Years and years ago I had a bag that someone bought me that said ‘nice girls finish first’. This is my motto (yes in both the clean and not so clean interpretation of the world!). This week, Ma and I proved the it’s true….We won an award for being nice. Ma asked Christina, our committee chair, what had happened and when the judging was happening, we were on the plot, Christina often walks people around the allotments so we didn’t know he was the judge, anyway Ma we were in raptures about the gooseberries and Ma was offering them out to all comers and we chatted a bit about my ‘courgette corridor’ on Joe’s plot, we also talked about how much we loved having our plot neighbours. Afterwards the judge said that we should have an award because that was the point of allotments and good neighbours were a good thing. I think Christina and the committee members should get an award because they have built the community that makes it so easy to be neighbourly (even the perpetually grumpy like me!!)

The rest of the weekend was also allotment based, we were on the plot for most of Saturday too! I’m working from home today, which means I so can do my compliance training and watch the videos without annoying all my colleagues and catch up on all my laundry at the same time!

The plan for this week is pretty simple, work, watering, and I’m out on Friday night with some ex-Elexon people, really looking forward to seeing Laura and Jess!

Now the Open Day is over, July is really quiet, the rest of the month is going to be about the plot and getting some control over the flat. Last week, even though I was still sub par (the week before I have a period, my sleep is really bad and I sleep about three hours a night) and getting over a cold, I did food prep on Sunday and got caught up on the laundry and ironing and the flat was more tidy and it really helped in a not great for me week. So I want to do a bit more grinding it out with the housework so that I can rest better. Because August is always a more social month. Already we have family lunch and a trip to Newcastle planned and there are so many other birthdays and anniversaries in August. I’m informed that Ryan is going to be in London and we’ll probably have the boys while Ben and Laura go out and celebrate being married for 12 years (and yes I did just have to check that on Facebook!) for lunch and someone is coming to fix the kitchen ceiling and the lights in the living room (though I’m not at all sure when that’s happening!).

Basically, the more in control I can be now, the easier it’ll be to cope when life is a bit more full on!