Completely Confused....

Yesterday I decided that my blog needed refreshing with cool colours and a new profile.  Not So Simple!

I'm hopeless with technology and don't find using Blogger easy at all, so if I shocked you at some point with a massive photo of me I sincerely apologise.  No one should have that inflicted on them without warning!  I will carry on experimenting so now you have been warned 👀😅......

Nothing else to report except...STILL no rain for us here, although it's decidedly cooler which is much more conducive to a good night's sleep.

How is the weather where you are?

Stay safe everyone wherever in the world you happen to be x

Tumbling Toms and An Update

 This morning is promising to turn into another hot and beautiful day for sunlovers with 31 degrees forecast.  It will be a bit too hot for me so I'll be either sitting in the shade or inside the house with the fan on!

The update is about our potential move.  We sold our house within a week to first time buyers and have found a bungalow we like in a lovely quiet setting with no upward chain. Simple ....or so we thought 🤔 6 weeks later our buyers are struggling to get their mortgage sorted and we are in danger of losing the bungalow. I'm wondering whether to put ours back on the market quickly. What do you think?

Our Tumbling Tom tomatoes look lovely....

But they are dry and tasteless, despite regular watering and feeding....

Any suggestions what I can do with them? Is it worth roasting  them do you think? There are loads more on the plants and I'm loathe to waste them.  Suggestions welcome please!

On the allotment we have been harvesting:

Potatoes (Colleen)

Broad beans (horrible blackfly but tasty beans)

Peas

Runner beans (our first 6 beans 😋)

Cabbage

Radishes

Spring onions

Lettuce

And we swapped potatoes for some delicious raspberries with our allotment neighbour, who is a lovely chap.

Its going to be hard work watering in this hot weather but we love sharing our produce with our daughter, my brother and several lovely neighbours who we are seeing a little more of with the imminent easing of restrictions.  From tomorrow masks and social distancing will not be required but we will not be ditching ours anytime soon.  Will you?

We've both done our lateral flow tests this morning (negative) and our daughter and the family are doing theirs too so we are going over there this afternoon for a barbie 😀 

Enjoy your day wherever in the world you happen to be. Stay well x

Pulling Up My Big Girl Knickers

 Thank you to everyone for your lovely supportive comments on my last post. I have now deleted it because I don't want it to be part of my diary. I want to be hopeful not hopeless 👍

Poor G's health has taken a downward spiral over the last 18 months and he is finding that stairs are not the ideal thing to cope with so we are, hopefully, moving to a bungalow. As I have a lot to sort out (yes, me... G leaves all paperwork and phone calls to me 😳) I will be taking a blogging break. I'll still be lurking, reading other blogs and commenting though.

Until then, take care and stay safe wherever in the world you happen to be x

A Touch of Magic!

I can't remember who pointed me in the right direction ( I have tried to back track to find out, to no avail) but I downloaded the Too Good to Go app and this morning found a Magic Bag on offer at the Spar supermarket not too far away.  I am excited!  There is supposed to be a bag containing £10 worth of food for the princely sum of £3.09 which I can collect after 7pm tonight.  I wonder what it will contain?  There could be fruit, veg, meat, fish etc but it's a lucky dip.  All will be past the sell by/use by date so I'll let you know in a post tomorrow what I get.  Meanwhile a big 'thank you' to whoever shared the information in the first place.

Watch this space!

Stay safe everyone wherever in the world you happen to be x

EDIT: I have just found the information on Marlene's blog PoppyPatchwork.  Thank you Marlene.

SECOND EDIT: I had only just come off the computer when I received a text to say that my order has been cancelled because the supermarket doesn't have enough surplus food to fulfill the order. My payment via PayPal has been refunded but I am gutted......

I think I'll just shut up shall I..... 🤐

Home Grown Produce

What an awful week its been weather wise; too much rain and not enough sun with low overnight temperatures thrown in.   A few weeks ago the apple trees were covered in lush blossom like this...

The blossom has all disappeared, hastened by the wind and rain, but I can see that apples have set so I'm still hoping for a decent crop of fruit.

We still have plenty of rhubarb and are eating crumbles and stewed fruit on a regular basis.....

Yesterday I popped to the allotment between showers to thin the lettuces out.  The tiny ones weeded out were shared with my brother and mine were eaten for lunch.  They were crisp, uber fresh and utterly delicious 😋 

As I'm on a mission to save a little money out of the food budget, I wasn't best pleased to come downstairs  this morning after G had gone to work to find this....🤨

 

Why on earth make a mug of tea with milk and sugar if you don't actually drink it?  I would have drunk it myself had it not been lukewarm.  Good grief....

Anyway that's all for now. Stay safe everyone wherever in the world you happen to be x 

Rain, Rain And More Rain

 

The last 10 days have been pretty boring (apart from the parties next door) with lots and lots of rain interspersed with weak sunshine.  It has done the garden and allotment a power of good and everything has put on enormous growth spurts.  From the allotment, we have been picking lots of rhubarb for crumbles, distributing a share to our daughter, my brother, and a lovely neighbour and our first radishes have been pulled and eaten.  They were delicious 'Breakfast Radishes'; not too hot but very crunchy and tasty so we have sowed more seed in the raised bed.   Although we had grease banded the apple trees earlier on I decided to try a tip from someone and apply a thick ring of vaseline below the grease band to try to deter the earwigs which spoiled a lot of the Bramley cooking apples last year.  I don't know if it will work but it's worth a try.  I dare say I will have to replenish it every couple of weeks but I have a BIG jar of the stuff 😀

The 'first early' potatoes have been earthed up 3 times so are doing really well and the 'second earlies' are showing the first bit of growth.

The photo above shows the tiny Canada Goose goslings which we came across when we went for a walk in the park last week.  They were drinking from and paddling in a dirty puddle watched over by some adult geese.  We counted 12 and they were so sweet 😊

Next week is going to be just as unexciting, I think, because more rain is forecast for the whole week and we have our Pneumonia jabs to look forward to on Monday 👀  I feel a bit like a pin cushion.  That will be my 5th jab in just a few months.  Ah well, needs must.......

I'm off to the shower now and will have to try to decide what we are having for tea tonight.  There's not much in the fridge/freezer right now .......

Stay safe everyone wherever in the world you happen to be x

Thanks So Much

 Thank you all for your helpful and supportive comments on my last post.  You have helped me to come to a decision.  I plucked up the courage to ring the police and the officer was so calming and helpful and I've filed a complaint.  He did tell me that they attended that address at some point last week so someone else has reported her too and they would have attended on Sunday after my online Covid rule- breaking report on Sunday/Monday but had another issue to deal with and couldn't respond.   I also managed to speak to the lady who lives directly opposite the problem house and she has seen even more than me, having a birds eye view, as it were. She says that she commented to her husband that she didn't know how we put up with it.  She is happy to support my complaint if I contact the council and apparently the police attended the house sometime in March too, which I didn't know about.  Young Neighbour is skating on thin ice, I think.

This will be the last downbeat post, I promise.  

My next post will be brighter (if I can prop my eyelids open long enough to type one!) 👀

Stay safe everyone, wherever in the world you happen to be x