The ole too busy to write excuse, again

What can I say, I've done it again. At roughly the same time of year as well. It must be something in the late summer air that makes me allergic to typing. 

Anyway I've been told off by more that one person and had a verbal kick up the bum (thanks Becky Burns). So I'm back with a swift catch up and hopefully a more regular check in with the blog.

Okay where to start from?  August? August? What happens after that? Ah yes September!  Veg was growing and patio slabs were going down. My super duper husband was toiling away at the coal face (or rather patio face) working out falls and cross falls so that all the rain water would run away from the house and into the trench that he had dug deep enough to bury a wife in!  This was promptly filled with pea shingle (not wife) the slabs went down without a cross or three in a line join in site! 

Even with the paving ungrouted the girls couldn't resist playing outside!

 Random paving slabs are a lot more difficult to lay than one would think!  

Grouting done and the patio looked beautiful. 

Rushing through the Amish shed raising (thanks Dudley and Lucy) and the oak sleeper raised bed, the extremely flat base for the gravel path and onto the shiny aluminium landscape edging!  This has been what I was really waiting for!  

Again if it wasn't for Bjorn is still be digging out old turf in the garden. He bent it and shaped it and recent it when is forgotten to tell him about an additional design area, until finally you could truely see the shape of the garden layout!! It has turned a corner!  

It must be love! Laying aluminium edging in the pouring rain!

So we took a we deserved break and off to Totoro land ( or as the rest of the world knows it as Centre Parcs). Half term! 

An ink cap, showing why it got its name.

Yes Holly is now a fully fledged school girl and loving every minute. 

Max is not impressed.

 I think I was more nervous standing in that playground looking around at all the groups of moms who already knew each other. We have both settled in now and got to know many new friends, play days and after school teas are becoming a regular occurrence. 

I digress. Totoro land was full of cycling,  swimming and Halloween tricks, and oh too short but we had a Halloween party to get home and organise!! 

Nothing like muddy puddles.

I carved four pumpkins, far too early in my excitement and the ended up mouldy and slimy before Halloween had got spooky!  

Cinderella has a choice of vehicles.

Luckily we had two more up at the allotment so with child and buggy in tow we collected those and pegged it back to our spooky house (Bjorns comment "you've tidied up in here then"), and set about the pumpkins again. 

With witches and cats consigned to the dressing up box for another year, or couple of months at least, it was back to school and back to digging the garden. And waiting for the delivery of buxus plants!!

Mexican day of the dead face paint. 

Auditioning for Andrew Lloyd Webber. 

A sense of worth

A persons worth is measured by the worth of what he values.

Marcus Aurelius 

I don't know if this affects other stay at home moms (I hate that phrase but "full time mom"  is even worse, every mom is a full time mom). So let me say since I have stopped working for money I'm constantly searching to prove my worth. Who I'm proving this to is a mystery.  My husband appreciates all I do, my kids shower me with love.   So it must be me. I'm not in employment earning my wage therefore I must persistently prove to myself that I deserve this glorious existence. 

So I do laundry, cook, read stories, make play dough, taxi to gymnastics, paint, (cleaning comes last on the list here).  When I'm not with the kids, it's digging, planting, designing, sewing  and now I've added a web design course. 

If I'm going to restart my garden design business then I need a website and since I can't afford someone else to build it I'm gonna do it myself.  I'm lucky I've got time to do it properly and build it slowly. I'm just getting started so theres no HTMLing or CSSing yet. 

Away from the negative ions of my computer the allotment is abundant. I have harvested my onions and garlic.

A small but hearty onion harvest

 I Would have plaited them but they seem to have disappeared into cooking pots quicker than I can plait. 

There have been more potates, purple beans and although not ready to harvest the squash are growing big!!  

Pink for apple potatoes truely delicious

Purple teepee french beans

Though I'm a little confused by one plant. I swear it should be "Sweet Dumpling Squash" but it doesn't look. Like the picture on the packet. I've got a feeling it may have cross pollinated with the spagetti squash. So I shall just have to see what it tastes like.   

These are supposedly sweet dumpling squash???

Spagetti squash can't wait to harvest these!

The strawberry pop corn is going from strength to strength and I can't wait to see what happens there. My other corn is not doing so well. I definately put it in the ground too late and it has not had a chance to get any height and strength to produce big corn.

 

Strawberry popcorn corn getting bigger and better

Not all is well over at wash common allotment. My precious asparagus has been ravaged by asparagus beetle. Again probably my own fault, I didn't get to squishing until the larvae had turned to adults. So they may have already laid eggs for next year. But I'm now getting on top of it and after cutting the dead stalks in autumn and destroying them. I'll be prepared with my marigolds for next year.  

Seriously upset with the beetle who did this!!!

Back in the garden I was looking out of the window at our empty plot and spotted some very bright red berries on the neighbours cherry tree. I went to investigate and it was with great jot that I discovered it was an edible cherry not an ornamental!! They were sour cherries so after enlisting Holly's help we stripped our side of the tree much to the disgust of the blackbirds and I set about cleaning and stoning the cherries.  The end result was a delicious sour cherry pie with lashings of custard.  

What can I say, scrumping cherries make them even more yummy!!!

Time Flys Like a Banana

Time Flies Like an ArrowAn Ode to Oettinger

Now thin fruit flies like thunderstorms,
And thin farm boys like farm girls narrow;
And tax firm men like fat tax forms -
But time flies like an arrow!
.....
Like tossed bananas in the skies,
The thin fruit flies like common yarrow;
Then's the time to time the time flies -
Like the time flies like an arrow.
Edison B. Schroeder 1966

Time seems to be warping!   It's either flying by or dragging at a snails pace.
The girls are growing so quickly, it seems only yesterday that I was waddling around with holly bumping about in my belly. Now she's off to school in September.  We've bought her uniform (watch here for her first day at school pics), had a visit from her teacher and await her last day at nursery next week.

There doesn't seem to be enough time in the day to do all of the garden/house/sewing work that needs to be done. So its been a very full couple of weeks.      

First of all we had to dig out the pathway down the side of the house.  This gave me the opportunity to use me favourite tool, the mattock!!  There's a lot if tension that can be resolved with some hard ground and a mattock.   So a couple of days later and the path is all dug and the giant skip is finally full.

I was glad of the shade from the new fence

After too many mornings being woken up at 5am because the light is shining through Lotties window.  I finally started on Lotties curtains.  I am always amazed at how big curtains are, so much material!! It takes me so long to make them as I have to clear the whole if the living room floor to cut and pin them, and that in itself is a feat!!  (I'll post a piccy when their finished).
Down at the allotment time is definitely flying.  It was well beyond time for the climbing beans in my greenhouse to become the climbing beans in my allotment. So I made some teepee bean poles and planted them at the front of the allotments next to the nasturtiums. (Good companion plants as the black fly prefer the nasturtiums to the beans).

some examples of different bean pole designs

I also put in some very late cabbages and some Japanese radishes, Mooli. I'm not sure if these will take well as its so late but it's worth a try.   

very shy cabbages 

But most exciting was the fact that the strawberry popcorn and the spaghetti squash have really taken off.  The corn is beginning to look like corn (no cobs yet but hopefully soon!)

spaghetti squash, "do a little happy dance"!

strawberry popcorn (yes, I did a little dance again!)

While building my bean tepees I did have a look around the allotment and I did have bean pole envy, there were some very beautiful bean pole designs. I particularly liked the one with the sweet peas.

gorgeous Sweetpeas growing up a wooden frame

my neighbours arch bean poles (I'm very jealous)

It's also potato time in our house! Holly's used to digging the potatoes out if the bags but to see Lottie's face when I plucked the first one out if the compost, priceless. 

rocket potatoes fab with salads

First we had Rocket potatoes; small round and firm great for boiling. Next it was the Mayan Gold; one of my favourite. Very quick to boil with lovely soft yellow flesh. Great for boiling or roasting, and Lottie couldn't get enough of them!!

gorgeous nutty flavour but don't over boil as they fall apart very quickly

The best part of this time warp was my school reunion!! Thanks Facebook.  Back in February the lovely Emma organised for us to meet up and we've been slowly gathering girls from across the country, even across the ocean!  It was an amazing evening. Looking back, catching up with past 25 years and finding out about everyone s fabulous lives. Time has been kind to all of us and it was as if we'd just stepped out of that bottle green uniform into our own clothes.   

little had changed since we were 10

I think this was the most well behaved we'd been for years!

I returned home to an exhausted husband, the hot weathers been playing havoc with the girls sleeping patterns.  But we still made it out to Newbury carnival.  It was boiling hot, the atmosphere was brilliant.  It seemed as if the whole of Newbury was at Victoria park. We met up with some friends and the girls went on every ride that they could, ate as much ice cream as they could stomach, and definitely slept well that night. 

A well earned rest, kind of??

Having dug, smashed, scraped, humped and dumped in our garden. We took a break and flew off to Lemnos, one if the Greek islands for a week of sun, sea and splashing about. 

Lemnos beach.

It wasn't so much of a relaxing break, I don't think that is possible with a 2yr old in tow. While Holly and Lottie loved the swimming pool everything went pear shaped when we got to the beach. Lottie went mental!! She screamed at the sand and bawled at the sea which really surprised me as she loves the beach in Wales. So we abandoned the beach and stayed by the pool. 

Lottie, much happier at the pool, the splash behind her is Holly disappearing.

While the babes were in kids club Bjorn and I escaped and saw a bit of the island, which was beautiful. I was glad to see that there were many plants in this mederteranian climate that would grow in Britain as I'm planning a Greek garden for my friend. So I had lots of inspiration from the frothy pink tamarix trees to the fragrant pittosporum tobira. 

Tamarix tree

Nerium Oleander, very beautiful, but highly toxic

On our return I was, I mean the girls were excited to see that some of the tadpoles were getting their land legs I'm not sure how their going to fair once they want to leave the pond as it is in a desert of soil. 

Its a different frog from before, honestly!

So back to the grind. Six bulk bags of hardcore and two bulk bags of pea shingle were delivered taking up half of the driveway.  Bjorn and I managed to get 3 bags laid in one night then it to me two days to do two bags!!! Well my arms are beginning to look toned again and my shorts a little looser around the waist so I can't complain. 

there are 6 bags behind these ones too!

Bjorn then proceeded to dig out the two drainage channels/trenches at the edge of the patio. I did at one point ask Bjorn if he needed a canary, the trench was getting so deep. These trenches are going to be filled with the pea shingle to help any rainwater draining off the patio into the ground rather than sitting in the borders/ lawn and making a soggy mess. 
To Bjorns relief he had to go to Ireland for work the next day but by 9am I had a sheepish phone call asking when I was meeting him for lunch, I immediately knew that he'd forgotten his passport and this was a flimsy excuse for me to take it to him. 

I don't think I'd go back to my office if I worked here.

masterplan for Stockely Park

I didn't mind as I got a free lunch and got to see the great landscaping at Stockley Park again.   Designed by Roger  Griffith landscape architects in the mid 80s it was the UKs premier business park. The site combines great buildings with some beautifully landscaped walks, lakes, eating areas and places to relax in. 

Now its not really gardening but Greenham Common seems to be saving my running training, I've actually got up to 1 hour running! (only about another hour and a half to conquer) I used to hate running and now I look forward to my runs up on the common.  I've seen orchids, ponies and now tiny butterflies. (Any excuse to stop and take a photo).

Small Blue butterfly, love chalkland

I did contemplate seeing if I could ride one home!

Back at the allotment my weeding had got under control and though its not really up, running and productive. I have got some veg at last.  My onion stalks have all collapsed but the onions are still getting big and tasty. The salad has done remarkably well considering it was hidden in a massive patch of weeds. I was too late getting to my red currants which I'm sure the birds enjoyed.  I'll have to net them next year. 

my first onion! and some salad

The Small Blue wasn't the only butterfly I spotted this week.  We went to Holly's new school fete and both girls had their faces butterflied. Not sure what species these were? 

off to the Butterfly Ball

To stand in the path of progress!

Having finished off filling one skip and starting another Bjorn took pity on me and finished off filling the second skip in half the time it took me to fill a quarter if the skip. 

I got through half of this in a day, Bjorn did the second half in about 2 hrs.

So I went back to the drawing board, quite literally, and did a sketch of the proposed garden. For my birthday Bjorn and the girls had got me an drawing app and pen for the iPad so that I could get back into sketching my ideas.  At first it was a little strange getting the hang of all the brush strokes and pen sizes but I think I've got the hang of it now.  Bjorn tells me that it is the same app that David Hockney uses but I think I have quite a way to go to ever match him!

view of garden from side of house

Having visualised the garden afresh I got down to the cutting and hammering of stakes.  No we're not having a sudden plague of vampires, though the garden does look like Buffy's been on a the rampage.  Having dug out the foundations for the terraces and paths we needed to figure out the finished floor levels and ground levels to know how much soil to move around the garden. It would be no good having finished the terraces to then discover that the lawn was too high or too low. So we now have loads if little wooden stakes poking out of the ground right across the garden.   There is still quite a lot is soil to be moved but that will have to wait until we have built the raised border. 

Buffy had been very busy

I'd love to make this out of Coe-ten steel but my budget goes nowhere near that kind of cost. So soft wood sleepers it is. We have to have a raised border on one side as our road is on a slope and my neighbours garden is higher than ours. I dont particularly like sloping borders unles they ate part of a large landscape so raised border it is. We have two problems here. Firstly it is against my neighbours fence and to get a decent height we have to go higher than the bottom of her fence so that means creating a raised box (more wood = more cost). Secondly the bumble bee nest is slap bang in the middle!! So on some quiet evening  we have to pluck up the courage and carefully move it.  This I am not looking forward to. 

very gorgeous example of a cor-ten retaining wall

I am looking forward to ordering 15 bulk bags of MOT type 1. (For those not in the know, thats crushed limestone sub base.  If you lay paving stone on just sand and soil it will soon move and you get a wonky trip fest of a surface that is just asking for a compensation claim).  Once that is down the garden will really begin to take shape. 

Being a be prepared kinda gal, (don't laugh those who know me, I really am these days) and looking at my stony soil I realise that it is never going to do to lay turf on that. So out comes the soil sieve and I begin the twist and shake all over again. After six barrow loads of pebbles (thrown onto the terrace) I admit defeat and tell Bjorn that we need to order a couple if tonnes if premier quality top soil for the lawn.  Laying turf on stony soil is not going to achieve a flat surface and laying turf is all in the preparation. 

my fourth barrow load!!!

Having neglected my allotment and my running for a couple of weeks I dive into both head first.  The allotment had turned into a jungle of knee high weeds. So to the delight of a brazen blackbird couple I furiously pulled and dug till I was red faced and they were full if worms and bugs.  Not only did I discover a couple if young black currants that I had planted but also two whole rows of lettuce and spinach that I had given up on ever sprouting.   It's a good job that I did get to the allotment as there is a visit from the councillors next week and I really don't want a letter berating me on the state of my plot. 

mothers little helper

Now a while back in a moment of madness, having sworn after Paris 2008 that I would never do it again,    I signed up to do the Cardiff half marathon in October.  I've been slowly, very slowly, getting used to running again and had got up to doing 5km without walking or collapsing in a tearful heap. I hadn't run for a week and a half for various rubbish excuses "I'm tired, I have to wait in for the skip delivery, I've just eaten". So I finally went out again and had a terrible run across greenham common. I managed 15 minutes before expletives flew out of my mouth and my legs stopped.  Feeling very grumpy I looked around and I saw a magnificent sight, a common spotted orchid Dactylorhiza fuchsii. It is quite common (though I've never seen one before) and it is definitely spotted.  It gets its name from the spotty leaves, green with big purple spots and has a spire of pink/white flowers.   That perked me up no end and I shuffled of back to finish my run. 

a great excuse to stop running!