So now I’m over my birthday, my thoughts have turned to Christmas. Yes, it’s early. So let me set a scene.
It’s Christmas 2009, I have no job, money is tight and I’m wondering how to do Christmas. Everyone says make some Christmas presents to save money, I looked into it and it’s not that cheap because ingredients are expensive! Later on when I am working but still not entirely recovered, I start buying ingredients in August and for some of the gifts making them in advance. There are several posts, handily labelled ‘Homemade Christmas’ if you want to see what I’ve done.
We are now slap bang in the middle of a cost of living crisis, as we get nearer Christmas people will suggest making presents is cheap. I don’t necessarily agree but if you want to get this way (it’s a lot of work) and if you want to do it, you need to start planning for it now.
One of my favourite Christmas presents, was The Aperitif Pack. It was inspired and themed presents like this are really good because you can make a couple and distribute.
I also given people I know will have a busy Christmas, cinnamon rolls for an easy morning breakfast over Christmas. (The linked recipe is the one I use and I tend to give them with a bag of frosting attached!)
Look at the miscellaneous Christmas gifts in places like M&S and work from there to make something fun. Non food gifts are trickier, but lotion bars,hand or body scrubs are all good shouts of things you can group into ‘hampers’
If you want to make alcohol, you pretty much need to start them now, there are loads of recipes about
So if you’re thinking about handmade gifts for Christmas, have a think about budgets, about who you’re giving to and plan ahead.
The news this morning is about the Lioness’ defeat, Lucy Letby, shortfalls of local authority budgets and the ULEZ. It’s not a happy start to the week.
I spent last week not quite having Ma’s cold, it didn’t fully develop but I was really tired and my throat was sore so Tues to Wed I worked from home and on Saturday I had a migraine! Really it was a good week!
Yesterday, I took Ma produce and we listened to the football, all football was a disappointment, Chelsea lost 3-0 too!
So this week can’t help but be better. I’m hoping to get lots of work done because everyone is on holiday for the next two weeks, so it should be easier to tackle some work without interruption (she says optimistically!)
That really is all the news that’s fit to print, life has been really quiet and I’m really pleased about that!
So the country is excited by the Women’s World Cup Final, however, Spain are a good team so there will be no counting of chickens but it’s a massive achievement to be in the final.
The country is still a mess and I need to say this one thing, inflation going down to 6.8% doesn’t mean that prices will come down, it just means that they are going up more slowly and the factors that have caused inflation to go down are entirely independent from anything the Government has done (although it could be worse, we could be in Russia)
How Australian and UK newspapers reacted to the Matildas’ defeat in the Women’s World Cup semi-final. I’m fascinated by the difference in how this is being reported in Australia and the UK. I think for the Australians the World Cup has been for them what the Euros were for us, it’s really put women’s football on the map. However, the way England played was not cruel, the Lionesses were doing what they needed to do to win, I think (and I would wouldn’t I?) that they played better in that match than they had in most of the tournament and won. They didn’t cheat, they knew where the Matildas were weak and they targeted it, the same way the Australian cricket team took the English one apart this summer. I’ll be really happy if we win on Sunday but it won’t change the fact that the UK is in a mess and it’s not a reflection on the national character.
Death masks help recreate face of Bonnie Prince Charlie. I read somewhere that sanitation and eradication of so many disfiguring diseases (smallpox, measles etc) means that we have a very different idea of what constitutes attractiveness. This is a case in point, he was considered attractive, hence ‘the bonnie’ but I don’t think by modern standards he is. It’s interesting…
There are raised beds with tomatoes in amongst the borage and verbena
The general theme of 2023 seems to be that I can have good things, but I can’t have any control over them, this is very clear on the plot. Before I launch into talking about the plot, I do take comfort from the knowledge that it’s not just me, people with more time and bigger and more productive gardens have off years too and I needed the encouragement today to accept that you have to give up control sometimes…
So the plot is wild and beautiful and time off last week helped a bit but I need to be more consistent, to get it back to tidy but not too tidy.
I did start to clear up at the sides and the back though. Weeding and planting out some of the comfrey and thymes that have been languishing on the tables at the back of the plot.
Comfrey and lavender (and two lemon scented pelargoniums, that won’t survive the cold but there is a limit to how many houseplants I can have)
I also cleared the carrot bed and planted the cabbages out. I have kale, brussels sprouts and cauliflowers that need to be in the ground this week too and tidied up the sides those beds and put thymes around the other plants. I also took out the last of the potatoes and I had several summer squash plants that needed planting or throwing out so I stuck them in that bed with the spare tomato that was already in there!
More weeding and tidying happened on Friday and also planted out the very waterlogged beetroot plugs but the mint bath, there’s a self seeded chard there and if they grow great it’s a bonus crop and if they don’t, at least we tried!
I started to tie up the tomatoes and weed around the beds because the paths are full of borage and verbena (and weeds), and I have two beds done and two more to do but I do (finally) have ripening tomatoes. These tomatoes have been barely tended, watered mostly by the rain and not fed at all! So I’m surprised to have anything but hopeful that in a week or two, I’ll eat some tomatoes!
SungoldMystery Tomato, could be moneymaker but I’m not sure!slightly more tidy tomato bed
I’m spending an hour or so a day at the plot this week, to work on the tidying up of the tomatoes and the side paths and getting all the comfrey and other plants into the ground.
Ma came down on Friday and planted up all the tiny garlic bulbs that won’t produce garlic this year but might the year after, she also plotted up the pansy plugs that will go in for winter. I also have some violas coming for the same purpose, and I need to sow chard, beetroot, lettuce, turnips, swede and herbs for autumn into winter.
In the polytunnel, we have cukes and melons on the way but poor pollination because I haven’t been opening the poly as much as I should because the weather has been so bad, it’s starting to warm up a bit now so more daily visits to open and close should help.
The peppers are another matter though as I have only had one (a jalapeno) that hasn’t been munched but the bloody slugs. I haven’t used slug killer in about six years, and I still won’t outside of the polytunnel but today I did in the poly because I’d like one pepper this year!
Peppers that the slugs ate first!
The raspberries are starting to happen too and this weekend, we picked over 2 kgs of french beans, the summer squash is slow but we’ve had some and the straightneck, which isn’t being early or prolific is starting to produce female flowers so we’ll have some soon. I fed them yesterday to see if that would help.
It’s not as productive as it has been but there is food and it’s really pretty, which I can live with…
So it’s been quite a week. On Wednesday, Ma got a date for her first cataract replacement, on Saturday. Cataract surgery is a fairly straightforward procedure but it is recommended that you have someone with you afterwards and my brother isn’t in the country right now. So all birthday activity was cancelled because we can’t wait another 18 weeks because she’ll be blind by then!
sound advice
I don’t have great luck with milestone birthdays and I have lowered expectations for them, which was useful, but even with a damp squib of a 50th birthday, life is alright.
Work was full on and didn’t quite go the way I wanted, to do some of the things I needed to do, where reliant on other people completing work and they hadn’t. So I was starting behind and I just ran out of time, so I just decided that I’d delay my leave and go to work on Monday. That way I can get everything done and go on leave on Tuesday, with a clear conscience.
Also the aircon in the office was off all week, by Thursday, I was wearing gloves in the office like a victorian spinster fallen on hard times.
By Friday night, I felt like my brain was about to explode, I went to the plot and collected produce to take to Ma’s. On Saturday, I dropped Ma at the hospital at 8am and wondered in the rain around Kingston. I bought some new trainers, and some glasses because it was my birthday weekend. Ma was all done by 11am and we went home. I’m happy to report that she’s good and her sight is already much better.
new trainers
Yesterday, was quiet and lowkey. It wasn’t the 50th birthday I planned but Ma’s 50th was cancelled at the last minute because the restaurant went bust, and I’ve had some lovely presents and messages. It’s fine!
Today, I’m working and for the rest of the week, I’m off work and trying to catch up on everything I need to do at home and on the plot!
While I don’t want a repeat of last year’s heatwave and drought, British weather this year has gone from one extreme to another, the weather over the last couple of weeks has been miserable. Rain has consistently stopped play this year and the garden just grows wilder.
What’s doing well. In July we harvested all the blackcurrants and gooseberries and most of the blueberries, there will be a few more in August but we’ve already picked everything from two of the bushes. We’ve had some strawberries but not a huge amount and the alpine strawberries are struggling and need some love.
In terms of veg, the Nicola potatoes are in a bed and have done really well, we probably have another two or three weeks of harvesting from it and the maincrops seem ok. We have had quite a bit of beetroot, although the best beetroot are the ones that grew in the path and I’m considering sowing them there in future!
We’ve had our first four summer squash (three round courgettes and 1 straight) so I expect they will start to go wild soon. This week the french beans were ready and we’ve had our first cucumber too, I’m hoping the weather will pick up because the cucumbers in the poly are going crazy but I can’t open the poly much during the day because it’s too cold and windy, I’ve compromised by leaving the door unzipped and we’ll see. In the poly, things seem to be doing ok, there are melons and peppers and a baby aubergine so I’m keeping my fingers crossed, the cukes are trying to escape though!
I really, really need to get some more weeding time. I did two hours this weekend and barely made a dent. Hopefully, I’ll have a good weekend on the plot and I’m off next week so it’s going to be all about the weeding then. I may catch up, I do need to get plants in the ground. So August is about regaining control and planning for the autumn.
I feel I need to start this post with a disclaimer, I’m really lucky, I have a well paying job that I enjoy, I’m not ever bored at work and right now it’s that perfect job combination of being able to perform well with the skills I already have AND I’m learning new ones. I feel trusted and respected and I’m considered (I was told last week) to be competent and reliable.
Seven years ago, I was made redundant from a job where I did not feel like that. I didn’t honestly ever think that I’d have a job that I enjoyed, where I was valued and appreciated. If I’m honest, it’s still a bit of a shock after 30 years of working for it to feel like that. So when I ‘complain’ that it’s really too busy right now, and that’s why I’ve not been posting, please understand that it’s in the context of actually enjoying my job but just wishing it was a tiny bit less full on right now!
Disclaimer over, the last couple of weeks have been busy, work is full on and my brain is tired. The work isn’t going to stop being demanding for a while but I’m hoping that in a couple of weeks I’ll have some downtime to plan and start my prep for 2024 – look I know it’s only August but you need to make a plan, start adding meetings and then you have four months until the New Year to adjust the plan!
Anyway, for August and into Autumn, I’m going to do what I can and start treating myself like it’s winter, which means being rigid about home tasks and bedtimes and giving myself grace for the rest. It will be fine, it was fine last year when I was adjusting to a new boss and it’ll be fine this year as I take on new things, my brain is just going to be a little bit fried in the meantime!
Freshly cut and blow-dried
This week, did have some downtime, I had a day off on Wednesday for a haircut and to catch up with Jane, I was hoping to have some time on the plot but rain stopped play, at least I only had to water the polytunnel this week and watch the bloody cat.
This week, is my first go at the big task of the new responsibilities, reporting for the ExCo. It is intimidating but its about data and spreadsheets and I am my mother’s daughter so I can get comfortable with spreadsheets, I just have to not panic. That’s the sum total of my plans this week, I will probably be in the office for most of the week but on Friday, I’ll be done and then Saturday is an allotment day and Sunday is the first day of my 50’s.
Without wanting to be morbid, my family is not particularly long lived, only one of my grandparents lived past 55. I know when Ma got to 50, she was relieved that she’d lived past her mother’s 49 years and I know that my Dad was convinced that he wouldn’t make it past 50 (which was the age his Dad died), the irony is that he was only 4 days into 53 when he died. I’m pretty sure that I’ll get past 53 but age and getting older is a privilege of which I’m very aware.
All that to say, that 50 is a new decade all shiny to live in, I’m looking forward to it…
It’s been a week, work is busy as I’m trying to learn and I’m taking in something else! The something else is supporting my old boss, who is our company Chief of Staff. However, he mostly looks after himself so it shouldn’t be too onerous, although I’m continually shocked by how responsible people think I am, it’s a source of constant surprise!
I also got a last minute appointment for a ultrasound, on Friday morning. It wasn’t pleasant but like all of these things (smears etc) 15 minutes of being self conscious and physically uncomfortable is better than discovering too late that you have something untreatable. I have a fibroid (truly I am my mother’s child!), I need to follow up with the doctor to work out what (if any) action the doctor wants to take but I would rather have a hysterectomy than five up my HRT! We’ll see.
At home, it’s been a week of new toys. A dehydrator and more excitingly my birthday present from Ma. A Kitchen Aid mixer. Isn’t it pretty?
Shiny, shiny
I got out to the beer festival on Friday night, drinking beer in the rain is probably one of the more British things I’ve done this year!
The weather over the weekend made a plot visit difficult, so on Saturday I finally got around to cleaning the oven! Not sure if it was the chemicals but on Saturday afternoon, I had another migraine.
Ma’s trick knee is playing up so on Sunday, I went to the plot to gather some supplies and spent some time on the bus to visit Ma.
Produce
Beetroot, potatoes, gooseberries, carrots and blueberries. The wine didn’t come from the plot though! I’ve been saying it’s a bad year, but we’ll still getting food!
This week’s plans are mostly the same as last week’s. Work is busy, we have a new starter and I have 2024 planning to start. Home is also busy because I need to catch up with the laundry and start prepping for jam making! However, I have no major social plans but I do need to hash out birthday drink celebrations!
I was solo this weekend and distracted (story of my life) but I got some things done.
somewhere in there is a pond
First the annoying. Let’s talk about the foxes. The allotment has a couple of foxes that live on or around the site. Urban foxes are common in Ealing and they had a knock back over COVID and last year because of the heat but they have rebounded and there are some adolescent cubs wandering around the site, they are fairly cautious but as some plot holders are feeding them, they are also for foxes, pretty unbothered by people.
With the hotter weather, I’ve been leaving the polytunnel open all the time, and they’ve decided that the polytunnel beds are great places for digging and going to the toilet. So the first thing I did over the weekend was to remove all the offending deposits and all of this week, I’ve been going morning and evening to open and close the polytunnel every morning to stop them getting in. I’ve also had to start barricading front to stop them getting under the flap, bloody foxes…
No foxes allowed
Going to the allotment every day, also means that the polytunnel and the strawberries get watered every day which is a good thing and the poly is looking good. I’m also taking advantage of these visits to bring the last of the compost (about 14 bags) from the front of my house to the plot. So I should have that done by the end of the week too. It’s all very efficient and I have plans for a lot of that compost this weekend.
Cucumbers in the poly
Now time for a story. Like most other families, our family language will take phrases and malapropisms from each other and turn them into a thing, for instance, cul de sacs are ‘cutty sarks’ because my dad for some reason couldn’t say cul de sac, hot cross buns are ‘cross h buns’ because I couldn’t get the order right. When my youngest nephew was born, the eldest was discombolulated by not having all the attention, all of the time and told my brother, when his mum was feeding the baby, that “mummy’s loving the baby again”
I mention this because there is a point in every allotment year that Ma refers to as “Nic is loving her tomatoes” and we have reached that point so I spent a couple of hours this weekend, ‘loving my tomatoes’. Which means they were stripped of bottom leaves and shoulders, weeded and tied to stakes. I also finally dealt with four ‘spare’ tomato plants that weren’t in beds. Three of them went into a grow bag and one of them into some space vacated by some potatoes. They are behind, but starting to flower and we have the beginning of some tomatoes.
spare tomatoes
I did a tiny bit of weeding but most of my time was spent picking berries. I got a kilo of blueberries, 1.6 kilos of blackcurrants and 600g of gooseberries. I also harvested some beetroot, there’s a bunch of it growing in the path, I think we probably spilled some there because there are choggia and boltardy and they are growing slightly better than the ones in the bed. I’ll take what I can get and it does at least prove that the woodchip is improving all the soil.
Beetroot
The to do list remains largely the same as last week, but my focus for the weekend is all about planting and sowing.
I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned it but I’m going to make some changes at the front of the plot, we are going to put the strawberry towers there and move the two square beds, my cunning plan is that I’m going to plant thymes as ground cover there. I have 8 plants (Creeping Red Thyme, Caborn Wine and Roses, Snowdrift and Archers Gold), they will start at the edge of the bulb bed and hopefully creep out.
the lucian black tomatoes
I also have some camomile lawn (which is my favourite) and some corsican mint for around and in the cracks of the patio, I can’t do grass but I’m playing with ground cover..
I other news, I’ve bought another bbq rosemary to go in the corner at the front, and I got a bonus lavender (munsted) as a gift that needs a home, five comfrey plants that I bought a while ago as tiny crowns which are ready to go into the ground (they are the Bocking 14 so won’t seed all over the place), I also have one more roman camomile to plants somewhere too. Yes, it’s a lot of plants, I’ve discovered that my gardening tastes are maximalist, I like a lot of plants, all being slightly on the verge of taking over!
polytunnel peppers and aubergine
It’s not just pretty plants either, there are food plants I need to deal with too. The cabbage and sprout plugs are arriving this week and I want to get the chard sown for autumn, the leeks need to be in the ground as do the spare summer squash, beetroot seedlings and french beans…
Pull up the pea plants
Plant cabbage and sprout plugs
Plant the comfrey
Plant out the herbs
Plant out leeks, beetroot and french bean plugs
Find a home for the ‘spare’ summer squash
Re sow fennel, kale and cauliflower plugs
Sow Chard bed
Inter plant the tomatoes with supermarket basil
Feed everything
If there is any time left, I need to decide what to do about the carrot bed, it’s not doing great and I seem to have quite a bit of carrot fly damage, so I’m thinking it can be pulled up and I’ll resow carrots elsewhere and I’d like to do some weeding but that might be a step too far!
It really bugs my brain that the detail on this building doesn’t line up with this street….
We have a really loud person in our office (not from my team), she’s on the phone a lot and seems to have no awareness that we’re in a shared office space. Last week she was asked to keep it down and complained to the person she was on the call with, that she was being ‘told off’. She wasn’t being told off, she was being asked to consider others. When she’s in the office, I get a bit grumpy, because it’s so inconsiderate.
Last week, it felt like my entire week was being spent with a person that winds me up.
I got my period (54 day cycle), peri menopause is a delight. The washing machine broke and took out all the sockets in the kitchen at the same time. In case you didn’t already guess, realising that it’s not just the radio that doesn’t work and then identifying through a process of elimination, what is tripping the electricity so it doesn’t happen again and my fridges work, is not a thing that I would chose to at any time of the day but not at 9:45pm when my period has just arrived.
This is what the kitchen looks like most days, lived in…
That led to some other annoyances, contacting the landlord, hand washing, contemplating a trip to the laundrette. It’s a first world problem but it is a problem, I’ve spent a lot of my life in laundrettes, I wrote most of my A level course work in one, and until I was 28 or so, I didn’t have a flat with a washing machine, so laundry trips were just a couple of hours I committed too every weekend, but over 20 years later, I’m out of the habit and feeling put out by it.
Happily, the washing machine repair man came today and 15 minutes later, I have a working washing machine.
Vivipary strawberry
Work is busy because my brain is trying to learn things, so I’m also having to be ultra cautious about doing the things I know how to do because my brain is full and things slip when my brain is full!
A chunk of the weekend was spent dealing with the washing machine and other assorted housework. I am honestly very mojo-less at the moment. Christelle didn’t come over as planned because she was having a flare up and I didn’t want to stay at hers because I was bleeding, and ruining my bedding is bad enough, without doing it to someone else’s.
Time is never really wasted, I did get kidnapped by a book, I went to the plot, I cleaned the bathroom, I spoke to the godchildren (well 4 of 6).
This week, is still all about work. Everyone has realised that schools are breaking up, this week if it’s private and next if it’s state and nothing happens because everyone is on holiday. So I’m really busy with diaries and other stuff and also with learning the new bit of job. It feels like a tidal wave of work breaking over me, I’m catching what I can and worrying about what I’ve missed. So work, preservation of the berry harvest (it’s been a great berry year), catching up on laundry and finally taking all of the compost in front of my house to the allotment. On Friday, I’ll be at the beer festival in the park (I do love a social event 10 minutes from my house!) and on Saturday the allotment.
I have three more weeks at work until I have my traditional week off for my birthday but loads of things to do between then and now.
Nic Dempsey 