Month: April 2011

Land ahoy!

About to cut the railings Well, soil at least. Inching past in a succession of barrows under the purported guidance of an increasingly stooped man. Yes, it’s the obligatory decking project — well, what else would you do with a sweltering bank holiday weekend?

...done We’re replacing the two walled flower beds outside the back of the house with a deck, and I’ve been barrowing the too-good-to-waste soil round to the allotment. Ouch. Actually, I started the week before the bank holiday — I bought an angle grinder and cut down the railings, then started removing some of the brickwork. Over Easter, I got pretty much all of the earth moved; with luck, this coming 4-day weekend will see me getting the foundings level and the frame started. There’s a bit of concreting to do, too — something else I’ve never done before.

Soil toilTony and Peter have been helping. Peter came round with a large percussive/rotary drill which drilled into concrete as if it were butter and got out one of the railing supports which was deeply concreted in. And Tony has been pondering ways to approach the construction and offering advice, much of which, if taken, would extend the job by some months, though it is generally good advice.

Ready to level. Of course, just doing the decking would have been too simple and relaxing, so we decided to use the same weekend to potty-train Neve. After all, there’s nothing better able to take your mind off the unstoppable momentum of a few hundredweight of soil than a hysterical almost-two-year-old running around clutching her bum and shouting “cacca!”

‘Warda, Papa: jarmas!

Says Neve, pointing at her pyjamas. And then, “Lola – jarmas,” pointing at Lola’s. She’s starting to string sentences together, often in a mix of english and italian. She might ask for help opening a cupboard (hol, papa – apri), or grab your finger and pull you to the bottom of the stairs to tell you that “mama up heeya!” Some sound she has yet to master. “c”, for example. If you take her out to common to witness the bovine phenomenon, she’ll point excitedly and shout, “warda!  Hhow!”

planting and demolishing

Yesterday, I weeded then dug over the salad bed (the first bed, before the greenhouse); a lady came down the path selling ‘compost’ based on horse manure, bone and peat, so I bought a bag of that and dug it in. She came round last year, I seem to remember, and I had a look but didn’t buy any. £5.50 a bag — we’ll see whether it was worth it, I guess. But the bed did need some organic addition, and I had nothing suitable, so…

Later, Lola helped me plant the bed. Counting from the front we made:

  • two rows of cumin
  • one of corriander
  • one of mizuna
  • one of lettuce (lollo biondo)
  • one of pak choi
  • one of beet spnach
  • one of kale (Winterbore F1)

Then, in trays, we planted italian parsley and peppers (one tray Long Red Marconi, one tray Mavras) and, in pots, some courgette.

2011-04-17 17.59.28.jpg Later, I wielded the angle grinder I’d bought earlier and cut down the railings from either side of he steps. And then I used my new club hammer to take out the brickwork from the right-hand bed. That work continued today, with Isa joining in to replant some of the stuff we want to keep.

The plan is to put decking across the full width of the back.

Potatoes in (part 1 of n)

P1070941 Got five rows of Lady Christl (bottom left of allotment as viewed from sheds) and then 11 rows of Pink Fir Apple (3 to fill rest of left bed, 8 in bottom right hand bed.

P1070943 The allotment looks OK if you stand halfway down and look towards the bottom; less so if you stand halway down and look back up. Lots of week eruption while we were sojourning in Italy 🙁

The purple sprouting has actually sprouted. It tastes almost entirely of yum.

Did all the weeding between the paving slabs in front and back gardens. Have formulated plan to turn the bricked-in beds at the top of the back garden into decks; hopefully, can use existing brickwork as support for joists. And Isa is working on the purchase of a trampoline (with money given to us for the kids) which we’ll put under the cypress, where the potatoes were last year.

sprung

P1070614 Spring has, I mean. When I arrived in Italy, the cherry trees were bare; now they are full of blossom. The days have gone properly hot and you can sit outside in a t-shirt and be too hot. Hurrah.

I have a new pair of glasses, courtesy of Grazia who got me the eye-test and then the lenses and frames and, as usual refused any payment. She also gave Isa a pair of Galliano sunglasses and Lola a pair of funky pink ones. I did manage to pay for Cesarina’s new lenses (100 euros), but it’s not much of a victory.

In other news, Isa went out with Elena one night for a drink and a chat in Treviso; and she’s off out tonight with Susi and Grazia. Sunday, we’re off to the Grazia’s for lunch. Saturday we’re having hare for lunch, or dinner. Tuesday, we’re having Lola’s faux birthday party, as per her request, at which event we’ll cook Nonna’s goose. But only in the literal sense.Lola

I bought a new DVD player for Dedi, to stop us going completely mad trying to get the old one to work. It has the added bonus of allowing you to plug in a USB stick and play video, music, pics. I may watch Young Frankenstein on it later.

I also turned the wireless network on on Giada’s router so now I can get proper InterWeb at Cesarina’s house. It reaches all the way to the kitchen, though the signal is a little weak (would be better if the router were in Morena’s front room). Had to move from WEP to WPA-PSK to be able to connect Dedi’s laptop, too, but that was a fairly minor bit of fiddling. I always thought a wireless net would be fine between the two houses; years ago they said they’d tried it and it didn’t work; perhaps it was some other aspect (than the signal reception) that was the problem.

P1070712 What else? They’ve turned the fields next to Claudio into a Prosecco vineyard (except, it can’t really be Prosecco ‘cos we’re not in the right region). All owned by the guy down the road I once did some translation for.

Neve is just totally adorable. Lola is pretty adorable, too, but is getting a little spoilt and we’re probably being a bit too soft. Quindi: caprici.

There’s more… but it is failing to come to mind. That’ll be the wine, of which, of course, I am drinking a fair bit: I have my reputation to live up to, after all.