Month: June 2011

matress, blind panic etc

Drove to work and parked in the BMA car park yesterday: very exciting. Well, it was kind of fun driving in to BMA House but the other 76 miles were pretty nasty: traffic, tired, bladder-challenged. Still, I did get the mattress which looks good. I finished off the picture-rail bodge when I got back, gave it a quick coat of paint then screwed down the slats to the bed frame. It’s looking OK.

The sand arrived — a ton of it now sitting on the pavement outside the house.

And Isa is not well: flu-like, feverish thing. Not nice and not very well timed — the girls arrive tomorrow! The girls and Alvise, that is: Selana is in hospital being tested for this enervating, painful thing she’s had for three weeks now. The liver is suspected; blood tests are coming back with the wrong levels of [stuff] but I have no good info on what [stuff] is. Alvise may have more news on Friday.

Allotment this morning, pulling bindweed out. Discovered that the Incas tomato is a determinate (ie, bush) type. And it’s a plum, which I’d forgotten.

Got turf for the bit around the sandpit on Tuesday and laid that. The garden is starting to take shape…

fennel and kale

Planted 1 row (left) of fennel and two (centre, right) of dwarf curly-leafed kale in the little bed by the gate in the allotment.

Lola and Neve”s flowers are coming up nicely around the squashes. Bindweed continues to enjoy life to the full. Four of the beans have found their poles. Will the first earlies be ready soon?

In other news, the mattress for the new bed is ready; will need to go to Londinium by car on Weds to fetch it. Can’t think of a better way than parking in Crouch End; going to be much time wasted, though.

Our ton of playsand might arrive today; it’s going to be fun barrowing that around from front to back. Need to line the sandpit and make a frame for the lid. And need to go and get turf for the adjacent dirt.

And don’t forget it’s Lola’s party on Saturday — for which rain is currently forecast. Grrr.

courgette flowers

2011-06-20 05.53.22.jpg

Three of the courgette plants were flowering this morning. Maybe they appreciated the compost that Lola and I took out there on Saturday. We also put some on the tomatoes and cucumbers. This was our own compost, which I also put around the tomatoes in the greenhouse.

Stuff in the allotment is coming on; beans growing, though they still look a bit pale, tomatoes look settled. Potatoes coming on well though no flowers yet and really need weeding every day. Found bindweed wrapped around one this morning.

In other news, this weekend saw me angle-grinding the three steel washing-line poles down and putting up the new rotary line. The view down the garden being dramatically improved in the process. Then finished off the decorating of the corner of the spare room, erected the bed and cut the slats to length. And made some mint syrup.

Stefi and Sofia arrive Friday – still loads to do.

And Danny of next-door-but-one fell off his bike outside our house and broke his arm. Very painful but a simple fracture and he was his usual cheery, albeit somewhat monodextrous, self the next day.

planting out

Poppies, beans

Planted tomatoes in greenhouse borders: 5 San Marzano on the right (Ali’s side), 4 F1 Incas down the left. Should bung a bit of my compost around them; nice foody mulch.

This morning, planted 6 of the Incas in the allotment. The beans, courgettes and cucumber are looking healthier, greener. I put a general food in their water; also sprinkled some blood, fish and bone on them yesterday. Beans are starting to throw out climbers, though they have yet to find the canes.

What is that weed that I am pulling out every day only to find it reappearing by the next morning? Oh, it appears to be Field Bindweed. So I’ve got Hedge Bindweed down with the potatoes, and Field Bindweed up the top with the squashes. Super.

Neve nostalgia

Is beginning to bite already. She is so adorable and funny and loving at the moment and the emerging language thing just adds to the effect. I really hope I remember her in this phase.
Yesterday, she kept standing up on her chair during dinner and shouting, “that is tam-po-line” while pointing down the garden. Later, it was, “that is gonga click,” referring to the star hairclip she was wearing. At bedtime: “no giu, Daddy – sit here”.
Tell her we’re having pasta for dinner, or that we’re going out in the car and she’ll yell, “Yeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaah” at a phenomenal volume.
There’s much more but, predictably, it fails to be recalled on request.