Let’s get it over with now, last night was emotional. Italy was never going to be a pushover, they are unbeaten in 33 matches and have conceded 11 goals in that time, it was never going to be easy, we had no response in the second half when they changed tactics. Our penalty takers didn’t have it on the night and theirs did. No one deserves to lose a game like this but someone has to.
I’m writing this on Sunday night and I’m really hoping that I don’t wake up to news of England fans being twats, we show our character in the way we win AND lose. I really hope we can show the best of it this week.
Eryngium or Sea Holly
So last week was full of last week working from home energy, my boss got COVID and I had a migraine. Aside from that it was a pretty usual week, Ma and I had a very productive Saturday and I had a fairly productive Sunday.
Today, I’m off to visit Kew Gardens with Sue and then two days in the office and lots of moving compost from the front of my house to the allotment!
I have no major plans for the week, survive the commute and return to office life, keep the house under control, work on the plot. My needs are simple, I’m off to Christina and Fred’s next Sunday for tea and meeting the next generation of Kennys.
Yes, there is football, England are in the final of the Euros for the first time ever. I’m excited but Italy are not pushovers.
If we talk about what we want our country to be and the type of people we want to represent it, we can start here. It Was All a Dream
If people want to write about my mum’s bathroom in her house, all I have to tell you is that 15 years ago, we were cleaning toilets in Stonebridge and getting breakfast out of the vending machine. If anybody deserves to be happy, it’s my mum. She came to this country with nothing and put herself through school cleaning bathrooms and changing bed sheets, and now she’s the director of a nursing home.
It was an interesting Saturday at the allotment. We got told that this area by the rose garden and the pond, means our plot is viewed as under cultivated. The current rules are that 70% of the plot should be under cultivation, so 70% of the plot should be growing flowers, fruit or vegetables. We have the compost and work area at the back of the plot and the shed at the front as well as this space and we’ve been told that this adds up to more that 30%. We mostly use this area for pots and seating but I think that moving the potatoes to guard the winter squash bed made this area look barren.
Brassica/winter veg row
Initially we thought that the issue was that we have five empty beds at the top that are waiting for brassicas but it’s this space. It’s fair to say that my mum was incandescent with rage, we have worked very hard and it’s been a really odd spring, I had to send her away while the conversation was happening (she will apologise to the committee member who raised it for being cross). Basically, this was a heads up that if it’s in this state in August, we’ll be subject to a warning letter and at risk of loosing the top half of the plot.
November 2019
We have a waiting list of 250 odd people and while it’s not entirely under control, compared to when we got it in 2019 (picture above), it would be a good plot to give to a newcomer. That’s not going to happen, Ma and I have ordered two new raised bed kits and a patio set. The plan is to plant one of the raised beds up with alpine strawberries and the other with more herbs (summer savoury, thyme, camomile). The patio set will go in between the two beds. The great thing about raised beds and no dig is that they can go in anywhere and it’ll take a couple of weeks for us to sort this out.
If we didn’t have the £200 that this is going to cost, I would dig over the area, add some compost and sow some wild flowers, and move some of the plants we have. As it is, we are lucky that we do have money to throw at it, for which I’m grateful. In the winter I’m going to seriously work on parts of the plot that could be viewed as not productive. I’m going to sort out the apple tree area, taking out the apple tree and putting patio fruit trees in that area with a beneficial insect attracting flower mix and get a polytunnel up in the work area because that will be a cultivated space and I can have a go at growing melons and aubergines next summer.
I’m quite upset because I thought the plot was looking pretty good and productive and as this is the place we put the potatoes and blueberries usually and nothing grows at where the compost area is because of the tree cover. I didn’t think there was an issue but there you have it, life on allotment sites can be fraught with committee issues and rules you weren’t expecting. However, one of the really annoying things about me is that if I don’t think you’re playing fair, I will clear that bar you’ve set because I don’t like being told I’m not doing properly when I think I am, it won’t happen again. Watch this space.
Harvest
On to the work and the harvest. It’s fair to say that we haven’t really had great harvests this year, we’ve had garlic and rhubarb one week and onions and rhubarb the next but this week is the first week, we’ve had a mixed harvest worth a photo. Beetroot, potatoes, blueberries, shallots, rhubarb, mint, carrots and and teeny, tiny amount of peas. It won’t be this much for the rest of the month, the summer squash, french beans and cucumbers are coming on and the tomatoes are flowering but all the summer plantings are way behind, partly weather and partly my poor planning.
Blackcurrant harvest
This year I was hoping for a good blackcurrant harvest, but magpies put a stop to that. We got 11, and next year we’ll net the bushes as soon as the berries are formed! Every day is a learning day and this year has been full of them on the plot. It’s like we’ve proved we can do it and the plot has decided to teach us more than just the basics.
The winter squash and sweet potatoes are starting to establish and we sowed chard and turnips as part of the brassica row for autumn/winter. We also pulled up the peas and we bunged some crookneck seeds in there, in the hope that we’ll get some summer squash at some point this year!
Key work to get on with next week aside from new beds, are to get all of the existing compost to the plot, weed the patch up by the apple tree, strim the paths again, trim and tie up the tomatoes. There is always work and I do feel that I’ve been told off, but although I’m behind compared to last year, it’s still beautiful and by the end of the month, it’ll be if not finished then at least, fully utilised. The brassica plugs should arrive mid month, then we’ll have five beds planted up (20 cabbages, 10 cauliflowers, 10 broccoli, 10 cavolo nero) and at the end of the month, 40 leeks should arrive and then we’ll have every bed on the plot occupied. At last…
It’s July. How are we in the seventh month of the year already?
Lavender
Last week was not a busy week, which means that I kept finding things at work that need fixing or thinking about, which is how my brain works. It was also a headache week, in that I woke up every day with a headache, it’s not great but I had more days where I was able to shake it off and no days where the headache progressed to migraine. (yeah I know that migraines and headaches are different but sometime my headaches are like an aura – they indicate that something is off balance and then the migraine happens. I’ve given up arguing that that’s not how they should work, my body pays no attention and I’ve learnt to treat them as a warning and behave accordingly!)
One of the things that I really enjoy every week we do it is my walk with Sue, the walk itself is always the same and it’s been interesting to see how the seasons change the parks and it’s been lovely to spend time with her, I’m trying to make sure that when my days in the office start to happen, they don’t clash with our Tuesday walks.
Lost
Last week I also made this year’s batch of cocktail cherries. I’m on the last jar of the 2020 cherries, so I’ve made slightly more (every year I make a little more). I bought 8 kg of cherries and after throwing away the bad ones and eating a few, I think I probably got about 5kg in the jars!
This week is my last week of working from home full time, I’m still feeling weird about it and at work we’re thinking about new patterns and so on. I’m not all that happy that the government is trying to make it our fault if we get sick and the basic fact that the more people that get the virus the more it will mutate and be more dangerous it can be, seems to escape everyone, and we are complete ignoring the risk of long COVID, but I digress. This week I’m determined to make the most of being at home and also trying to get myself back into early mornings and nights so that next week isn’t such a shock.
July is looking significantly more busy than my usual hermit like life. I’m have two days off work this month, one to go to Kew with Sue and one for a haircut and catch up with Jane. I’m finally going to meet both Tom and Christina’s new-ish baby girls, am pretty excited to see them and all of their parents. (I first babysat those two when they were 4 and 1 and now they are lovely responsible adults with children) and Christelle and Mike are coming over for lunch at the end of the month, with Gabi and the new puppy (I really need to hoover like my life depended on it in the next couple of weeks, I remember Gabi as a puppy found every single bit of dust and tried to eat it!). All of my friends seem to have babies or dogs and I’m not opposed
For work, I also have a two day mental health first aider course, and three weeks of being in the office for at least two days a week. I’m expecting the usual July rush of work as we head into August when it all goes quiet because of the summer holidays. There is also more work required on the allotment this month which I’ll explain on Wednesday!
During this trash fire of the last 16 months, I’ve watched a lot of telly, ok more Amazon and Netflix but the point remains.
Netflix’s High on the Hog was extraordinary. There has been a lot said about Black Lives Matter and I’ve not said a lot, not because I don’t agree, no one is saying all lives don’t matter, just that black lives shouldn’t matter less.
Maya Angelou said that when a person shows you who they are, you should listen. When a person tells you about how they feel, you should hear them, don’t argue, just listen.
It’s really uncomfortable to hear that what you feel you worked for, that the privilege you think you earned, isn’t all because of who you are and work you’ve done, but might be based on the colour of your skin. Or to understand that we don’t hear all the stories of our history.
High on the Hog tells the history that we don’t often hear. Of the people that didn’t and couldn’t write their stories. It’s the food that tells the story about the enslaved and how they took what they knew and built something else. It also explains why what an African calls a yam and what an American calls a yam is different.
It’s very worth watching. It’s about history and food, which are two of my favourite things and it’s going to hit differently for people from the US than for British people. Because it’s not about here, it’s about the USA, However, the enslaved were taken to the US by and with the tacit consent of the British people. Slavery didn’t stop after the American Revolution and the fact of slavery was key to the development of the USA. Yeah ok, the UK ‘abolished’ the slave trade (1807) and slavery in Great Britain (1772) but in the Empire it didn’t happen until 1833 (excepting lands held by the East India Company) and cost £20 million to compensate slave owners. When you visit the Tate, you might take comfort that Henry Tate didn’t own slaves but the sugar trade was built on the backs of the enslaved. It’s complicated and difficult. Here’s another question to ask, if the Revolution hadn’t happened and it had been a possession of the British Empire, would slavery have been abolished in 1833, I tend to think not.
I don’t have any answers but I think all of it starts when we listen, when we accept that none of this is a personal attack on us and we just listen and learn. So High on the Hog, you’ll learn about food, about history and you won’t notice that you’re learning. It’s so good, you should watch it.
So it’s been a while. My problem is there is so much corruption and incompetence that it just gets tiring. Priti Patel, Matt Hancock, Michael Gove, Dido Harding, Gavin Williamson and the big cheese, Boris Johnson. And nothing touches them. It’s just sad, that people in my country chose this. I am fed up. Some of them may be trying their best (I actually have my doubts about that) but they are not 5 year olds learning to write, they don’t deserve a treat for trying, they stood saying they were competent, that they could lead the country. If I was grading them it would be a F and see me after class…
So some links, not too much actual news because it’s all a steaming trash fire….
Only a full devolution reset can stop the UK splintering apart. I have been banging this drum for years, not just for Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland but for the sake of England too. What’s happening right now is not fun and we need to do something about it but with the current govt. chances are rare.
‘I usually end up calling an ambulance’: why migraine pain is not just a bad headache. Ma also sent this link to me, maybe because I’ve had a headache all week and this is often a precursor to a migraine for me. I don’t know why, I assume it’s because of the rising levels of progesterone at the moment because of when it occurs in my menstrual cycle. The best help I’ve had has been from the practice nurse at my doctor’s, she also has migraines and we talk about management of that, when I go in for an asthma check up.
This is a great recipe, it’s looks and taste are much greater than the effort. As you can see I added tomatoes but it’s great plain too, I want to try onions next.
It’s my fifth year of having an allotment and for the first time, I have successfully grown onions!
I’m not going to dry them for storage, we eat a lot of onions and if they last the month, I’ll be amazed but I am pleased that over wintering worked and we got to use a bed when which would otherwise would have been covered this winter.
The plan for the that bed now is autumn/winter brassicas, we have cabbages, broccoli, kale and cauliflower to plant next month, also leeks and I’ll sow chard. I think the winter plot might be more productive than the summer one! I definitely didn’t plan the summer growing as well as the winter one, we’ll chalk it up to another lesson learned.
The blueberries are beginning to ripen and so we took measures to protect them, I do need to go round and check the netting is still intact! I did the same to the blackcurrant that still has some currants on, I’ll need to do it earlier next year and do the same to the gooseberries, the soft fruit needs to be protected from the birds if I want to eat any of it.
We pulled up the broad beans and sowed some carrots, spinach and parsley in that bed. It’s looking lovely!
Last week was a good week. Because Ma was here on Tuesday and Thursday, she spent a lot of time on the bus this week, and it’s difficult to be in someone else’s space when they are working. I don’t know how a couple living in a one bedroom flat coped through lockdown or worse families living in flats and not having separate space to work. However, Ma is an excellent houseguest and did my ironing and the washing up (I didn’t ask her, she offered on Tuesday and then just did it on Thursday!) It was excellent for me.
Last Friday, I got my second jab and in two-ish weeks times, I’ll be fully vaccinated, which means that it’s time to think about spending some time in the office, which is weird.
Back in March 2020 it was weird to be working from home and now it fills really odd to be thinking about going back to the commute and office. I have said all through the last 16 months that I felt very lucky to be in place I was in terms of work and home. I feel the same about the way my company is treating going back to the office. There is no pressure to get back to the office and no pressure to go back five days a week. I’m aiming for three but it’ll probably be two days a week in July and August. Depending on workload and where the country is, my aim is to alternate my days in the office, so one week to do Monday/Wednesday/Thursday and then Monday/Wednesday/Friday the next week. Obviously, it’ll depend on what’s happening at work, if I need to be in the office for the entire five days or swap days for meetings etc, I will. We’ll see how we go!
More generally, I’ve noticed that now we’re quite close to being fully open and having to negotiate how to get back into the office, the commute etc, people are more anxious. Again I know that a lot of people didn’t have an option to work from home and worked all the way through lockdown, and those of my friends that did that, are actually more nervous than the ones that didn’t. It’s something about the increase of people out and about and the lack of social distancing. I think that’s also why so many people where enraged by Matt Hancock’s breaking of the rules. We’re all nervous and tired and finding it difficult and there is Hancock, carrying on with his mistress, in the office, not a care in the world.
Post Allotment Breakfast of Champions
Post jab, I was fine on Friday but didn’t feel great on Saturday, we got to the allotment, but I was not at my shiny best. In fact, so much so that Ma didn’t stay the night and left me to go to bed early and sleep in on Sunday.
Plans for this week are to get on with making this years batch of cocktail cherries, defrost the freezer and get all the floors in the flat cleaned (my aims are simple!).
Nic Dempsey 