Happy Monday!
People it has been a week! I’ve had a low, level annoying virus, sore throat, slightly snotty and very tired. It’s not been enough to be off work, just enough to annoy me! I have a new role at my company, starting 1st October, it’s nice I wasn’t looking for it but I have been telling the people that matter that I’m under-utilised and it’s lovely when management take that on and find you something else to do! Given the onset of longer days combined with a new role and some other stuff, including but not limited to perimenopause and a friendship that seems to have blown up, I will be going back into therapy for a bit because it’s the healthy thing to do.
However, the big new this week (in my news anyway) was that I have a four year old nephew! We went up on Saturday and watched him open his presents, there were lots of “wow’s” going on and then a very polite refusal to have breakfast because there was Batman and Spider-Man Lego to build. Hilariously, he can’t say Riddler consistently, so when he was getting really into his playing, we would hear things like “no griddler, you’re a bad boy”. Yes, I do find it adorable, because overall, he is a whole bag of trouble!
This week, I’m deep into being consistent about bedtime and rest and at work it’s about preparing for change! Ma and I are finally going to see Spider-Man: Far from Home this week and I have a stack of books to read!
While I’m doing that I’m also going have a food budget reset, I increased my food budget to £20 a week this year and it’s making me a bit lazy, I’m not cooking as much and my meal planning has gotten slack. So in September and October, I’m going to go back down to £15 a week. Which is £120 for the eight weeks from now to then. I’m going to give myself an extra £20 that I may need for meat and fish. It’s a more generous budget than lots of people have and I have produce coming from the plot and a freezer full of pesto!
Now I’m 46, I am middle aged, I like gardening and old buildings, I have been known to plan holidays around going to see particular old buildings (mostly Middleham which is my favourite castle!). I did all of this as a younger person but now I’m quite relaxed about being the type of person who has a favourite castle and I want to recommend 
I think I had an English Heritage membership when I was a teenager, because I think they used to manage The Tower of London. I’ve been to the Tower in the summer holidays and got in using the membership but I know you can’t do that now. As an adult, I’ve had the English Heritage membership consistently since I was 40 because castles, especially ruined ones are my thing. 
The National Trust membership is newer, I bought it last year when Jo and I decided to visit Ham House and I decided to visit because I knew I was going to Northumberland in September and thought it would come in handy and it did!
I pay monthly via direct debit and it costs about £11 for both. If I had to choose one it would be the English Heritage because it’s slightly cheaper and you can take up to 6 under 18’s in on one ticket, which Ma and I did when we took the nephews to Wrest Park a couple of years ago. When Ben and I were children, one of the things Ma did for us was take us about London, we did all of the standard things, The Tower and Tower Bridge, St Paul’s (back when you could go right to the top!), Monument, the Science Museum, the Natural History Museum, the V&A, Hampton Court, Greenwich (on the boat down the river), the Imperial War Museum and the HMS Belfast. She wanted us to know about our city and took time off work to show it to us.
So this week given the extreme heat, we got on the plot early, harvested, watered and then drank rosé.
We’re in good shape, we got loads of beans, raspberries, two more of the winter squash are ready, there were carrots, the very first kale and very soon there will be tomatoes and hopefully cucumbers, corn and borlotti beans
We also got the promise of an apple tree (my fruit obsession continues!) and we have a rough sketch of the work we need to do going into autumn.
