Bus fares: £2 cap in England extended to end of October. Using the buses out of London, it cost me £4 return from Newcastle to Warkworth, previously it was about £7. It’s not such an issue in London (a single is £1.65 and capped at £4.50 a day!) but outside of London can make a massive difference but really like with the trains, it’s time to renationalise bus services
When in Newcastle, Ma and I always like to visit the Baltic. It’s such lovely building and not too big. I remember visiting the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris, in my 20’s and deciding it was the perfect size for art work and I feel the same way about the Baltic. I’m fond of Tate Modern but it can be pretty overwhelming, the Baltic is just the right size!
At the Baltic, it’s less of a procession because the space is shorter and wider, but the figures are still all moving in the same direction. It’s fascinating and honestly, if we’d had more time, I’d have gone back because I think you could spend hours and find more in it because it’s layered in meaning and history.
At this time of year, it feels like a race to get everything in the ground and while I’m not immune to this urge, I’m also a bit behind due to weather and late sowing.
At home the tomatoes and summer squash are slowly growing but the winter squash, cucumbers and melons were racing away. So I made a decision to get them out of the house and into the ground.
Ma can’t do bending down things, so while I cleared the polytunnel bed and topped it up with fresh compost, she did all the watering and feeding of the fruit.
Future blueberries
I planted up two rows of melons (Minnesota Midget from saved seeds and Petit Gris de Rennes from Real Seeds) and one row of cucumbers (I sowed some of everything from boothby’s blonde, early fortune and wautoma but I’m not sure what’s what!), everything had a very good water and then I mulched with straw. In the corner of the bed is my vietnamese coriander, which will stay there, later on in the summer, I’ll take some cuttings and keep some indoors over winter, in case it gets really cold again!
Last summer was really dry and hot and I really struggled to keep the beds well watered, so I decided that this year I’d try mulching the beds with straw to keep moisture in. Obviously, this means that this summer will be wet but we’re trying it and we’ll see if it helps. Which is why went I’d planted up the polytunnel, I covered the bed with straw.
Once the poly was sorted, it was time for the winter squash. First to weed the beds, I’m unhappy about how much bindweed seems to be coming up in the beds, but it really is a matter of see it pull it, it’s a war not a battle! We planted Waltham Butternuts, Boston, Queensland Blue, Georgia Candy Roaster, Galeuse d’Eysines, and Thelma Sanders Sweet Potato in the big winter beds and then we watered and mulched.
Winter Squash beds
We put the Hokkaido in the boxes by the herb patch and built an arch for them to grow up. We mulched them and also mulched the sweet potatoes. There are a couple of Thelma Sanders left over and we did a quick review of which of our beds were empty and re-assessed the plan. The bed that still has the flowering kale in it, is going to house some sweetcorn, so next week, we’ll clear it, and plant sweetcorn, the three remaining squash plants and some beans and have a three sisters thing going on.
While we were away last week, Ma and I decided to order some more herbs! We ordered a replacement blackcurrant sage, a cola plant, two french tarragons and 6 thyme plants. The plan is to plant more thymes in the paths because we are fond of the way they creep and it’ll (maybe) reduce our need to weed in those areas!
The idea is more of this but in the paths!
As ever at this time of year, we’ve done loads but we have loads more to do.
Let’s have a look at our list!
Get all the compost to the plot – partially, I have about 20 bags to go
Weed and top up all empty beds – partially, all the beds in the new half of the plot have been done
Sow parsnips
Apply ant nematodes to polytunnel, blueberries and bulb beds
On the second day of our Northumberland trip, we got the bus to Warkworth. It’s an hour and a half-ish from Newcastle and there has been a change in the bus fares so it only cost me £4 there and back which makes a change from the £7-ish it cost last year.
Since we were last here there have been some changes, not to the castle but to the information about the castle. It’s now a much more educational space and there were trails for different people that would have lived and/or worked in the castle. Each one had a little symbol to follow, which I thought was a nice touch.
From Warkworth we walked down to Amble.
It’s a pretty walk.
At Amble we had a little wander and found ourselves in at The Old Boathouse for fish and chips. The food was great, while we were eating it started to rain and we sympathised with the waitress who had left her washing out!
Although we were stuffed, it wouldn’t have been right to leave without a trip to Spurreli for ice cream.
We got back from Newcastle on Thursday and while I am happy to be home, I really enjoyed being away. We got good weather and rest and some walking and old buildings. It was good.
So having had a small break from my life, it’s back to it this week and catching up! This is going to be my first five day week this month, I have a feeling it’s going to be a tough week! It’s also going to be busy, at the weekend, I logged on and spent a couple of hours dealing with email! In a week away I went from the zero inbox I left to find about 450 to deal with. I got rid of the stuff that had aged out and sorted the easy stuff, I have about 20 that actually require me to do more work and I need to go and look at my manager’s email today!
So that’ll keep me out of mischief!
I also really need to finish some things in the flat (returning my broken heated airer and sorting the replacement) and generally get my mojo back. This year has not been good for motivation and I’ve been feeling so out of control. It’s been ok, because I’ve had enough support and systems in place to weather it. However, I’m about to embark on a new work thing. My role is changing and I’m taking on some different and new stuff. So it’s going to involve more learning and being way out of my comfort zone. While I’m looking forward to it and I think it’ll be ok, I don’t traditionally handle transition well and this year feels like it’s been all about transition.
I need to sort the other areas of my life out so that I can focus on work for a while!
Seven years ago, I signed up for an allotment and for seven years I’ve been struggling with indoor sowing. The reasons are obvious, I live in a one bedroom flat with no garden that is quite dark and as with all houses built in the early 1900’s, no windowsills.
February 2017, my first ever seedling set up!
I have tried all sort of things, mostly, I do a lot more direct sowing (all peas, beans and sweetcorn for starters) but I usually end up with the living room floor covered with leggy pale seedlings! Last year was the best year because I was able to boot them out into the polytunnel, so they did get more light!
Tomatoes on the floor last year
Since COVID and with more home working, a floor covered with plants, is just not on and so last year I bought a spare mini greenhouse for sowing seeds. Three weeks ago (you know how I’m always saying that I was late sowing? This year I really was!) Ma and I sowed our seeds for summer.
We did all the winter squash, the summer squash and the melons and the tomatoes. And then I realised that the one grow lamp I had (this one) wasn’t going to cut it and I bought these ones. They attach to the shelves and run off one plug and you can connect another four, which I’ll be doing that next year.
I also bought a timer so that they can click on and off this week while I’m away.
No solution is perfect, the seedlings are still leggy but they have a place now, I can use the living room and that’s a pretty good outcome!
Even with the grow lights, they are still as leggy as all get out but, at least they aren’t all over the floor!
Last Saturday we had lots to do and not a huge amount of time in which to do it.
The peony is in flower
We started with the sweet potato slips that arrived on Friday. First we had to fill the bed, then plant and then cover them with fleece because it still feels really cold.
Gooseberries and Sweet Potatoes all protected!
I put together an arch, to support my favourite rose bush, which is just about to burst into flower!
Yellow roses are my favourite
We set up the netting for the gooseberries and then I got sidetracked by the stated of the cane storage at the back of the plot (and I managed to bash myself in the face with some piping!)
Tidier
That done, we mulched the potato bed. I have only grown potatoes in a bed once before and it was really difficult to keep them watered. I’m also just not sure what the weather is going to do this year, this time last year, we were at the beginning of drought and I thought for this year, mulching would help with my growing. I may only use it on the potatoes, if it stays this wet, I might just experiment on a couple of beds and see if it makes a difference.
The first day of our holiday, it was a priority to get to the sea. I needed some seaside time, it’s called Vitamin Sea for a reason!
Ma wanted to go to Whitley Bay and I wanted to go to Tynemouth, so we went to Whitley Bay and walked to Tynemouth. While three miles isn’t that much of a walk, it’s a lot if you’re 74, have arthritic knees and feet and some balance issues. Ma did it though and it’s a lovely walk.
Ma wanted to go and see the Spanish City, it’s a pretty building but other than that was a crashing disappointment.
The walk was beautiful, we had been expecting rain but it was a lovely sunny day.
We got to walk on the beach and get our feet in the sea (Ma a bit more than she planned to!), however this route is prepared for the aged, walking along.
We visited the Priory for a bit and then went back to Newcastle.
Last week was an ok week, it was a four day week, and I only did one day in the office, I hosted (which feels like an over the top word for making soup and bread) Kathy and Sue for lunch on Wednesday, which was lovely.
I was busy indoors with trying to do all the things before I went on holiday and was a little bit more switched on in terms of work. I’m still really migraine-y at the moment, there does seem to be an uptick in them at the moment so I think I need to head back to the doctors. (My Grandma Iris had migraines and died at 49 with a brain tumor. I don’t think I have a brain tumor I would like the doctor to do more than tell me it’s probably menopause, although given the pressure on the NHS right now, I’m not sure that it’s likely!)
On Sunday, I went to Newcastle and here I am. We’ll here for most of the week, I need a break and this will be perfect, no work in the office, no allotment work, no housework! A proper rest from all that and a daily walk up a big hill!
I’m not the most house proud person, I like my flat and I like to it look good but I’m not great at the deep cleaning and housework. I make my bed every day, change the sheets once a week, tidy the kitchen most nights and the flat is generally tidy, I don’t really dust. Lots of my other housework falls under the do it when I see it. So I’ll clean the toilet and sink about twice a week, when I notice it looks bad and the bath about once a week for the same reason. So it’s never perfect but it’s always presentable, which is fine by me, show homes that you can’t relax in for fear of someone tidying you up are not for me!
This is the kitchen just before the building work, with wonky floorboards!
Where that tends to fall down, is with the floors. Of all housework tasks, floor cleaning and hoovering are ones I least enjoy. I come by this honestly, Ma doesn’t like hoovering either. She bought a Shark in an attempt to make hoovering happen more often, which was magical thinking because she doesn’t hoover any more than she did!
Stef promised me that when we got married, I’d never have to hoover again (proof he was my soulmate) but then he died and I’m stuck with hoovering. In the flat, it’s been more annoying because the floors had been stripped and varnished (badly) and as a consequence, even if I scrubbed, they never looked clean. The house my flat is in was built in about 1910 and so precision wasn’t a thing and the floorboards also have massive gaps in them and nails sticking out which adds to the difficulty of cleaning them. If I have to clean the floors, they should have the decency to look like they’ve been cleaned. In fact, one of the non-negotiables for the new kitchen was some kind of floor covering because I hated it so much.
Living room floor, slightly cleaner but with much bigger gaps
As it turns out, I got new flooring in the kitchen, bedroom and living room, which is lovely. It looks nice, it’s all one surface and the acoustic underlay is nicer for downstairs and great insulation for me, I’m looking forward to having a slightly warmer house next winter. However, laminate really shows the dust and dirt. I know this, I’ve lived in a house with laminate before, but every time, I’ve lived with someone who was good at floors and it was one of the chores they did. This time I’m on my own.
Living room with new flooring
Into this story of woe, walks my brother, the only member of the family that likes hoovering (if he didn’t look so much like us, I’d swear he was a changeling) but he told me that the most life changing thing after his kitchen renovation when they moved to having the downstairs all hard floors was the robot hoover. You know where this is going right?
I bought exactly the same make that they had, which also has a mopping function. Ben and I are very different but we are in agreement here, the robot hoover is life changing.
I run the hoover setting roughly twice a week and have clean floors all the time. It’s not perfect, there are spots it can’t get to (behind doors) and I do need to put the kitchen chairs up so it can thoroughly do under the table (which I tend to do once a week) but it’s pretty good and although they aren’t cheap, mine had £60 off and I used some of my bonus and it was so worth it. It came with a magnetic strip which goes across the top of my stairs so it doesn’t tumble to it’s death and I do have to hoover the stairs.
I’m so happy with it, because it does a task I hate and now I always have clean floors. Worth it.
Nic Dempsey 