I’ve not eaten food I didn’t cook for quite a while now, I’ve seen people talk about how lovely it’s been since lockdown has eased, to go out to a restaurant and I know lots of people have been ordering take away during lockdown.
I have not, while I do eat out occasionally under usual circumstances, and I am going to miss the lunch at Hawksmoor we had planned for my birthday (Hawksmoor are only opening for lunch at the weekends and I don’t want to go into the centre of London for dinner or at the weekends at the moment) but I’ll live. I don’t really order in food either, the last time I had a take away at home was when I had my foot op (five years) and other than that, we have fish and chips when we’re in Amble.
Lockdown didn’t change how much of my own cooking I eat and in some ways (not having to pack lunch or breakfast) has made it a lot easier. It’s been a time, I’ve been able to be more creative not less but while I am at home more, I’m still working so I’ve needed to meal plan, I have more time to cook but not all the time in the world! I’ve made hummus before, this one from Felicity Cloake (made you’ll note when I was unemployed and had much more time) and have often made it from a can of chickpeas. One of the joys of having had a blog for such a long time and of running it entirely for my own enjoyment is that I can and will repeat recipes when I find a new one that works.
Say hello to the new hummus recipe! I’ve taken to making this on a Sunday so I can eat it for lunch with vegetables and flatbread through the week. It has a few steps but it’s pretty hands off and makes really smooth hummus. My biggest variation from the recipe has been in the amount of garlic (about eight cloves instead of just one) and often more lemon juice. Do use the reserved liquid, what appears to be a soft and perfect hummus when it’s warm and straight out of the food processor can turn into a concrete brick when it’s been in the fridge a couple of days! I have used both tahini and peanut butter when I’ve run out of tahini, both work fine.
The theme of my week was tidying up and it continued into the allotment. Ma and I re-purposed some furniture from the flat and re-arranged the shed.
Floor space! Looking back we seem always to have a shed tidy at this time of year, it might be because we’re preparing for visitors for my birthday. Whatever the reason, it’s done.
This wasn’t the only thing being tidied up. Ma went to work at the front of the plot and got all the weeds and californian poppies up. We love the poppies but they do start to go over and when the grass gets to a certain point we just pull it all up, lots of the seed pods have already burst so we won’t be short of poppies and it’s nice to see how the day lillies are spreading.
I tidied up the rampant tomatoes and weeded the flower beds. And I watered, which is a massive task right now. The jump from a half to a full plot is huge in terms of watering..
As with everything else this year, the tomatoes are behind, but they are there!
The spare squash in the second squash bed are starting to take off, I planted a summer squash in there too and it’s a patty pan. So while I did not at all manage restraint with the winter squash, I managed total restraint with the tomatoes (35 plants) and the summer squash (one courgette, one patty pan and one crookneck). Bow before my awesome power! Though maybe not too near the winter squash bed, you might not find your way out!
The kale has also put on a growth spurt, as had the bindweed. It’s going to take time to stop that stuff at the top of the plot. As the new beds become free, we’re going to add another row of planks and make them deeper, which will help with control and means another year when all our money is spent on compost! The annoying thing is that is really works, none of the raised beds are very weedy and I’ve been mulching the new flower areas and it works so well. Ok technically, the red mountain spinach is a weed but it looks pretty and I like a bit of wildness in the garden!
Ma is coming down this afternoon to do a bit of weeding, I’ll be there for lunchtime watering but probably not a lot of weeding. On Saturday, the family are visiting so the boys and Ms T can have a look, I need a competition for them, last time it was name all the fruit and veg plants, I remember Ms T was very impressed with the £2 prize, Oli was aiming for a fiver!
So there probably won’t be much work done but we have work plans for Tuesday and maybe Friday!
I’ve been living in this flat for just over 11 years, when I moved in, I made a deliberate choice not to buy everything I thought I wanted for the flat. In the first year I got a sofa and a table for the kitchen and it took me about 9 years to find the ‘right’ (right = chairs I like, that are right for the flat and that I can afford!) kitchen chairs and I still don’t have a proper wardrobe.
This year, how I live in and use the flat has drastically changed. I’ve been home all the time and even as lockdown restrictions are easing, I’m still working from home and likely to be for quite some time. At work we are talking about more home working even once the office is open because of the need for social distancing. In my office, where my team had desks for 16 people we now have space for 6, so there is going to be a need for more home working until there is a vaccine. My job is not hugely dependent on working in the office and I’m fortunate that I don’t share my space here, so I’m not a priority for going into the office once it’s open.
Also this year, I’ve been more aware of preserving the harvest from the plot and after the panic buying during March, I’m concerned about what Brexit is going to do to food supply and prices. So I needed to make some space for some longer term food storage because the white cupboard in the kitchen wasn’t big enough! All of this to explain that some changes need to be made in my living space.
The first part of these changes took place this week. I re-shelved the cupboard of doom, put more things in it and took things out of other places. I also threw a bunch of stuff out and have a huge bag for the charity shop.
Things are looking much tidier overall.
The next phase will be putting a desk in the living room and moving the chest of drawers (see below) into the bedroom.
For right now, the first thing is done and the flat feels like a different space!
This year has gone so quickly and been 100 years long. However, here we are at the end of July. About this time of year as my birthday approaches, I become aware that while summer isn’t over, it’s coming to an end.
Knowing that and also knowing that at the end of this week the flat will have more people in it for my birthday lunch, I spent a lot of time this week cleaning. For the first half of last week the flat was in chaos with furniture all over the place, but once I got the Cupboard of Doom sorted and things started to go into it, the whole flat got less crowded and much cleaner.
In other news, I finally got my hair cut, so I look more like myself and less like Cousin It. Work was busy last week and isn’t likely to be any less busy as I try to sort things out before I go on leave for a week and my boss goes for two weeks. I’m hoping that August will be chance to crack on with some longer term work and prep for next year.
So this week is going to be about getting through it with a clean flat, a birthday cake and all my work done before the out of office message goes on!
Last Saturday, during an epic watering session of the plot (mostly of the squash!) Ma turned around and said we should put an area to sit in next to the rose garden and pond. That part of the plot gets lots of sun and we’ve done a lot to make the garden pretty so it makes sense.
Most of you will be aware that the weedfinder general is usually the brake on my crazy ideas, not this time…oh no, in the winter, we are planning on moving the two beds that currently have tomatoes in and making a long patio area that will cover that space.
We need to get through summer but the winter work list is growing, right now, we are making a seating area, moving three beds, moving the blackcurrants into two new beds, sorting out the back area to make it more composting friendly, maybe building some other beds, moving the gooseberries and making a frame for the boysenbery! (Place your bets on what we’ll actually get done – I’ve been planning to move those gooseberry bushes for 4 years!)
We made some other decisions this week too. We are getting rid of the summer raspberries. They are old and not very good in comparison to the autumn raspberries. so we are going to have four beds of autumn raspberries, three red and one yellow. Also we had a chat about our winter veg plans.
We have kale, leeks and cauliflowers in. I’ve sown chard. And next week I will sow fennel and pak choi (I really will – honest!) I also ordered 20 cabbages, 10 to go through the winter and 10 to stand and be ready in March. They’ll arrive in August and September when there are free beds. I’m not sure if there will be anymore space but if I can find some, I’ll also sow some swede, turnip and black radish. If I can’t, then I’m not going to worry about it too much. We are hoping for quite a bit of squash and I’m hopeful that we’ll get some sweet potatoes too!
We harvested the last potatoes, the apple (it’s a very early type) and the plums. You’ll also see the first courgettes, finally! and we’re a week away from crooknecks too. We might be a couple of weeks away from cucumbers too.
We’ve had more productive summers in terms of food but I haven’t had a season where I’ve done as much plot structure or weeding to do! We’ll come into our own in August!
Happy Monday! Today is going to be a good day because I get a haircut and I get to catch up with Jane! We also get a trip to Ikea which means that I get to sort out the cupboard of doom with uniform shelving. Look I’m 47 in 3-ish weeks, stuff like this is fun for me!
Having spend 99% of the last four months in the house, I’m much more aware of how I need the flat to function differently, so things are changing a little, starting with the cupboard. Before Autumn I need to change the living room to accommodate a desk and this is the start of that!
Other than today’s excitement, my week is going to be the usual work/allotment mix but with added exercise because the week long headache was not on! So more yoga more regularly although I’m told by Jo that daily PE with Joe has really helped!
It’s not Friday. I forgot to schedule this on Thursday night and on Friday morning, got up at ridiculous o’clock (5:30am) because I couldn’t sleep and had to go into the office. Basically, I needed to clear out my locker a couple of other people’s lockers, the stationary cupboard and chivy my boss into doing the same in his office. I have never met a bunch of horders like this audit team! Anyway, I was in at 8am, left at 10am, the tube was weird, wearing a mask sucks but not as much as dying or being seriously ill with COVID-19 would and it doesn’t make asthma any worse (if you use that as an excuse I will talk about how you’re completely wrong!). So far, despite our Prime Minister’s plea today to start commuting because if the economy fails he’ll stop getting donations to the Tory party, we are still working from home but the plan for 2020 was to move offices in September, that’s still happening so things need to be moved, I don’t think our London office will be open until the new one is ready to go and I honestly can’t see myself in the office for more than the odd day until there is a vaccine. It’s really strange how everyone apart from the government is worried about a resurgence of the virus. Maybe they want it to happen to distract from the looming disaster of Brexit?
End of the office: the quiet, grinding loneliness of working from home. Our team is all at the point where we’d like to redistribute our office time, so three days at home, two days in the office, even the ones with kids (although everyone is keen for schools and nurseries to re-open). But the youngest members of the team who are flat sharing are really keen to get back to the office. I’m looking at getting a desk for the living room because working in the kitchen (also the darkest room in the house) is going to be painful in the winter but I’d struggle if I needed to share my space as well!
Why it’s time to stop talking about English identity. I thought this was interesting, I’ve been arguing that the UK needs to federalise for years. All the home nations should have a parliament, with the parliament at Westminster, responsible for overall foreign policy etc. Not only would it be fair, in England it would stop the concentration of resources on London and the South East, an English Parliament should be in the middle of the country too (my vote would be Birmingham). Yes, I accept that at least at the beginning, it would mean that English govt would probably be right wing but I don’t think that would last forever, look at Scotland and the drift there as they’re had a devolved parliament. I don’t believe that everyone in England is right wing but I do think there is a sense of grievance about how we are viewed, it feels like the money comes from us, the regions don’t see the benefit and everyone hates us. This is not a formula for considered thinking but for the politics of resentment. If we had a devolved parliament and a fair financial settlement with the ability to spend that money on places other than London then I think we’d see a change. We’d have the chance to develop an English identity that includes all our history (good and bad) and all the people that live here.
I didn’t eat raw tomatoes until I was an adult. In my late thirties, I would occasionally eat a bruschetta but not very often. Then I got an allotment.
In my first year, I grew some gifted cherry plants and a couple of roma tomato plants.
And I ate my first raw tomato, a cherry tomato because cherry tomatoes are gateway tomatoes.
Over the last four years my tomato eating has evolved to homegrown only. I eat tomatoes I grow or that I know are grown at home. I eat cherry tomatoes but I really like big tomatoes, it was the black russian, gifted to me by my allotment neighbour that did it.
Most years I grow at least 30 plants, this year it’s 33, we grow a bed of cherry tomatoes and two beds of beefsteak/paste tomatoes. This year for cherry we are growing red pear and yellow delight, and for the others, a couple of amish paste and orange banana and cuore di bue and marmande.
My favourite part of the year is late August/September when I get to eat my favourite dinner of homemade bread and mayonnaise with my homegrown tomatoes.
I didn’t last year but sometimes I even get to preserve them.
I’m hoping to do that later on this year but at the moment I’m watching people in hotter climates or with greenhouses, eat their first tomatoes and I’m over a month away from eating any of mine! Which comprehensively sucks.
Yesterday, Ma and I went to West Ealing to buy tomato feed and walked through the farmers market and the Isle of Wight tomato people were there.
Reader, we spent a stupid amount of money for the best tomatoes, I’ve eaten that I didn’t grow myself. There is a picture below but please bear in mind we’d eaten about half of them by that point.
It’s Monday as I write this, all of the tomatoes have been eaten and I’m seriously considering ordering more and/or working out how many I could reasonably get away with buying next week.
Nic Dempsey 