Monday 24th July 2023: A rainy start to the day and week, I am a little annoyed with myself because yesterday was dry and I could have got a fair bit done outside and now it’s soggy. Goodness knows what has happened to our weather lol we are stuck in a cycle of rain but I am not complaining as parts of Europe are literally burning 😏
I am waiting for the rain to stop so that I can go out and cut the echinops. I have been watching them carefully waiting for them to colour up, the trick is not to let them go into flower if you want them for drying as they will start to fall apart once dry otherwise.
Although it is only the end of July I have already started taking bookings for Christmas wreath workshops so I need to be thinking that far ahead. I am also going to do a pumpkin arrangement workshop and all those dates are firmly in the diary but I do have the flexibility to add more if necessary. I need to do a post to advertise them but it seems a bit too early yet 🤷♀️
As it kept on raining I gave the pantry a tidy up, I still have a few apples but some of them have either shrivelled now or gone soft but the ones that are ok I will start chopping and freezing so I don’t lose any more. Our apple harvest was huge last year, this year not so many eating apples but still plenty of cookers on the tree providing the crows don’t eat them all that is 🙄
Cleaning it up made me start thinking about winter storing and prepping, we have seen that you never know what is round the corner these days 🤔 In the event of something catastrophic happening the food chain would break immediately and I like to be prepared 😂 it’s the primal side of me 😜
Tuesday: Dry today whoo hoo, I cut the echinops first thing along with some eryingyum they are so different to most things that are growing at the minute so they add texture to flowers. I then spent the rest of the morning doing some proper gardening, weeding, hoeing, deadheading, planting, potting on. I think if I ever get to a point of taking anyone on the first job would be for a gardener 😂 or at the very least, a weeder. I have potted on plants that have been waiting for weeks and now hopefully they can put on good growth before planting in autumn. I have a lot of re organising to do come autumn, I made some errors when laying out the cutting flower beds so they need turning round. I planted some things in places that, it has become apparent, they are outgrowing already 😜 It is all a learning curve.
Wednesday/Thursday: Forgot to type anything up and have no idea what I have been doing 😜 Working here is all I know as I haven’t been anywhere else, trying to catch up on all the weeding and tidying plus cutting anything that needs cutting. I did deliver flowers on Thursday I remember that much.
Friday: I had a fair amount of flowers to cut today for orders and for the flower workshop this evening, it started raining around 7.30am, wouldn’t you bloody know it 🙄 Nevertheless I had to get it done and so off I went out into the rain, it stopped raining almost as soon as I had finished 😜 We had the ride on mower collected this morning as the belt has broken plus it could do with a service. That is one thing John has been trying to do, get the front paddock cut but the grass is very long. It would seem that many are in a similar situation because of the constant switch between rain and sun and the chap has plenty of belts to repair 😂 I spent a good part of the day in the flower hut sorting it out and getting ready for later. The flowers are not drying as well as hoped in there and I am not sure if it is because of the humidity outside all month long. I can’t leave the door open because all and sundry will be inside before long, cats, dogs, chickens, geese 🙄 so I have rigged up a metal grill that can be tied to go across the open door to try and get some airflow in there. Schoolboy error not having a window up high!
I have decided to have a go at dyeing natural silk with plant dyes. Trying to find eco friendly ribbon is difficult and expensive so I thought I would have a go at making my own and see how they come out, you never know it could be another string to my bow 😁
Saturday: It started off sunny then clouded over and drizzled 🙄 I had the flower room to tidy up and social media posts to do and then mid morning deliver some flowers to a customer. It was near to Mums so we popped in for a coffee before heading back home. In the afternoon we decided to take a drive to Diddly Squat Farm which is only around 15/20 minutes away. It was heaving with people, seriously the car park was rammed, the other car park (field) was rammed and the queue must have been about an hour long just to get into the shop and then another similar queue for the food wagon 🙄 So we took the obligatory photo and left lol, we decided to call into Burford on the way back and grab an ice cream. Not a parking space to be found anywhere so we headed for Bibury instead, same story there 😏 We drove home through some lovely little villages and rural back lanes and grabbed an ice cream in Carterton instead 😂 Where exactly is the cost of living crisis because it is not here I can tell you that much 🤷♀️ You can no longer just walk into a pub and ask for a table for food as they are always booked up, you need to book in advance. The roads are clogged up with cars so no one is worried about how much fuel they are using, the shops are always busy, so much so that I can’t even be bothered to go into them these days unless absolutely necessary.
In the evening we had booked a table in the next town along for a meal out instead of our usual fish and chip night. We ordered fish and chips 😂 it was delicious though.
Sunday: It’s my birthday 🥳 Up and out for an early breakfast at one our favourite places, they start serving at 7.30am 😂 which is great for us as I think breakfast at 10am is halfway through the day 😜 Once back home we had a relaxed day, not sure why John was relaxing it wasn’t his birthday 😂 Plenty of visitors throughout the day, we had birthday cake and chocolates and I had lots of lovely gifts for which I am grateful 🥰 This just about sums me up, a goldfinch whistle, a giant cookie, a medieval cooking pan, plants, gardening gloves, essential oils, a book and a new top plus a few other things. In-between cups of tea, cake and visitors we watched a couple of films, perfect relaxing day.
frieslandfarm (flowers) 