds 😜 I’m sure we did more but I can’t think what right at the moment.

John did the afternoon feeding and egg collection, the trays are flying off the shelf which is great as it means we don’t need to deliver them, I just went out to a customer who had not been before and needed change and the wind is quite cold out there now, luckily I am inside cooking a beef dinner and a traditional rice pudding for Dad and Sue on their return visit.

Friday: A very productive and busy day, John has been busy getting the POL pen ready for a new batch of hens, we have a new water and feed system in place and he has built new nest boxes for them, all looking very good.

I have been busy in the garden, planting onion sets and the babington leeks, digging, clearing and tidying the raspberry area, putting up more canes and putting down weed membrane for the pots to stand on, potting on the new blueberry bushes, I tried a bit of hoeing but the ground is just a bit too wet still.

We are experiencing very high gates sales for the eggs, I think this week will be bumper takings 😀

Ooops sat here typing up and in walks John without his trousers on, the pressure washer he was using has just split and he got a soaking 🤣🤣

Saturday: I went to London with Charlie to watch both parts of Harry Potter, The Cursed Child, it was a very long bit thoroughly enjoyable day. John was left at home in charge, all seems well 🤪

Sunday: The clocks went forward and that seems to have such an impact on the day, the time just disappears! I was tired from yesterday but still up at the usual time, John did all the animals this morning and I went out and got some gardening done. I potted on some tomato plants that have been on the window sill, cleared up some more debris from the raspberry canes, still a bit more to do there but not much now, I tided, clipped and weeded the herb bed, hopefully everything will begin to burst into life very soon. John did the last finishes to the POL pen and will be picking up 30 pullets tomorrow morning, hopefully they will already be, or very close to, laying as the eggs sales have been off the scale this week!

The sunshine was just too good to stay inside and do the chores so after a cuppa and a snack I went back out determined to get something achieved. I decided on the large poly tunnel, I really should have stuff growing away in there by now but as I said a couple of weeks back, it really wasn’t ready. I do have some left over cauliflower plants in there from last autumn, strawberries in hanging baskets, the fig I moved into there and a couple of rows of beetroot and parsley but apart from that, nothing. And I still haven’t except that now all the soil has been raked over to a fine tilth, I have made two temporary raised beds where the clay seam is and I have weeded, it’s good to go as soon as I decide what to put in there 😀

Monday 12th March: Monday morning and not a very inspiring one at that, the rain hasn’t stopped since late last night and everything is sodden this morning, the paddocks are mostly puddles of dirty water, the yard is turning into a stream and the veg beds, well let’s just say not much point even looking at those yet! On the bright side the reservoirs will be filling nicely 😀 the ducks are very happy 😀 and it’s not cold 😀 I was really hoping to get stuck in to a job or two outside today but I would just be wasting my time I think, I can’t even give the stable a tidy as the rain is making a mess in there too. I just looked at the forecast for the next few days I shouldn’t have bothered lol, rain right through till 11pm tonight, Tuesday and Wednesday are dry (both the days I have Mia) then Thursday and Friday pretty much raining all day, I think it will be a long week, hopefully our new granddaughter will put in an appearance at some point as she is due any day 😀

I am waiting for the pea seeds to sprout and then I could transfer them to the poly tunnel but only one has appeared so far, I’m hoping they are still there I did cover them so they would not get eaten by mice but they may have rotted away with the cold, I shall investigate later. I feel chuffed that I have at last seedlings on the window sill and the aubergine are obviously likening the warm as they have perked up beautifully. I keep thinking if we ever build I will have a special seedling room built on the front of the house at the same time and make use of the south facing aspect.

I went out to the greenhouse in the vain hope of getting something done but the temp is only just over 10c so there is not much point sowing seedlings besides that the compost is in a ton bag at the front of the drive getting soaked, the poly tunnel was next on my agenda but it actually has waterlogging around it and it’s seeping inside, this is very unusual but again means the ground will be too wet and cold to do anything in there. So I came back in the light the Rayburn and that wouldn’t go at the first lighting either, it seems I am destined not to get very far today at all 😐

The onions and garlic I planted back in the autumn are doing well despite the weather and the broad beans and peas that are either in the greenhouse or in the tunnel are both doing well so it’s not all doom and gloom, however the pea seeds I sowed have indeed rotted away during the cold snap, so I will have to put some more in.

Not to be outdone I decided to go back out and see just exactly what I could get done, so I bought in a couple of buckets of compost to dry out in the greenhouse, sowed some more pea seeds, did a bit of cutting back dead herbs, sowed some lettuce seeds in the poly tunnel after I took out the pepper plants I had left in to see if they would continue growing (they didn’t) and that was about it but at least it was something.

Tuesday: It’s not raining, not yet anyway 😝 that’s a bonus for the morning, did the rounds, all seems normal, had a bit of housework to do and some appointments and paperwork to sort out, feeling stressed however as one lot of paperwork is for HMRC and it doesn’t seem to be simple to get it done, e mailed the accountant to see if she can sort it, I can feel my blood pressure rising just at the thought of it all 😩 It’s old paperwork from the wrapping up of the plumbing company so I will be glad when it is done and dusted and I can consign the boxes to storage 😜

Three goes at lighting the Rayburn and I’m still not sure if it’s just going to go out! Eventually got it going and when the sun was shinning in the afternoon I had to open the back door as it was so warm lol, can’t win. Seriously though the sun was a more than welcome event after the past couple of weeks as there was definite heat in the air, we need a lot more to start drying up the ground but I will take today as a good sign 😀

Wednesday: Everyone was up and gone by 7 this morning, I also had an early start and the morning rounds, plus a few extra jobs, were done by 8.10 😀 I even filled up the wild bird feeders before I got dressed, need to look after them since I have provided them with plenty of homes to nest in, there is evidence of one of the new boxes being used as it has a piece of string hanging out of it, nesting material I presume. I also bought the quail some mealworms as they have stopped laying since the cold snap, sometimes they need a bit of extra protein to get them going again.

It’s dry in the sky at least, the ground is still wet and soggy, still slipping on the wet paddocks but getting better all the time.

Out of interest I had a look back at the blog from this time last year, the weather was definitely better, there is hardly a mention of rain and no mention of mud lol, I also appear to have got on a lot further with jobs than I have this year.

Had a productive morning after feeding, I weeded and put weed membrane on the long bean bed, it has been open to the elements all winter to help break it down, cut some evironmesh for the small raised beds, then covered most of one of the bigger beds in weed membrane, 3 reasons, obviously the first is to stop weed growth while it’s not being used, secondly to help warm up the soil and thirdly because the darn cats decide there is not enough room on 5 acres to do their business elsewhere!

Filled up one of the small raised beds with last years compost that we grew potatoes in, disturbed a mouse that was living inside the tonne bag as well, it was a wood mouse, it’s stash of hazelnuts was also in the there, poor thing didn’t know which direction to flee in so tried all directions lol. Then Mia arrived and got suited and booted as it is an ideal day to be outside, she had rides in the wheelbarrow, talked to the worms and chased a chicken round and round the garden, meanwhile I cleared some debris, dug up some bindweed roots and picked up some bits of rubbish. When we came in the fresh air had obviously done her good as she was hungry and ate a good amount of lunch 😀

Thankfully the Rayburn was playing ball today but the fire stick wasn’t! Why is that important, because it has pepper pig on it and I needed Mia to be occupied while I lit the Rayburn, in the end she settled for paw patrol on normal tv so at least I got the fire lit and the washing up from this morning done 😜

Thursday: Our newest granddaughter, Florence, arrived early hours of this morning 😀😀😀😀 Mum and Baby doing fine.

As you can imagine apart from lighting the Rayburn, feeding the hens and some cleaning, today has mostly been about the newest addition to the family, she is bootiful 😍😍😍

Friday: 🤪

Saturday: Cold with snow flurries today, John did the morning stuff then went off to get feed while I got some stuff done indoors, in the afternoon Dad and Sue called in for a couple of hours before making their way to Suffolk tomorrow, Shelley, Martin, John and Florence popped over for a visit later in the day as well. The AA had to be called out for Sue’s car as it wouldn’t start, that does not bode well for the journey ahead and I said it’s because they stopped here, all our rubbish luck for things rubbing off 😂

Sunday: Well wouldn’t you f**ing know it, snow ❄️ bloody snow ❄️ cold temperatures just what we don’t need, I feel like we are getting nowhere fast 😜 Bad moods all round especially after I told John that no matter what the weather he will have to clean out the front hen house, it wasn’t done yesterday and if it didn’t get done today then tomorrow he would be back at work and I would have three days of it to shift and my hands are not up to that at the moment, so off he went to do that while I cleaned out the duck shed which also needs doing. The dog bath had the shower head broken in the last cold snap by someone, can’t remember if I mentioned that but John put a new second hand one on yesterday and that is leaking so no good, coupled with the fact that the repair he put on the hole that appeared has come away and the bath filled up with leaking water then emptied it in the back 😡 ffs nothing seems to just go smoothly at the moment, it’s like skating uphill.P.s sorry it’s late 🤪

Apologies if anyone received a messed up copy of this weeks blog, I had a malfunction 🤪

Here is the correct one 😀

Monday 5th March: Pleasant enough this morning if a tad colder than yesterday. On the rounds this morning I was thinking we now have a lot of cleaning to do as the snow which drifted into every available area has made it all wet and horrible, the rabbit pens have wet straw on the floor, the goose hut needs cleaning as does the duck shed, looks like a busy day ahead. I also noticed when I was cleaning the floor in the front hen house, a worm, not your common garden worm but I’m guessing one passed by a chicken! So having finished up my last lot of wormer back in November I set about trying to get some more, easier said than done, it seems, as with everything they have now withdrawn the bigger stronger tubs of wormer from sale, this means buying smaller tubs of lesser strength more frequently or buying pre medicated feed. Both of these options are way more expensive, there is a surprise, as far as I am concerned this is another way to squeeze out the small producers making it too expensive to run a going concern. I spent well over an hour trying to track some down to no avail and in the end I have had to order the feed which is approx £3/4 a bag dearer than normal feed, not a problem if you just have a few chickens but when you need 7 bags to worm your flock and they recommend (due to the lack of potency) that you worm every 3 months you can see it will start to get expensive. If we have to go down this route which it looks like we will, then we will have to put up the price of the eggs 😐

I got some beef and vegetable soup on the go in the slow cooker and went off outside to begin the task of cleaning out everyone. Ducks done, geese done, rabbits done and I discovered that the bantams are laying at long last hurrah, I have 4 gold laced Orpington bantams that seem all to be cockerels 😝 and three white silkies only one of which is a cockerel hopefully, well at least one is a hen, that was a rubbish hatch batch! I have a couple of egg customers that like bantam eggs so they will be happy.

AND the Sun is out oh boy happy to see that, in fact I got so warm cleaning out I took my coat off 😀😀 happy days. Couldn’t resist nipping into the greenhouse, it was a whopping 22c in there whoop whoop 😀 I just gave everything a watering, tempting to sow some seed but I will wait a while I think and wait for the weather to settle. I did pot on some of the aubergines to bring back indoors as I think the problem is soil depth they were in a shallow seed tray so I have potted up 6 of them and I will see how they go.

And then the rain came 😟lots of it so everywhere is soggy! On the evening session of putting everything away I also filled up all the rat bait boxes and filled known rat holes with poison, they are persistent little feckers seem to have permanently moved in in one area.

Not sure if I mentioned the glue traps for rats last week, anyhow after some discussion online with people I have decided not to use them, to be honest the picture looked grim and I was reluctant when I saw it and have now been persuaded not to use them so I won’t.

Tuesday: Not a bad morning weather wise, it’s dry for the moment and the temps are acceptable for the time of year. During the morning rounds I checked the rat poison nothing eaten yet so maybe the waterlogging has driven them off, we can hope anyways 😜 I was pretty productive yesterday with Farm stuff and household bits so I am trying to continue the trend today! Busied round and got everything done, then we were given some freshly caught Sea Bream, actually we swapped it for some of our rump steak, the bream is as I type marinading in olive oil, lemon juice, crushed garlic and dried oregano (as I don’t have fresh available). I’m looking forward to tasting it, I will do some green beans to go with it and probably have to do John some potatoes, love a good swap 😀 I have also been busy on social media this morning selling trays of eggs, what with the lack of customers during the snow we have around ten trays that need shifting, does not take long for them to start stacking up when they are laying three trays a day, it’s good to keep them turning over.

Took me an age to get the Rayburn going, I am out of newspapers and was down to recycle rubbish which didn’t go too well, although in the end with much puffing it finally caught the wood and is now going strong. I have put out a call for papers on Facebook, we don’t have them but someone somewhere will have a stack of them I’m sure.

I have ordered an electric thermostatically controlled windowsill propagator, I took the plunge because our house temperature varies so much and the seedlings that were doing well are beginning to flag. It costs £30 but considering how much effort I have been putting in to these seedlings, for them to keel over is a waste of effort and time so that’s where my thoughts have taken me. There are a few models out there but I went for a fully closed in model, some of the other models have up to 7 smaller propagators in a tray all with their own lids, the downfall I feel with these is that the heat base then has escaping heat inbetween the trays.

This is the one I went for

This one is the one with separate propagators which might be handy but the heat source is underneath and so all the spaces inbetween each unit is also being heated and therefore escaping if you see what I mean 😜 Also it is not thermostatically controlled so the heat is constant, it costs about the same but wastes energy I think.

I will at least be able to get some more seedlings on the go, the problem with starting them too early is where do you move them onto if the weather and the temperatures have not got up to a reasonable level and you don’t have a heated greenhouse, by the time it arrives I think it will be a good time to get everything going.

The first real crop that will be arriving soon will be rhubarb mmmm so with that in mind while Mia was asleep I started looking for recipes to compile, rhubarb and ginger jam I will have to try and of course a rhubarb and custard cake but plain old stewed rhubarb and custard is not one to be overlooked in my opinion, always reminds me of childhood days 😀 last year Josh amazed us all by just chewing on a stick of rhubarb, I wonder if he will still like it this year?

Wednesday: The Sun is out 😀 but it was nippy first thing, still it should warm up a little. Did the morning feeding, watering, letting out and cleaning the front coop floor. The nest boxes need a clean as we couldn’t do it last weekend because of the snow and the chickens not leaving the hut lol it is impossible to do it with 100 hens round your feet! I will see if I can get it done tomorrow as I have Mia later today. We are on the Home run as far as the muddy paddocks are concerned, as the sun gets stronger it should dry the ground faster which will enable the grass to come through, it will only grow above 6c and we are getting those temperatures but the saturation of water means it still gets muddy with footfall all over it. The daffodils are beginning to peak out and once we see some blossom on the trees we will know the winter is behind us thank goodness.

The two good days I had have taken their toil on me and I am back to feeling rubbish, stiff joints, headache, generally unwell 🤒 I need to have more bloods tests to monitor the inflammation levels and if they are still high I guess they will investigate why. I was trying to eat healthy and cut out complex carbs, sugar etc but in return I end up with chronic acid reflux instead, at the moment this is a no win situation and I hope it passes soon as I want to be able to crack on 😝 It sure has been a difficult couple of months lately! Lupus is complex, it’s different for every sufferer and to manage it you need to really be in tune with your body but sometimes it gets a little out of control and takes a while to bring back into line.

Made some bread and another batch of fruit buns and a gluten free chocolate cake while I was waiting for Mia to arrive. Anyone who doesn’t know us may wonder why I cook with conventional AND gluten free flours, our youngest daughter who is now 26 was diagnosed a coeliac when she was 18 months old, for all the years she lived at home I mostly cooked gluten free, when she left home I gradually went back to wheat flours and now she is back home for a few months I cook with both again. Day to day cooking is still mostly gluten free, and she cooks for herself most of the time, most things I cook from scratch so I am still in the habit of mostly cooking with naturally gluten free ingredients it’s just bread and cakes that on the whole I use wheat flour for.

Thursday: It’s a bit nasty out there today, apparently the ‘pest from the west’ lol though we haven’t had the snow that other parts have had, we have had rain and it’s windy and a tad cold with it. I was hoping for a half decent day that would be pleasurable but alas it’s not to be, I wanted to get some work done in the garden but it’s very wet underfoot so best left hopefully the wind will dry it out as long as we don’t get any more rain. I am waiting on a couple of things to arrive so I can start seedlings off in the greenhouse, the compost I ordered is great but it needs to be finer for seedlings and I don’t have a fine riddle so I have ordered one and also I am still waiting for the windowsill propagator then I can start off things like the tomatoes and cucumbers etc. I feel it’s going to be a late start this year for most things, still, provided the weather gets better it should all catch up eventually.

Oh dear, today is not a good day mentally lol, it started with not being able to light the Rayburn, not even the paper would catch to start with, then I got soot all over my sleeve reaching further in trying in vain, eventually it got going but then I dropped the stack of wood I was bringing in on the floor I had just hoovered 😝 The train of thought then goes something like this, what the hell am I doing having to light a dirty bloody fire every day, why don’t I just move somewhere with all mod cons, what on Earth am I trying to achieve, am I achieving anything, ever, or am I just on a bloody hamster wheel going round and round and round! I know when spring arrives I will feel differently but the winters seem longer and harder each passing year, at the moment with various other things going on we are just treading water and trying to keep our heads above it, something will eventually give one way or another. John is flat out trying to catch up after having multiple days off with his Mums illnesses, snow days when he couldn’t finish the job he was on, then came burst pipes and multiple phone calls, he is looking stressed, I am trying to hold the fort here which is fine but the weather hampers everything and I am limited by what I can physically do, maybe we should just sell up, we won’t, it’s just one of those days 😩 I will make a list and a plan, that will help me find the way forward 😋

Did a few bits and pieces, wandered into the greenhouse, the seedlings I planted a while back are coming up, broad beans, cabbage, pak Choi the peas are slow but the temperature is around 20c in there again with the sun shining in but I decided against sowing much else for the time being. It is still very windy but not as cold as this morning.

Friday: Today is a better day all round 😀 even though yesterday felt dire and got worse when John went to deliver eggs and a tyre blew on the car, all very well except that we are off to London tomorrow which gives only a very tight time to get the tyre fixed and John is already flat out trying to squeeze everything else in! That said I still woke with enthusiasm today and the wind has dropped, the temperature is pleasant, as yet it’s not raining 🌧 One of the jobs John normally does is clean out the nesting boxes in the front hen house, normally every weekend but last weekend the snow meant the hens would not go out and so it was impossible. As I said we are away tomorrow so this really needed to be done before we go, we have been trialling these cardboard traps for red mite and it needs regular cleaning to be successful, so first thing before I did any of the other jobs I went out and cleaned them and burnt the old material, replaced with new cardboard, bedding and diatomaceous earth, then I fed and let out the rest of the animals.

The rain came later but I haven’t let it dampen my spirits 🤪 did the usual afternoon stuff then delivered 300 eggs in the evening 😜

Saturday: Today we are London bound to watch Les Miserables and stay over, John got it for me for Christmas and looking forward to it but first the animals have to be done. John went off the check on his Mum than go and pick up a special order of feed with the wormer added that the supplier had round earlier to say was now in, best to get it started as soon as possible. The girls are looking after everything in various measures so we are grateful for that.

I haven’t been to London for about 8 years, lol it’s a culture shock to say the least, at most I see about 5 people a day and I know all of them 😝 this is thousands of people all seemingly coming in the opposite direction, on the phone, gazing up, hell bent on getting somewhere, however I thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience, we saw the ‘Million Women’ march, went to China Town, watched people dancing to a busker at 11.30pm and of course watched the spectacular show Les Miserable, I confess, I cried at the scene where Jean Valjean was dying and I don’t think I stopped then till the end 😢fantastic show well worthy of the standing ovation. Being there with all those people, tall buildings blocking out the sky and the general pace of things, did make me appreciate our 5 acres of relaxed space and skies though and I returned with a new fondness for home 😀

Just as we were leaving on Saturday my windowsill propagator arrived and so once we had visited our respective Mothers for Mother’s Day and got back and lit the fire, I set about setting it up and sowing the seeds I wanted to go in there. Tomato, 3 varieties, good old Money Maker, a beefsteak variety and a plum tomato which will be great for freezing a sauces. I also sowed some pepper seeds, I know I wasn’t going to but these were free seeds of long sweet peppers so I thought I might as well try them out. I watered everything in the greenhouse and the peas and citrus trees in the small poly tunnel and feel like we are getting nearer to the time when plenty of outside work will get done, the Sun made a welcome appearance for a time today which brings plenty of hope with it 🌞

P.s. there is cherry blossom on the trees in London, obviously due to the higher temperatures there but yey spring is springing finally.