Category: Friesland Farm

Monday May 13th 2024: It has been busy and I have got totally lost in the blogging, no idea where I am at 😬

The last week has seen some fabulous weather, lots of sunshine which we really needed, a bit too hot for me to work in at times but I am not complaining as it was nice to feel warm. We had some amazing photos of the Northern lights after a G5 sun spot thrust magnetic forces out into the atmosphere, I did take a phot early in the evening but it was t as very good one and then I went to bed and missed the real show 😂

I spent a lot of time gardening as you can imagine, early mornings and then some evenings, missing out the afternoons on the hottest days. This weekend just gone John has been helping on the garden, tidying and weeding areas that I just never manage to get too and he has made an amazing transformation, just a couple more areas to go 🤪

With the sunshine came the flowers, they are coming out everywhere and I am cutting daily, flower sales are steady but with as many as I am cutting could do with a few more. Not that they get wasted because I either dry them or use them for practice work (which is always a delightful distraction)

This morning the weather has cooled a little, a welcome break for me because it means I do not have to be careful and can just plough on with outside jobs. I have a workshop coming up at the weekend and so really wanted to have an organised looking garden for the show around, nobody wants to see weeds and debris everywhere although in a working garden there are plenty of both. My first job this morning after the usual jobs was to cut some herbs for drying. Mint and oregano are both in the dryer as I want plenty of dried herbs for the winter this year. It is not so urgent for herbs like rosemary, bay and thyme because they are evergreen and can be harvested as required but I will do a small amount of each just in case we have deep snow or very cold weather and it’s easier to grab a pot than go out and cut them.

Then mid morning I am off to another Flowers from the Farm meet up in Minster Lovell at Abi’s flower farm, Ivydene 🥰 Love a flowery get together where no one is bored of talking about flowers 😂

I will try to be a little more on the ball with the blog this week 🤭

I had a fabulous couple of hours talking all things flower related and Abi’s flower farm is particularly amazing, she is a fabulous grower and very neat and tidy with it 😊

Tuesday: Oscar day, all the usual activities took place, reading, playing, sleeping (Oscar not me) eating, crying, more playing.

Wednesday: The weather is partly cloudy at the minute so I had ample opportunity to get out and do some outside work, plenty of clearing and weeding to be done at this time of year.

Thursday: An early start with the cutting this morning, I have lots to cut and lots to get ready for the weekend, orders, Friday flowers and a workshop on Saturday morning. It was an absolute pleasure spending about two hours cutting everything that was ready to be cut. I got lots of hoeing done and even some planting.

This is the time of the year to begin thinking about next years spring bulbs, yep if you don’t pre order them now then you run the risk of not getting the type you want. It is also the time to think about ordering any seeds that will need sowing in June and July (biennials) and any seeds you might want for an autumn sowing. There is no time to rest lol and we also have an exciting thing happening in the UK this week. You may or may not know of Floret in the USA, well for many years growers in the UK have admired from afar the range of zinnia available over there 🥰 This week for the first time they have arrived for sale in the UK and I imagine it will be a mad scramble to get them, it will be a bit like waiting to get those sort after tickets 😂 I for one will be in the queue trying very hard to purchase a packet or two or three or maybe four!

Then a delivery 🙄 now I did say I had got to the stage where I can’t really fit any more plants in unless I extend, well this was a delivery of dahlia tubers 😂 The reason being that they were on sale and who can resist a bargain, so I now how to find a place to plant 10 more dahlia tubers 🤪

Friday: Busy day today, well I say busy but the first couple of hours was getting my hair done then a quick coffee and lunch with Shelley who picked me up.

But it has been a busy few days with the flowers, everything seems to come all at once lol, I had a random person in the area looking for flowers and found me on the internet, a chap who phoned and asked if I could do a buttonhole for later that day and then a phone call from the states to order a celebration bouquet for a local couple, I have my regular orders to get ready and also get ready for the workshop ladies as well as Friday flowers which sold out and so I need to find time to cut and condition some more to go out 🤪 I love it 🥰

It obviously was a busy week because I totally forgot to publish this one 🤪

Thursday 2nd May: Today is the first time I have had time to sit and type the blog 🙄 I had a busy run up to the weekend with lots of flowers to get ready for delivery or collection on the Friday. One of the retirement homes I supply was having their first birthday celebration and I had bouquets and jam jars to get ready for that as well as other individual orders. When I delivered them on the Friday preparations were in full swing with staff blowing up hundreds of balloons 😊 I had great feedback from the home and it is a great feeling to be able to supply locally grown flowers to a local business 🥰

Monday was a day to catch up on jobs that we couldn’t get done at the weekend as we were away plus our new internet connection was finalised and so I had an engineer here for a few hours.

Tuesday was Oscar day and this week we were finally able to get outside for a part of the day. It was windy but it was dry and sunny and Oscar loved playing in the paddock with the dogs, he had spent the weekend here with Charlie and Macca who stayed to look after the place while we were away and by all accounts thoroughly enjoyed the outdoor life.

Wednesday was a lovely day weather wise, dry and sunny for most of the day and so I spent the whole day outside. Because it has been cold and wet up to now I have not been able to move any plants on and get them into the ground. It was May 1st and so I took the plunge if I didn’t do it today I had no idea when I would be able to do it. So I planted up around 100 different plants, I also managed to get some of the staking in place and mulch but I still have some to do. I will have to keep an eye on the temperatures overnight but I am fairly confident that all will be well.

I was still outside when the first spits of rain came, John arrived home from work and so that was then end of my outside time. It began to pour down and I was for once grateful because it meant everything had a good watering in, in fact it continued to pour down overnight and into the next morning 😂 with thunderstorms and lightening to boot.

Thurdsay: As it was wet first thing I decided to get a couple of invoices done and sent off and then onto cancelling BT 😊 That is easier said than done! One of the only times they want to actually speak to you instead of directing you to an online option is when you want to cancel. I called the number, found the option number for cancelling, pressed that and it said ‘please hold’ then went dead 🙄 I tried it a few times before getting peed off and rang the general customer service line, the chap was very helpful though and I have managed to cancel both the broadband and the landline. Our line has been terrible ever since the cock up they made a few years back when we lost our number of over 30 years and they could not get it back for us. I weighed up the pros and cons but they were mostly cons to be fair. I only kept the landline because it was a hard wired connection that would be useful if all else went down, now they are changing to digital it no longer matters. Our digital line from them (copper wire) is shocking, intermittent and has interference which means the line is not clear on the phone and the internet is constantly dropping out. I am convinced that somewhere along the line there is a cross over, on Fridays the connection is much worse and it is no coincidence that the line it got muddled up with is a rental property that is mostly occupied at the weekends 🤷‍♀️ just a thought of mine but it was such a cuffuffle that the engineers could not work out at the time it seems the most logical answer because before that we had no problems for 10 years!

Anyway move over BT and hello to Wurzel 😊 a local company specialising in rural broadband, I communicate with the actual people who do the installation and who I can call or message if I need help, not a call centre where one department has no idea what the other department can or is doing.

I think it is the beginning of tricky times ahead for large corporate companies that take your money but don’t give you the service you should get. It is more about making money than providing a good service and people are getting tired of that. I read a report on a national flower online delivery service, they have made a loss of 100million in their last year. Some of it they put down to consumers cutting back but I think it would be fair to say that the local flower growers have had an impact on that too judging by the record increases of British flower growers and suppliers. If people are going to spend their hard earned money they want a decent service with decent materials that are fit for purpose not something that is banged out and marked up for profit making purposes.

Turns out the weather wasn’t too bad in the end today and so I spent the first half of the day in the greenhouse potting on and the second half of the day in the big tunnel and outside, mostly weeding. I stopped when my knees were wet and my gloves were so wet that taking them on and off became tricky 😂

John came home mid afternoon as he had a dentist appointment and then on his return I sent him back out to buy a sack truck from Screwfix. It will make life much easier because at the minute I am dragging heavy crates full of spent bulbs or chrysanthemums around and I am past the age when that is an easy task 🤪

Friday: Wet lol. I had flowers to get ready for farm gate sales, not many because I don’t get many buying flowers like that but it’s great to put them out for those that do want to just come and grab some. I had flowers to get ready for my regular orders too and after that I decided to give the flower room a clean and tidy. Things just get put down and left and it always needs a good sweep so it was the perfect day for that.

Saturday: It started off with fog! What the heck, fog in May 😂 but it soon turned into a fabulous sunny day even though the forecast was for downpours 🤷‍♀️ We went off to make flower deliveries first thing and then back to make the most of a great day. Yesterday we picked up a brand new sack truck, we have an old one that really is ancient, heavy cast wheels and a wood wormed frame isn’t the best for manoeuvring 🙄 and though I do have this new found respect for old tools I really needed something lighter and easier to use. I have plenty of crates full of bulbs or flowers that always need moving and I usually have to drag them to where I want them. Now I have the sack truck it is sooo much easier and I am not getting any younger, so once those were all moved I got on with the rest of the gardening, I planted up over 200 gladioli, some in a crate and some in the ground, 100 more ixia, 100 had already been planted in a crate last week, 25 star flower and 25 different gladioli (can’t remember what now) I had weeded and tidied and planted right up to mid afternoon when it got too hot would you believe. It is a joy to see the sun but for me too much is not good and although there were clouds there were not enough for me to carry on outside, I did have a hat on but I could feel my skin begin to crawl and that’s a good sign that it’s too hot for me. I could do with some cloudy dry days that are warm enough but not too hot 😂 not too much to ask is it. I would get up earlier in the mornings but at the moment it’s too chilly first thing though there will come a time when I am out there at 4.30am and loving the cool of the early mornings. John meanwhile was busy burning the fencing we took down in the front paddock a couple of months ago, the wood has been too wet to burn before now. Then he was onto grass cutting, all the rain we keep having means the grass just keeps growing and this year we are aiming to keep on top of it a bit more.

I also let Biscuit out into the paddock with Jack today, she has been great in her little pen and her feet must feel good because she was running around and very happy to be let out. Jack joined in with the frolicking, I never tire of watching the horses when the get moved to new grass, they tear around running and jumping for joy, then there comes the obligatory roll 😂 It was a new paddock for Jack but I think he just got caught up in the moment!

I came in for a sit down once I got too hot, I think I earned it, I have been constantly busy all day.

I ordered some more dahlia tubers yesterday, why? Do I need them? No not really 😂 Do I have anywhere to put them? No no really 😂 Then why? Because it is dahlia sale time and there are bargains to be had 🤪 Most are half price now so it makes financial sense to buy them when they are cheaper doesn’t it 😬 I will find a space somewhere lol.

Monday 22nd April 2024: Sorry I forgot to blog last week but it was a week pretty much like most, work rest and play in various different quantities lol.

The weather at the weekend was great and we got a fair bit done in the front area. The Parthenon is almost ready to paint into, just needs a bit more top soil. John has been busy clearing weeds and raking the top of the driveway off so it is a little more level than it was. I discovered vine weevil grubs in most of the pots I had in the front, I emptied the first one to plant up into the bed and saw the little blighters. I checked the rest of the pots and they were in about half of them 🙄 I have ordered nematodes to water in, these are expensive and time sensitive once you have opened the pack but they do work really well and so they are worth the cost because well established plants cost more! I also decided on the Sunday that I would do a giveaway with some of the tulips I have been growing. Because of the lack of sun they have been delayed by quite a few weeks and then when the sun came out so did all the tulips, all at once 😂 Far too many for me to use this week and they won’t wait for when I am ready so I may as well give them to someone. I put all the names into the spiny thing and had a winner who collected them this evening 😊

The rest of the day has been pretty rubbish to be honest, the weather has turned again, it’s wet and cold and will remain that way all week I think. I decided to try bottling some rhubarb, I haven’t ever done this before because without a canner I am not confident in the quality of the contents, botulism should always be a concern. I found a method that uses the Le parfait jars and seals and gave it a go, the first one was fine, numbers two and three cracked the glass of the jars 😒 So I have one jar that has been filled and water bathed and I will put it to store and see how it goes, it can be stored for two years potentially which would be awesome.

My greenhouse is fit to burst, I have so many seedlings, plantlets and plants that need to be moved on but the weather is still a bit iffy and so I dare not risk it just yet. We are going away for the weekend and I am hoping that next week I can really get going with the planting up.

Tuesday: Oscar day today 🥰 While he was sleeping I did do a few bits, stewed some rhubarb with vanilla for a pudding later and order a bulk lot of jam sugar, I have a lot of fruit still to use up from the freezer before this years bounty appears and so I will make jam. It’s always useful for gifting and it is one way of making sure you have something on the shelf that can be used in a quick sponge pudding. I will also cook up a lot of it and make some pre prepared crumble topping, another quick pudding option. I give up looking for different recipes because John doesn’t eat a wide range and I don’t need the extra calories from a custard or cream based dessert 😂 I am happy to stick to stewed fruit and yoghurt or a splash of cream. Besides I can always jazz up the crumble topping with chopped nuts 😊 I did get around to shelling the hazelnuts I collected last year so I have a nice jar full of them. I could actually save a lot of kgs as we have that many hazel trees but the squirrels need some so I just take what I can use and that’s all.

I am planning to dry quite a lot more herbs this year than I usually do, I always find in winter that I wish I had and so this year I will. I have lots of flat leaf parsley growing so aim to dry that as well as oregano, basil and sage. Maybe some dill (I don’t use much but maybe I would use more if I had it to hand) Rosemary is an evergreen so no need to dry that, the same goes for bay but again it might be handy to have some dried in a jar for the days when the weather is so cold/wet I’d rather not step outside 🤪 Coriander I need to add to that list too and I have lots of garlic chive (which does not die back) growing in the tunnel but again who wants to go out into the garden in winter to get it 😂

I have lots of flowers to do for Friday this week and I just had another big order come in, I can’t do any cutting today but I will be doing plenty of it tomorrow by the looks of things. The rest of the top soil also arrived today and so that is another job that will go to the top of the list this week, hopefully the weather will stay fairly dry.

Wednesday: A dry day and not too cold either which was just as well as I had lots of flowers and foliage to cut which took me most of the morning with a short interlude to do the horses water and hay. Then I grabbed a bit of lunch before having my haircut early afternoon. I had a bit of a sit down for an hour then out to start planting up the Parthenon 🤪 I have plenty to go in it’s just a case of getting it right, some of the plants are small but garden ready and some are bigger, I kind of want a cottage garden look so hoping I manage to achieve that 🙄

I was enjoying a gentle plant up when life suddenly got complicated, not in a bad way just lots of different jobs came at me all at once, it does not take much to scramble my brain these days plus I was hungry too which never helps with the brain fog. So I needed to get dinner sorted, I needed to get some flowers and change to the pub, I had a phone call to rearrange an appointment from early May to tomorrow and John wanted a whole load of invoices and estimates done asap (tonight that means) So I sent John off down to take the stuff to the pub and he managed to snap off two of the heads from the flowers on the way 😳 I got the dinner prepped and on to cook and then sat down to do the invoices etc, and then eat dinner.

The rearranged appointment is a biggie because it is the installation of our new internet so there is lots I need to move out of the way for them to be able to access the office and we are also having it on the outbuildings so that we have a good connection outside too. I am tired of BT and the old copper wire network hardly seems fit for purpose anymore yet they still charge and never want to look into problems. So it’s bye bye BT and hello Wurzel 😊 Wurzel are a local company specialising in rural internet and the signal is through the air from mast to antenna rather than underground, it has to be better than what we have now which at times is shocking to be honest. They were coming in early May but had a cancellation tomorrow and offered it to us so I said yes, I probably should have said no I will wait just because I already have a lot to do tomorrow and this just adds to my list 😂

Thursday: I thought it was actually Wednesday 😂 Anyhow I had a busy morning doing a hundred and one jobs including cutting more flowers and making up a couple of bouquets going out today. Jam sugar arrived in bulk 🤪 by the time jam making season comes there is never much jam sugar on the shelves so I pre ordered direct, free delivery 😁 and now I am ready for the season ahead. I wasn’t going to make much but we always have so much fruit so it seems like the right thing to do, besides once water bathed it will keep for a few years (prepping and all that)

On the preparedness topic there is a lot of chatter about food shortages ahead, the relentless rain has caused the farmers havoc with planting and soil structure and that will have a knock on effect. Grains and veg mostly as far as I can work out, don’t say I didn’t warn you if that particular event unfolds later in the year. Flour can be frozen in its paper wrapping and popped inside a plastic ziplock bag. Veg, I suggest growing some of your own this year, stocking the freezer with frozen veg or stocking up on dried goods, don’t forget to rotate your stocks though you don’t want to find a 2024 date when you clean out the cupboards in 2030 😂

Friday: A very busy day getting lots of flowers ready for delivery/collection later, birthday flowers, get well flowers, subscription flowers and a lot of flowers for an event. I had cut them all over the last two days and I spent all morning getting them ready. The afternoon I spent getting everything in order to go away for the weekend and making sure I have packed what we need.

Saturday: We were up earlier than usual to get on the road for our experience the girls bought us for Christmas. We were off to Hereford where we spent 5 hours being blacksmiths and forging our own tools. It was brilliant! We bloody loved it, John made a knife and I made a herb chopper and I found a new respect for hand forged tools and items, I would go back and do it again in a heartbeat and I can notch up another self reliant/survival skill 😂 They also bought us Dinner, bed and breakfast in a boutique hotel in the area which was friendly and relaxed serving local produce, excellent 🥰

Sunday: A rare lazy morning for us as we were away, a leisurely breakfast and then a gentle meander back home where Charlie, Macca and Oscar had been staying over and looking after everything for us.

Out to get a bit of shopping, pop in to have a cuppa with Mum, back home to unload the shopping and then pop round to see my sister who was just dishing up dinner and had enough to invite us to stay and eat, cracking weekend 😊

Monday 1st April 2024: April fools day, Bank holiday Monday.

We have had very few nice weather days lately, one was on Saturday which was great for the party and another one was today. A fair bit of sunshine and only a couple of heavy showers, we certainly could do with a few more hours of sun though. We spent the morning trying to get the last bit of the new bed dug out and tidied up, I am glad to say it is now all done and I am pretty sure John is glad to see the end of it too. We now need to fill it up with some well rotted compost and top soil before planting up, actually John needs to dig out a bit more for the posts that are going in for the climbing plants. There has been stuff dumped there over the past few months, some ibc tanks, heras fencing etc and the fence posts we had delivered a while back. They were supposed to be in by now but the fields are so wet that the tractor would churn them up too much so we have to wait. We moved a lot of the stuff but still have more to move but called it a morning at around 11.30am, can’t work all day 🙄 Today is my Mums actual birthday so we went round to visit, give her birthday presents and have cake. I did manage to get some washing on the line in the morning and we just about managed to get back before a downpour arrived hot on our heels 😂

I was watching the news about the shortage of water in Mexico City and here we are with a deluge of the stuff every day for weeks it is crazy, so I have to think to myself ‘don’t complain, don’t complain’ because I would rather have rain than no water at all.

Tuesday: A change to Oscar day today. I was with Oscar for a while but he had a paediatric appointment at the hospital and I had an eye appointment so I went up with Macca and Oscar for his appointment and then when they left I went to wait for my appointment. Mine was a couple of hours later but it made sense to go up with them so that John did not lose a day at work bearing in mind we just had a long weekend. I pootled about and had some lunch while listening to an audio book until it was nearer my time.

Once I had booked in it was the usual couple of hours wait until I was seen. I had the initial eye checks and thankfully the high pressure in my eye has gone down, I had scans on both eyes and then waitress for the consultation to find out how the eyes are doing.

At first all was well, with the eyes at least, there is no sign of active inflammation and the pressure has gone, all good so far. Then the discussion of what medication I am on, I was dumbfounded when the Dr had no record of my previous appointment, the last one they had notes on were for the appointment in December. This meant they had no record of the beta blockers they prescribed for the high pressure in the eye, no record of the continuation of steroid drops and no record that they had increased my immune suppressant medication and lastly no record that they were supposed to inform my Rheumatology consultant! I even pointed out to the Dr that it was her that I had seen after an initial consultation with another Dr because he wanted a second opinion on the change of meds 🙄 I had to convince her that I had actually had been to an appointment at the beginning of February 😳 So I now have little faith that they will inform Rheumy this time nor that it will filter down to my GP who is actually the one that signs off the repeat medication they have changed ffs 🤦‍♀️ I realise they are under great pressure but really, I should have thought that it was a basic chain of communication that was important to be relayed.

By the time I got out of the hospital it was 5pm, I had looked up the bus timetable online and there would be a bus that left at 5.20. So I made my way up to the bus stop only to see the bus going past me 😬 I get to the bus stop thinking, that’s ok the online time table says there will be another one along eventually. I read the time table at the bus stop to find that it does not say the same as the one online 🙄 I call John and he comes to pick me up, there was not another bus in all the time I was waiting 😒 We eventually get back around 6.30pm and pop round to say happy birthday to our son in law before eventually get home just before dark.

It was a broken systems day and I was knackered just from the thought of it all 😂

Wednesday: Rain again, every day we have rain, I won’t complain though as others are no so lucky but the spring sunshine is very little and not very often at the minute. It is Saturday now and I can’t actually remember what I did on Wednesday, I did cut flowers ready for Friday I know that much.

Thursday: I started early and got flowers arranged first thing then Charlie phoned to see if I wanted to go out and get a coffee, yes please. While we were out she wanted to see if Oscar would get his hair cut at the barbers and despite the heroic efforts of the barber, Oscar was not having any of it 🤪 We went and got coffee and a bit of breakfast then a quick bit of shopping before returning back to mine. We got Johns hair clippers out and had a go ourselves with Oscars hair which was a little bit more successful but obviously not as good. Then we went out for a walk round the village as the weather was dry today for a change.

I had a couple of hours rest in the afternoon before going back out into the garden and getting a few small jobs done.

Friday: Today I had Sam’s three while she went to work, we spent the day, colouring, crafting and playing in the garden. Hearing ‘nanny’ every two minutes from one is head filling enough from from three at a time is hard work. In the end I had to tell them I can only listen to one person at a time 😂 bless them. I definitely was tired out b the time they left so didn’t do much else until it was time to get some dinner on.

Saturday: An epic day of non stop work today, first job was deliver flowers to a weekly customer and then back home to get started on a lot of jobs that need doing. The rain held off all day and so we were able to get a lot done, pushing ourselves to our limit at times. John spent most of the day building the Parthenon 😂 that’s what I am calling it. It is the new bed for the climbing plants and it looks as though we are building a house but it is actually just a flower bed with uprights. The uprights will have mesh attached so that I can grow things like my chocolate vine, an evergreen clematis, jasmine and a climbing rose. Luckily there is plenty of room for other flowers too 😬 Meanwhile I planted up some of the flower plants that are now big enough to go into the poly tunnel. Snapdragons, stocks and China aster, I had to stake it all and put in some support mesh too which I made from string. Once I finished that I dug up a few self set plants and potted those up along with some excess sweet peas. Then onto the job I really had on my radar which was the fruit cage, this needed a few hours of work to bring it back under control and by the time I finished I was knackered. John got the ride on mower out and cut the grass in the small paddock at the back. We didn’t do it last year and it got too long to manage so we had to leave it, now it has died off a bit over winter he was able to mow it and hopefully we will keep on top of it this year. He did some more mowing down the walkways before mowing the lawn with the hand mower, we are well and truly pooped today.

Sunday: Another dry day 😊 so plenty of work to be done as always 🤪 I don’t think we will ever get to the stage where we are wondering what job we could do 😂 the list is always long and gets longer by the day. We did go out for a coffee in the afternoon and ended up getting a roast dinner instead, saves time cooking later 😬

Monday 11th March 2024: I have a quieter week ahead which is always welcomed so that I can re focus and plan plus get some work done in the garden.

It was a tad chilly first thing so I did some household bits like change the beds and hoover, once it warmed up I went outside and got a few jobs done. Nothing major but all necessary, potting on, pricking out, dividing and planting up plus I took some basal cuttings from the delphiniums. I often do it with lupin as well but this year I have sown some seeds that I saved last year. I then spent a while tidying up the area in front of the old dog kennels. Originally I was going to grow climbers up and over it but it is disintegrating badly and so we have decided to take it down and replace it with a pergola, maybe even dig out the concrete underneath and create a proper bed. I could do with a tree out there to give some height to the area and a bit of shade would be useful for anything growing as it is always in full glaring sun. By mid afternoon the last few days work caught up with me and so I had a couple of hours resting while I watched a film lol.

Tuesday: Oscar day 🥰 I said to John this morning that it would be nice if one of these Tuesdays it wasn’t raining or freezing and then we could go out into the garden but so far it has mostly been horrible. On the odd occasion we get some dry warmish weather I take him for a walk down to the village but that is not today ☔️ The forecast looks a lot dried after today and the temps begin to creep up slightly, spring seems slow coming this year 🙄

Wednesday: It was a decent day and so I worked outside all day long, weeding and tidying the garden, got to make hay while the sun shines.

Thursday: Rain again 🙄 luckily I had arranged to go out for lunch with Sam so I pottered around for the morning and then off we went. By the time I got back there was not enough time to get stuck into any major jobs so more pottering before getting the dinner. In the evening I had a zoom meeting which was all about websites, that gave me the shove I needed to get mine sorted.

Friday: I managed to sort out the beginning of the process for my website. I had a domain but that was set up with Google who sold it to Square so I needed to transfer it to my preferred platform which was Fasthost. I thought it was going to be a bit of a nightmare because I had an old website for the Smallholding and wanted to swap them over. For a change the lady in the other end of the phone was amazing, wry helpful and helped me achieve my objective, happy days. I now had my domain transferred, my old website closed down and the new one could be built and I got a great deal which cost me £4 less than I was paying already 😊

I began the afternoon trying to build a new site 🤪 it has been many years since I have done that and was a bit rusty which bought out a lot of frustration (not felt like that since giving up that kind of technology lol)

I left it and we went round to see Florence as it was her 6th birthday today, she was very excited to be 6 🥰

Saturday: We had an epic day work wise, the old dog kennels that we had built when we came were falling apart and needed to come down. So we spent the day taking them down but by bit, burning any wood that was rotten, saving any wood that will be useful another time. We had a big bonfire and kept going until it was all down and cleared, which was about 6pm, tiring day but it is now done.

Sunday: More rain over night and quite a lot of it, I spent the morning cleaning and tidying the flower room. Finding places for everything, cleaning buckets and general clearing out. Meanwhile John was busy digging up the concrete where the dog kennels were because we are going to build another raised bed 😂 this one will be more for the climbers that were attempting to climb over the dilapidated kennels. It was hard going because it’s MOD concrete and about 20ft thick, well not quite but it was put done in the days when they did the job properly.

In the afternoon we did nothing for a few hours, we had earned a rest I think. I then started the website again and carried on doing that until bedtime. I had managed to polish my rusty skills, it is not a great website but it does the job and I can carry in tweaking it when I get time. It is live but I still need to get an SSL certificate sorted so that it is a safe site to visit otherwise no traffic will be sent my way.

Monday March 4th 2024: Chaos this morning, we have had increased traffic through our lane due to a closed road further across. Although the diversion sends them elsewhere they insist on driving down our small country lanes because it is a cut through, not a problem except that half of them have no idea how to drive on country lanes 🙄 They are not two way traffic lanes but having been in the car when they come hurtling towards you, you have to wonder what they actually see around them 😂 Where is the other car supposed to go when the other one won’t slow down 🤷‍♀️ Large deer regularly jump out into the lanes and I only hope nobody meets one of those at speed because it won’t be pretty. Add to that this morning and the main arterial road nearby was shut due to a bad accident, cue even more cars trying to find a way through, total chaos 😬 I don’t think I have seen nose to tail traffic in the village before, every small road around the village and into the next town was clogged with those on the school run or going to work. On top of that we have had three cars that I know of that have hit a pothole coming towards ours and ended up stationary with burst tyres right outside our driveway. We go out and tell them to get the car in the drive and off the road if they can, poor chap last night lost two tyres one front and one back, the poor chap this morning hit it at 5.15am and was still on our driveway at 10.30am! Meanwhile I had an appointment at the dentist and John had called to say they had closed another part of the road off that leads to our lane and he couldn’t get through so was going to have to go right round, yep right into all that traffic! We made our way painfully through the village and into the next town and I was half an hour late, I got out of the car and walked the last leg of the way as it was quicker, luckily I had phoned them and the person I was seeing was also stuck in traffic, crazy morning.

Once back home, the traffic having dissipated by now, the sun came out and so I spent the rest of the morning in the greenhouse sowing seeds. I was looking through my seed stash thinking ‘I am never going to be able to plant all these, I have no idea why I have soo many’ but I will give it a good go lol.

Tuesday: Oscar day 🥰 Activities range from singing, eating, playing, sleeping to little walks and playing with his second cousin Ayda 😊

Wednesday: Busy day today and lots of different jobs to get done. First a quick whip round with the hoover and a bit of polish. Next nip over to the flower room and wash out a lot of buckets ready for flowers. Then a quick pit stop to have my hair cut before taking a flower delivery and preparing them for conditioning. Once they were all safety sat in fresh clean water it was quick lunch before going out to the greenhouse and pricking out some seedlings. Then onto weeding and clearing the flower beds at the far end of the garden, the area I originally earmarked for flowers. It is still for flowers but now so is the rest of the garden and the tunnels 😂 I think I earned a sit down so that’s what I did and a few minutes later John arrived home and made a cuppa. He got changed and went to see his brother as it is his birthday today and I filled up a bucket with some fresh water and went out to cut hellebore ready for Mother’s Day flowers. I have a few other bits to cut tomorrow and then I will be ready for a mammoth flower weekend 🥰

I will be juggling jobs like that for a few weeks now, seedlings, weeding, planting, flower arranging as well as everything domestic. My plan is to work smarter not harder and so I am trying to get any weed suppressing systems in place as well as staking and mulching, all of these should, should be hugely beneficial for time saving 🤞 Who knows I may even have time each day just to sit and look 🤪

Thursday: I did a few household bits first thing before going off to Witney with Charlie and Oscar. We had a mooch round, I bought some bits to put my hair up, when the girls were at home there were always bobbles about but they have long since disappeared. We had a coffee and a bit more of a mooch before heading back home. I had a quick lunch and then I went out to cut some pussy willow for the big flower weekend plus a few daffodils and some anemone. Then into the greenhouse to sow some seeds and I was going to do some work outside but it’s cold again today so I came back inside. I know what’s coming, it will be straight into hot weather I bet 🤪

I have a lot of orders to start getting ready tomorrow so I guess a little calm before the storm won’t hurt.

Friday: Wooooooosh I have worked solidly all day today making up the bouquets and bunches of flowers going out tomorrow and Sunday and I still have to wrap them all tomorrow. But what an absolute pleasure of a job it was even if my back was aching by the end of the day. I still have enquiries coming in but having used almost every single stem in the place I am having to say no 🙄 I d have a fair amount of foliage left thigh so if anyone wants a foliage bunch it’s a yes 😂 I was hoping to get outside and do a bit as the sun was out but by the time I finished checking and double checking that I had everyone’s order done and then cleared up it was too late for anything else.

Saturday: I spent the morning wrapping bouquets, John went off to deliver some memorial flowers and then in the afternoon I had customers coming to collect some of the orders, the rest will be collected tomorrow morning. In the evening we went out with Shelley, Martin Josh and Flo for a meal at a local italian restaurant. The evening was lovely and the food was great, it is not something we do often so it was a real treat.

Sunday: Yesterday the weather was lovely and today it was back to grey drizzle 🙄 With customers coming all morning I couldn’t really get started on any bigger jobs that need doing so I just pottered around. By noon all of the flowers had been collected and it was time for me to go and see my Mum, delivering the last bouquet to her which my brother in Australia had ordered from me lol. Sam, Mia and Lucie met me at Mums, my sister was there with her partner and little girl too. We had tea and cake and chatted then back home to let the dogs out before going out again. This time to Charlie and Maccas, they were cooking Sunday lunch for us as well as Maccas Mum and her friend.

A lovely weekend of happy faces and happy customers, I have thoroughly enjoyed every bit of it 😊

https://www.instagram.com/frieslandfarmflowers?igsh=bDlqNmFmZ2w3Z21u&utm_source=qr