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.
The allotment has been neglected for the last couple of weeks. I’ve been to water but haven’t done much else and this weekend was the Open Day, so I was slightly regretting that.
But the flowers decided to flower and we got a lot done but let me catch you up on what has been done over the last couple of weeks first.
We have 11 sweet peppers (eight big ben red peppers, one lipstick, one chocolate and one yellow) and three jalapeno plants in the back bed in the polytunnel alongside three aubergine plants, one of which may or may not survive the attentions of a fox, digging in that bed! The cucumbers and melons have really started to grow and are flowering…
Outside this weekend we finished planting the tomatoes, we’ve got five tomato beds, because of the issues we’ve had with them, I only know what’s in one of the beds, that’s the bed of black tomatoes that my plot neighbour gave me. One bed has three sungolds, a marmande, a moneymaker and a gardeners delight I think. All the other tomatoes are a complete mystery! So that will be exciting. I also have five other tomato plants that are going in various places around the plot because I hate to see them unplanted. If you’re keeping count, thats 49 plants in total!
Very leggy tomatoes planted out, I can’t believe how quickly they grew given what poor shape they were in
We have three beds of mystery summer squash planted as well. I also have three plants, I haven’t been able to get rid of so it’s very likely I’ll try to fit them in somewhere in the next week or so.
It’s been a while since I’ve grown peas, and honestly we don’t grow for production because there isn’t that much space, but for a hit of pea goodness the American Dwarf Wonder Pea has been a wonder. We got loads for a very small space and I’m wondering if I can make the season longer at the front end by sowing in the poly in February next year, like all my ideas that might not work at all! But it was good to process something besides fruit.
That’s a large tray
This week, we harvested over a kilo of potatoes from the bed, which might be how we do it in the future. I took another kilo of rhubarb, we had three boxes of blueberries, and so many blackcurrants (in one pick about the same amount we harvested last year and I think we have twice as much to come!
We also took up the last garlic bed. We have loads of garlic, but it’s not in the greatest shape. Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll sort and process them. Garlic that’s in good shape we’ll keep, some will go to make toum and roasted garlic and some we’ll process into the freezer to stop it spoiling!
The other things we did this weekend, I did a good bit of weeding of the paths, we found a entire self sown lavender in one of the beds, we planted some of the herbs up in the flower bed at the front and I have a future plan for that whole area to be worked on in the next couple of years.
We have five beds that need sowing or planting up this month and the peas are pretty much done and need pulling up, so that would make six. Two beds need to be planted up with leeks, one will have chard sown soon and I’m going use one to get a ‘quick’ salad bed for the rest of summer. So that leaves me with two, which I’m holding for cabbages and brussels sprout plugs due this month. Then it’s just a case of managing. Keeping up with the watering, weeding and harvesting (and processing the harvest!).
Jasmine
So this is where we are with a work list.
Top up all empty beds
Interplant the tomato beds with basil, parsley, dill and marigolds if you can find any plants
Sow chard and salad
Fill in the gaps on the french bean bed
Sow the last bean arch with gigantes (it might be a bit late but I’m going to try)
I love where I live and right now, with the the cost of living crisis and the rental crisis (and it is a crisis), I know now lucky I am not to have moved in all that time, this is the longest I have lived in one place since I was 20!
The kitchen back in 2009Kitchen this year!
The start of this year was difficult with all the building work and COVID and although I haven’t moved, I have packed up every room in the house and unpacked it again so I sort of feel like I moved!
The living room sometime in 2011
All that being said, I’m glad that I’ve been in the same place for that long and I’m grateful too. For the space and the people that kept me in the flat when my life and more importantly, my work wasn’t stable.
That is mostly my mum, who came to view the flat with me and knew immediately that this was the one and spent a lot of this year helping me pack.
Living room now
Seriously, long term stable rental for people that can’t afford to buy somewhere is vitally important for life and mental health. If you can’t put roots down in a place and settle, you never relax, you can’t be part of a community. I’ve had that opportunity. In the last 14 years, I’ve got myself back from a not good place and a massive part of that was having a home I could settle into.
For now, I’m just happy to watch the years pile up, it’s good to live in a place that feels like home!
I’ve not been around on here for the last couple of weeks. Weekends have been busy and I’ve been too tired in the week to write posts. I’m hopeful that this week, I can get back into my groove, I just need to sort myself out and avoid being kidnapped by a book…
Last week was as predicted, busy, there is so much to learn, fortunately, I had a good chat with my boss and our Business Operations Manager about timeframes and expectations and feel more reassured that I’ll get it. It won’t do me any harm to be busier than usual for a while!
At the weekend, I was all about the allotment, Ma and I worked really hard at the weekend and I’m feeling a lot better about the state of the plot. Then on Sunday, I manned the allotment bar for the open day! Which was fun but tiring!
This week is really all about work, I’m starting with doing the month end report, which is a new thing so lots of brain power required and then the rest of the day job needs to be caught up on!
I’m hoping to see Christelle at the weekend and rest, we’ll see!
Guys it’s June, mid-summer which is supposed to be my happy place and it has not been. It’s all the fault of my hormones (and work but mostly my hormones). After a pretty busy week and weekend the week before last consisting of a training day in Southampton (which with travel turned into a 16 hour day) and then at the weekend a Friday with Christelle and a Sto be at my brother’s for my sister-in-law’s ’40-ish’ birthday party. I was cooked, which is why on Sunday I was in bed early and ready for the office the next day. However, my hormones had a better idea and gave me a migraine, 12 hours lying in a hot, dark room, when the sound of the fan hurts and your vision pixelates, is not at all my idea of a good time.
So last week got off to a flying start….
If you were around last year, you may remember that last July, I was moaning on about how busy I was trying to deal with a new boss, while still looking after the old one. This year, the issue is me trying to work out how to learn new work things, keep up with the current ones and work out how to fit it all into five days, while we all work out how to produce reports on a newly implemented system. Like last year, the only way out is through, I’ll spend some more days in the office and think about buying a screen to for home so it’s easier to work and generally just get my head down. At the moment, the photo below feels like a brilliant descriptor of my working life.
If the first half of this year was about the flat and building work and the second half of this year is going to be about work and engaging my brain to learn new things. However, all of the year, seems to be spent on trying to deal with my peri menopausal state. I’ve been struggling this year to motivate myself to do anything at all and then there’s the bleeding. In fairness to it and others that are suffering, I’m not and have never been a heavy bleeder, what I am at the moment is a constant bleeder, I’ve been bleeding, either period or breakthrough for 35 of the last 43 days. (Yes, of course I’ve been counting!). I’ve been to the doctors and they are checking that I’m not incubating something nasty down there, and I’m waiting for an ultrasound to make sure that’s nothing’s growing in there that shouldn’t and assuming I have an all clear, we can look at changing my HRT for a type where I shouldn’t bleed at all. I’m not sure how that would work because my periods are very much still happening just over 40-ish days instead of the more usual 28. I did ask the GP if she’d take it all out, unfortunately, she said it’s not in her skill set, which is a slight disappointment.
Lunchtime walk on an office day
The weekend was pretty quiet bar a 60thbirthday party, it was fun, nice to catch up with a bunch of Grace people and watch Mike get very excited about how his whiskey collection had grown. Apparently, peaty whiskey is lovely when it’s well aged, which means expensive! I also picked peas at the allotment an thought about this week at work. I’m a very boring person.
All the peas!
This week, I need to give myself a kick up the backside and do lots of things, at work, home and the plot, I have extensive to-do lists for all three and Sunday is the Allotment Open Day. I will be pouring drinks all afternoon. I’ve never actually worked behind a bar and I probably wouldn’t be amazing at it but I’m very good at it for the allotment open days because it’s a limited number of drinks for a limited amount of time. All that being nice to strangers does have a impact though, I need to go to a place that people are not for a while afterwards to recover!
Nic Dempsey 