Author: lolabump

A blistering hot, clear-skied weekend. Out in the allotment on Saturday morning, initially with Lola and Neve, though Lola didn’t last long, needing to return for the loo. Anyway, got a fair bit done by lunchtime:

• 5 rows pink fir on left of onions
• 1 row roma next to beans on path side
• 1 row san marzano next
• 2 rows Rooster on inside next to beans
• 2 defender, 2 clarion, plus one which may well be a Zucchini in the courgette bed. From left.

The rest of the day I spent helping Isa prepare for the evening, when Sabrina, Tim and kids were due to arrive for dinner. Isa had been cooking since early that morning: grilling veg, making a mango and quinoa salad, making pastry for an (it turned out) utterly fantastic crostata di fragole.  I popped off to get some ingredients, then made tandoori chicken and a rhubarb fool. By the designated time, we had the food pretty much done and the table set. Then, ten minutes before kick-off, Tim rang to say Sabrina had done her back in and they couldn’t come. Aargh! Well, it worked out anyway. Samuel and Sascha came for dinner and then we all cycled over to Sabrina’s with the puddings and some food for them.

Sunday morning and back in the allotment, planting 5 rows pink fir apple above the two rows of rooster on inside left. Then sorted out the greenhouse, taking the staging out and planting out five cucumbers (cucino and avanti F1, I think) and 6 peppers (four mavras and 2 sweet mixed, I think). Then a quick shower and off on a sweltering drive down to Mill Hill to see grandma and Mike. We went cross-country through the Shelfords, Fowlmere, Barley, Barkway, Puckeridge and then straight down the A10/M25/A1. It was a good run and we got there in 90 minutes, arriving just 5 mins outside our 3-4 pm window.

I nearly ran over Mike, who was out in the drive finishing off a major hedge-trimming exercise. We had tea and cakes and chatted about this and that. Grandma was looking well though she has lost a little weight. Lola was lovely with her, asking questions, listening, often coming to her; she asked her to come out in the garden where she and Neve were playing. So we all did.

Monday:
Planted out another five rows of tomatoes: Roma, St Marzano, Roma, St Marzano, Samdar.

 

Quick note to say Neve and I planted the earlies (only a month later than last year) and half the roosters. The earlies in the first bed on the right, the roosters in the bed Nonna and Assunta dug over last year, with two rows of earlies nearest the shed.
Then put three rows of borlotti-style and one of blue lake down at the end.
The rye grass was up to my hips when I first got there yesterday. Thankfully the sycle made short work of it.

Finally, I have found the time to get my servers running in our new house in Cambridge. Yes: we have moved! After about a year of fairly serious looking (during which we got to know the M11 fairly well) and a couple of false starts, we completed on our 1930s end-terrace in early November. Immediately, we got the builders in to make the two downstairs rooms into one, and the decorators to remove the ubiqitous blown-vinyl wallpaper in favour of various almost-whites everywhere – inluding the floorboards as we’d had all the carpet removed.

With stunning naivety, we arranged with the (woefully inept, it transpired) removal company to move in three weeks later. Of course, the builders overran and the decorators were backed up behind them. We ended up moving in, with all our stuff and with Isa’s mum and sister staying, to a house full of brick dust and acro-jacks. I’d spent the previous week going up to Cambridge almost daily, sometimes with Dedi, trying to move thinga along: stripping wallpaper, clearing rubble, doing some wiring, and desperately trying to make it habitable. And failing. It was bearable for an ex-squatter such as I, but for Isa, with a six-month-old Neve and a demanding three-year-old, it was impossible. For four days, she gamely made a go of it with the help of Nonna and Dedi but, once they’d gone, the situation was impossible and I drove the family to my parents’ in Somerset, returning alone to continue the battle.

It was two weeks before they returned, a few days before christmas, to a house still unfinished. I think the final coat went on the kitchen floor a day before xmas eve.

Little Nevicosa (or, to use the full Latin name, Nevecatus Nevecatum)
is not a sleepy girl. She is not, to paraphrase Charlie and Lola,
sleepy at seven o’clock, or at eight thirty. Nor is she sleepy at ten
o’clock, 11 o’clock, or even 12 o’clock.

Quite frankly, the idea that you might consider putting her down in
her cot is really rather annoying. The act itself is a mortal insult
which will incurr a forced pennance lasting up to an hour.

Hum. Perhaps I can better afford to make light of it, as it is Isa who
takes the load during the nights. Currently, there is little I can do
to calm Neve when she starts crying. Occasionally, I’ll be lucky but,
more often than not, there’s no respite ubtil she’s in Mummy’s magic
arms

There is a Neve in New Orleans
And another in Timbuctoo
But there is no Neve in this wide world
That we love as much as you.

(Buckets available on application)

No, this is Annie’s bed. Oh; who’s Annie. I think he’s the snanky whos
lives at the same door.