Author: alex

awful holiday weather

We’ve had quite a lot of rain since Nonna and Assunta arrived, and a couple of quite cool days. Not like last year  when we were eating outside most evenings.

Saturday, we planned to go to the butcher in Fulbourne but when I went to unlock the car… Oops: dead. Again, the glowplug switch had somehow got turned on. Enough: I cut it off. While charging it, it started to hammer down with rain. I tried to start the car too soon, wasted the charge and we failed to get it ready in time to go to the butcher. So we had lunch and then Isa went off with the nonne in the now-adequately-charged car to do a spot of shopping (town crowded; they ended up in the Beehive) while I stayed at home with the girls, playing games and starting the chicken (potato) pie.

Sunday was a great day. Off for a swim in the morning, causing great excitement in the girls. Back home and Neve to bed (after toast and honey for both, much needed by a cranky Neve) while Lola and I popped off to TK Max to change the nifty new shoes Isa had got me for a larger pair and then to Asda for a couple of essentials.

Home and a quick bit of gardening (elsewhere mentioned) before heading out to Town for lunch. We don’t all fit in the car so we decided to get a taxi. As it arrived, it started to piss down; luckily, it was slowing by the time we got there and stopped soon after.

Bill’s was our target. We had to wait 40 minutes for a table, so we wandered round a few shops and I watched the tourists while the women browsed clothes.

We ate very well at Bill’s, though the chilli in the squash risotto took Assunta by surprise and my beefburger was far from rare. It was lovely to treat Lola and Neve; they had fishcake and chips and shared a strawberry pavlova for pud.

[that’s enough dull rambling. Ed]

Good growing weather

Nonna and Assunta have been doing excellent work in the garden and allotment. They’ve weeded and cut back everywhere front and back: the front looks great with all the inter-slab weed gone. They tied up the cucumbers and further secured the greenhouse tomatoes which, incidently, are starting to fruit; there are about five little green ones presently. And the courgettes are coming now; we’ve eaten two over so far: more on the way.

Meanwhile, I transplanted half of the kale that started life by the greenhouse to the allotment, at the back where the earlies were. I also planted some oriental onion (bit like spring onion) in one of the failed rows of cumin; and planted out some of the italian parsley; and sowed more corriander.

And then it rained. A lot.

splurge

A nice catch-all title that lets me just dump a sort of “stuff-that-happened” flow-of-consciousness style of entry.

We drove down to London on Saturday for Elly’s birthday do at the Cock and Dragon. It was a lovely warm day and we took the scenic route through The Shelfords, Fowlmere, Barley, Barkway, Puckeridge. On the way there, we dropped onto the A10 and then the M25 but I wasn’t too keen on that, so on the way back I went through Potters Bar, Essendon, Hertford, Puckeridge, etc. Lovely countryside with poppies in bloom, corn ripening, etc.

We went swimming at David Lloyds on Sunday morning. That was the first time we’d all been for a little while. Neve and Lola both very pleased to go. Lola still very cautious; it took a lot of persuading her to use her arms while I held her in the water: she wanted to keep them near her chest, holding on to my arm. Still, she did eventually let go.

That behaviour is fairly typical of Lola at the moment. We went across to the Engineering Society in Newnham that afternoon for Sascha’s party, arriving a little late — just late enough to have missed the rain, which was good. Sabrina and Tim had organised a few games, one of which was a stilt race, where the stilts were wooden blocks with ropes attached that you pulled on to keep the blocks on your feet. Lola went over to join in, then came back to ask that Isa or I accompany her. I went with her but she wouldn’t join in the game, saying she was scared. I stayed with her, encouraging her to join in, trying to put her at her ease. It wasn’t until everyone else had wandered off that she jumped off my knee and went to try the stilts.

For the past two weeks, Stefy and Sofia had been staying with us but this was their last weekend; spent largely in town at the shops. We left them to it, while we got on with the above. On Monday night, Nonna Cesarina and Assunta arrived, together with Alvise who was to chaperone the girls back the following day. So there were nine of us staying in the house that night. Isa and I moved in with Lola and Neve for the evening, Alvise slept on the sofa, Nonna and Assunta took our room and the other two girls stayed in the spare room on my lovely new bed.

Easy as pie. And then Tuesday evening, Stefy, Sofia and Alvise flew back (I drove, despite worries that my back might be too painful to allow it) and we are now alone with Nonna and Assunta.

planting with Neve

Neve and I popped over to the allotment to plant some more seeds. She was very eager. We quicly dug over some of the unprepared land; enough to sow a row of (Boltardy) beetroot (next to potatoes) and a row of beet spinach. Then we sowed a couple of clumps of basil in the centres of the two fours of tomatoes. Then we went to get some water and Neve stuck her hand in some nettles – an incident which plauged her for the rest of the day. I showed her how to use dock to salve the sting.

Later we ate more of the earlies in a spanish omlette.

very dull entry

I wish I could remember which variety of tomato I have planted out in the washing-line bed. Is it one row of each? Or just Incas?

There’s a little rain this morning and I concentrated on de-weeding the potatoes in the allotment. Much bindweed in some of the less well-tended rows; got most of it up, unwrapping from around the potatoes at times. It really is a phenomenal plant.

Had some more of the first earlies yesterday — a couple of plants provided enough for our Niçoise salad. Very nice.

Should plant more radishes. And basil. And salad. Had some of the pak choi the other day: that was good. Also the beet spinach is good.

I planted the peppers: two into containers in the greenhouse, the rest into the ground in one of the failed cumin rows.

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.