Holiday and coming home

We have just spent three days in Dorset and have had a brilliant time. We managed to erect our tent for the first time ever with only minor arguments. The kids loved running up and down the hill we were pitched on. For some reason sleeping in tents makes me wide awake. I never have trouble normally falling asleep but put me in a tent I'm like one of those dolls without the moving eyelids. The upside of the insomnia was that I went outside late at night and the sky looked wonderful. I haven't seen so many stars in years. The light pollution in London means that hardly any stars are visible.

My son and his friend were as pleased as punch when they caught this crab. I didn't realise till my husband pointed it out that their reflections are in the bucket with the crab.

This is Durdle Door - I thought it was called doodle doo I think I may have watched too many kids programmes. The arch has been worn away naturally and is made of portland stone. I swam right under it. Until this holiday I had never swum in the sea before. It was invigorating as you can imagine - this being England.

On the way home we stopped at Stonehenge. The most I've seen of it is a glimpse out of the car window on the way back from Cornwall I think. The size of the stones was amazing. You can't get anywhere near them unfortunately. I really wanted to stand in the middle of them and watch the sun rise. They act as a calendar as well as maybe a temple or to chart the stars.

We came home to lots of tomatoes - these are the one's left after I made a pasta sauce. The courgettes at the allotment turned into marrows ARGGHH Desperately searching for recipes to use them.

I entered my beetroots at the local Show and got second place- was very pleased as it's the first time I have entered. Very nice that I one with a veg very important to my Ukrainian heritage.

Sunflowers and sword fighting oh and a bit of veg talk.

Left are my parsnips. Then carrots and on right lettuce.











This swiss chard sprouted itself from last year. It looks lovely but we don't like it so the next door neighbours guinea pig gets it.

This picture is from my garden. When I was growing up we had hundreds of them all down the right side of our garden. During July and August would have our own constant sunshine from the river of yellow. I think they are perennial sunflowers. They would die back in the autumn leaving loads of sticks that me, my sister and friends would use to sword fight.

Recharging my batteries

Spent five days with my family at my in-laws. Very relaxing no cooking, cleaning just relaxing. Have been back home for a few days and have managed not to run around like a headless chicken. Son seems to have warmed greatly to the allotment and is happy to spend hours digging one great big hole. Though he wasn't quite so happy today when his sister started trying to fill it. I'm glad I understand now that the role of the little sister is to irritate. Harvested loads of french beans today. I will blanche them for two minutes,drain, put cold water on them,drain again and spread them on baking trays to put in freezer. Once they are frozen I will bag them. I spread them on trays first as otherwise they end up all stuck together and difficult to use. We have loads of courgettes too so they are finding their way into all sorts of dishes. Neighbour at allotment let our kids harvest their blackberries. They had great fun getting their fingers all red and sticky and they got a fair amount of fruit too! I made a apple and blackberry crumble - yum. Harvested some more onions and garlic and have more potatoes to dig up. The potatoes - called Charlotte are delicious yellow waxy ones. The cucumbers have done well and the kids love them we have long ones and round yellow ones. I must take some photos. We've had a few tomatoes but most of them are still green though some are bright yellow. I didn't buy any yellow ones but it must have the wrong label as they don't look like they'll ever go red. Lettuce is good too as is my lone kale plant. It's a busy and happy time at the allotment.

Festival

I had a fantastic time at the Latitude festival. We put a tent up for the first time in sixteen years with no mishaps-. It was very middle class - the acts far more diverse than the audience. I loved the poetry. Simon Armitage was very good. Jackie Kay was brilliant such a bubbly person and really funny. Kate Tempest rapped her poems and actually got the audience on their feet. Great to see the poetry tent so energized. She's going to be big. Grace Jones was brilliant - hula hooping through slave to the rhythm. Her costumes were amazing -magnificent ridged head-dress. She changed between each song. Lisa Hannigan who I'd never heard of before was very good. What was great about the festival was the variety of stuff to do - theatre, film, comedy, poetry, literature and ballet by the lake. The site itself was lovely. The lake cut the site in two and had giant delicate fabric lilys floating on it. The lake set off the ballet on its bank beautifully. Later in the day a cube was floated on the lake with a quartet playing inside. In the evening jets of water acted as a projector screen for giant cupcakes rising and falling in the sky. It was a really chilled out festival. A tent tucked away in the woods held the mellow tunes of The Boy trapped by the Sun - very good. I love Nick Cave but the sound wasn't very good - the music was too loud and kind of buzzing. I don't mind loud music - in fact that's the only way to do justice to most songs but it just didn't sound right. Oh and the compost toilets in the woods were the best festival toilets I've ever been too.

sunshine and rain

It's so exciting going to the allotment this time of year as things grow so quickly. Spring you spend time waiting for seeds to germinate then protecting the seedlings- everything seems slow then bam in the summer it all takes off. The courgettes are growing on the tails of their flowers, coming quicker than you can eat them. I have lovely cucumbers -variety Passandra that my friend recommended - they never go bitter. I picked some of the beetroot as they are growing too close together. I will boil them in their skins for an hour or two till soft and then eat them. Dug up some more potatoes and garlic too. I need to sow some more carrot as half a row did not germinate. The other row of carrots looks great but not big enough to harvest yet. I started to dig up my broad beans as between the black fly and the squirrels there's nothing left. I am going to put in some more dwarf french beans instead as I love them and that means I'll be able to harvest some later. There's loads of black fly this year (dry weather) but on the plus side less slugs. The ladybird larvae are starting to eat their way through the flies. So nice to see so many ladybirds. The rain held out while I was at the allotment then drenched me completely on the way home. Me and the plants were well watered. (I like the rain)
My friend T came over on Monday and let me take some photos on her camera and emailed them to me. What a treat! After she's gone I realised I'd taken pics of the plants but none of my child but she'd taken some.

Chilean potato climber still flowering months later along with second flush of roses.

Tomatoes yipee!!!

Cosmos

Clematis has turned into wonderful fluffy seed heads

White lavender.

Chatting with like minds

I had such a lovely day today. Saw some people I hadn't seen for years. We talked about how it's taken us decades to realise that mistakes are necessary and how much you lose when you avoid doing things for fear you'll do them wrong. One of the people is the person who started me writing poetry in a determined way. I spent six years churning out fetuses of poems and till this year could not bear to go back to them to see if they could be fully fledged poems. I now have four poems I am pretty happy with. One of the poems was born from some prose I showed to that person years ago to which she replied that it was poetic and had I tried poetry. So today I got the chance to thank her. Tina one of the other people has helped me by reading the poems and encouraging me. Her mum gave me amazing feedback too. Oh and Tina has offered to lend me a camera till the insurance gets sorted. I can't believe how much I've missed taking photos. My garden has white lavender coming into flower. I really love white flowers and I know it probably sounds really weird to not just have purple lavender but there's something so delicate about the tiny white flakes of petals. The broom has gone to seed and they rattle in their pods like a kid's toy. Baby tomatoes growing -yipee.

Beginning to harvest

Yesterday I harvested some more lettuce- I have grown three different kinds. The red ones look gorgeous against the lime coloured ones. There was one solitary tiny cucumber so I ate it - delicious. Currants aren't very plentiful but we did treat them badly when they were given to us so are grateful that they are alive and have produced anything. Picked our first courgettes - forgot to tell hubby. The baby ones are lovely can even eat them raw. Today I found out I'd won a pair of tickets for the Latitude festival- very excited. The last thing I'd won before that was an egg rack. Have been picking and using onions from allotment and also more potatoes. Am digging up potatoes as I need them. When all their foliage dies back it will be time to dig them all out as otherwise the slugs might get them. Carrots are still tiny and will need thinning out to let the remaining ones have enough room to grow bigger. Had meeting last night to find out daughters first teacher's name. So it's real my baby's going to school.Boo hoo.