Where are the tops of my stuff???

Things aren't looking as good as I'd hoped at the allotment at the moment.  And to top it all, the tops of the plants seem to be missing.

Leek, top missing.

Sweetcorn, top missing.

Broad bean, ditto.

Strawberry.

Shallots.

The carrot.  In fact, I actually have two carrots, not one like I said before.  Two!  Both with the tops missing.  Insult to injury.

For goodness sake.  What is going on here???  My plot neighbour says it's muntjac.  Apparently there have been hoofprints and maybe even a sighting.  I hear that they're incredibly destructive, despite looking small and cute-ish.  So now there are badgers, slugs and muntjac eating the stuff.  Not to mention more ants' nests than you could shake a stick at and every kind of pernicious weed known to man.  But hey, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger right?

Here are some pretty things at the allotments, to take the edge off of the dark destruction.  I should probably mention that none of the pretty things are on my plot.  Doesn't stop me enjoying them though.

Firstly, this beautiful mix of flowers and foliage.  It was the scent that stopped me in my tracks first, it was divine.

I've no idea what any of it is except the foxgloves and maybe some kind of rose thing.  But I just loved the combination of colours.  It's all been planted along the boundary of the site, and it makes me so happy that people put so much work into making the area look lovely.

I really must plant some of these Sweet Williams next year.  I've planted a few flowers, but none of them will be in bloom for a while yet.    In the meantime me and the muntjac will be enjoying the asparagus.  I hope everything is blooming in your garden, and that the pests aren't too pesky.

Weekend snapshots

A few photos from a good weekend.  This is the path we take on the way to the Scout Hut.  Every so often someone falls in.  Sometimes its a mum.

Honeysuckle, trailing over a wall.  I haven't spotted much of it lately, maybe it's falling out of favour.  But when it's in flower it's beautiful.

Gratuitous pig shot.  Fresh bedding, hay, nuggets, dandelion leaves and a carrot.  Doesn't get much better if you're a piggie.  Still no chum, but maybe this pig is happier not to be bothered by interlopers.  It does mean she doesn't have to share those dandelion leaves.

A passing peacock.  The neck and back feathers are absolutely exquisite and so very intense in colour.  They are such noisy birds, and quite aggressive when it comes to food.  They certainly give the hens at the country park a run for their money.  They half jump, half fly up on to the high stone wall that surrounds the walled vegetable garden, and then drop down into the chicken area.  The hens don't like them at all, and give them as wide a berth as they can.

How lovely is this shepherd's hut?  And how nice would it look in my garden..?  When I was growing up I quite fancied being a shepherdess.  Amongst other things.  Many, many other things in fact.  I seem to remember I wanted to be a stunt woman as well.  There was nothing boring on the list.  What I actually ended up being - insurance administration clerk, barmaid, nightclub receptionist (occasionally), croupier, traveller, receptionist to accountants, secretary at a law firm, property lawyer.  Is it too late to be a stunt woman?

Masses of space.  There was lots of running and kicking.

And a smattering of tree climbing.

I sat on a bench for a bit and when I looked straight up this is what I could see.  It was quite lovely.

The littlest boy has been spending ages on the monkey bars at school, and he can whizz up and down them now like a, well, like a monkey.  He even has the calloused hands to prove it.

I got my summer clothes out yesterday.  So if there's a dip in the weather you know who to blame.  But I think summer is here now.  When I wake up in the morning it's warm and delicious and I don't want to wear jeans and socks and boots any more.  I'm starting to think about what we'll do in the holidays.  I'm looking forward to lots of happy adventures and no doubt a lot more swinging from trees.

Six!

There was a birthday in this house last week.

I cannot overemphasise how much excitement there was.  This day is eagerly awaited for months and months.  The littlest boy is very fond of having things his own way, and having presents and eating cake.  Once a year there's a day when all of this is almost guaranteed.  Oh how happy it makes him.

A friend of mine always asks what he would like.  This year, there was no hesitation - a guitar.  Every time he sees an empty tissue box he finds elastic bands and tries to make himself one.  It's never quite good enough, but he keeps trying, and with so much enthusiasm.  So armed with a voucher towards the cost of a small guitar, he put in an order for this.

Stonking huh?  Ever since it arrived it has been the first thing he picks up in the morning.  It lives in a case with two straps, and if you catch a glimpse of him on his way out of his room, you will see a small, pyjama-clad tousle-haired boy wearing a guitar case on his back.  There's no money for lessons, but there's You Tube and we bought him a children's book on how to play.  In the meantime he's happy strumming and singing.  He really loves to sing, and often plays random notes on the piano while singing some tune or other.  It doesn't bother him at all that his playing doesn't have the same notes as his singing.

We took him bowling as a birthday treat, and we tried a little pool as well.

Then we went for pizza and ice-cream and he got birthday balloons.  Oh it just doesn't get any better than that.

The balloons lived at the bottom of his bed for a while.

I made a cake with jam and buttercream in the middle and strawberries and cream on top.  Not too much, no?  Strawberries are one of his very favourite things, so it's appropriate that his birthday is at the start of the strawberry season.  This year our first home-grown strawberry was ripe exactly on the big day.

We bought him a scooter which he loves.  He zooms around on it doing tricksy things like jumps and one-eighties and tailwhips.  He's fallen off about forty times, but he's never afraid to get back on and do it all again.  I learn so much from this little boy.  And he brings so much joy into our lives every single day.  Happy birthday baby, you totally rock.

Early June in the garden

I love that moment when everything has finally been planted out.  Things have been squeezed in here and there, in rows and often not in rows, and there are no more little pots to be watered.  The plantlings are off on their own in the big wide world, and my job is done.  Well, except for the watering and staking and weeding and that kind of thing.

I thought I'd have a quick run through of what I've put in the raised beds in the garden.  I honestly don't think I could fit in another thing at home, and I've planted things closer together than you're supposed to.

Shall we have a wander?

This is a view of all of them.  The two at the back of the photo and the one at the front are 4' x 4', and the four in the middle are 8' x 4'.  The 4x4s are the boys' beds, one each.  You know, to avoid bickering.

This is the littlest boy's raised bed.  The boys have done mostly (bee-friendly) flowers this year.  He has nigella, some of Flighty's marigolds and cornflowers (thanks Flighty), sweet peas, cosmos and some unidentified stuff from a packet of bee mixture.  Strawberries (and oddly raw spinach) are his best thing, but they weren't doing well in this bed, so I took them out.

Next up are climbing borlotti beans, green and red broad beans, artichokes, sorrel and three red French beans, which were the only ones that germinated from an old packet.

This is the salad bed.  There are mustard leaves, red and green oak leaved lettuce which I find always grow really well, rocket, freckled cos lettuces, French sorrel, basil, spinach and perpetual spinach.  I don't ever pull up a whole lettuce, I just pick leaves as I need them, pretty much every day.  The ones in flower will be coming out soon and something else going in in their place.  I'm not sure what yet, but I have got some Chinese leaf seedlings which I might use.  Although growing salads might not sound terribly exciting, I do so love a mixture of all of these different leaves for lunch each day, they really are one of the joys of summer.

More beans in this bed, this time runner beans, along with onions, chard and some sweet peas.  The onions in the garden are from a packet I bought from Tesco in a moment of madness because they were a bargain.  I then realised I'd already planted a load at the allotment and I didn't have much space left.  So they've been slotted in, late in the season, in any corner I could find.  They seem happy enough though.  You can always rely on an onion.

Here we have more onions, five tomato plants, a tayberry, peas and a little basil.  Practically a pizza.

These are the biggest boys' things.  Strawberries, including one or two ripe ones now, radishes, onions, bee friendly flowers and a solitary (and rather sad looking) tomato plant.  I have high hopes for the tomato though, the other five didn't look happy at the start but they're much cheerier now.

Elsewhere in the garden there's some fruit; three apple trees, two pear trees, a (small and beleaguered) peach, a row of raspberries, a small blackcurrant, a gooseberry, four grapevines, four blueberries in pots, five little figs and a couple of olives.  I don't imagine there will be a glut of figs and olives any time soon though, to be honest I keep them mostly because they're pretty.

There are a few herbs dotted around as well, marjoram, oregano, chives, bay leaves and a rosemary.  I must remember to sow some coriander, which I love.

The list sounds quite long when I write it down, but as you can see, it's all squeezed in to a fairly small garden - just under 100' in length, including a garage, a patio and a football space.  Hence the allotment, for all of the things that don't fit in here.  The allotment's quite tightly packed as well now, but that's another post.

I was pottering about a couple of days ago trying to take photos of bees on the raspberries.  (Is it my imagination or are there lots around this year?)  They're tricky to get a shot of, always on the move, a bit camera shy.  This was the best I managed.

But then a really surprising thing happened.  As I looked through the viewfinder, focusing on a bee, he flew off and instantly this beautiful moth appeared, right in the centre of my picture.  I pressed the shutter, and only just in time, because he didn't linger for more than a second or two either.

Pretty isn't he?  It made my day because I almost never get any good butterfly/moth pictures.  The right place at the right time is always a good place to be.

When Superman wore his walking boots

We went for an end-of-holidays walk on Sunday afternoon, out by the sea, well, the Bristol Channel really, to make the most of the beautiful weather.   This is the aptly (if unoriginally) named Sand Bay.

The littlest boy went as Superman, as he so often does, and he also wanted to wear his walking boots.  No reason not to, right?  He toyed with the idea of wearing a crash helmet as well, but decided that might be something to leave for another day.

The rich farmland pushes right up to the coast here, and the grass was full of wild flowers and cows.  They all marched past us except the one with horns, which stopped and stared and then started walking at us.  I sensed a bit of attitude developing there.

Off adventuring.

We dropped down on to the pebbly beach and did some scrambling about on rocks, which is one of their favourite things to do.  Some of the pebbles were pretty big, so I mostly concentrating on not twisting my ankle.

Look at those lovely colours, all greys and the dustiest of blues.  I'd like to do one of those clever things where you put boxes of colour next to the photo.  Annie at Knitsofacto explained it all beautifully here.  I've made a note of her page, and I'm going to have a go when I get a minute.  I love seeing the colours extracted and set out alongside.  Nature does it all so tastefully sometimes.

The winds blow strongly here, in from the sea, and the trees lean away from the salt and the spray and the gales.

Back in the car park we found a rope swing which made us all very happy.  It makes me think we should carry a rope with us at all times, they'd happily play here for ages.  There was an added frisson of danger for those wearing shorts, as the person pushing could direct them towards the stinging nettles.

Yesterday it was back to earth with a bump.  Other half's computer needed reparing on Friday, yesterday the car sprung a problem.  Sigh.  These things don't come in threes do they?  If they do, then the bathroom leak that's making the landing carpet damp is the third thing.  It does count doesn't it?