In an utter break from tradition (ie, I volunteered to do
something requiring something silly) I was up at 3am on a Sunday, to go to
work. A colleague and I lead/backmarked (aka generally ambled in the same direction
of a group) a dawn chorus walk at one of my work sites! It is now 3:30pm and I am
utterly delirious as I don’t nap as a rule. It was a nice walk – the hot water
flask fell over in the car and soaked my outer layer of clothes and the bottom
of my bag, so I had no windproof legs and ended the walk with a soggy bum, and
then no one wanted hot drinks at the end anyway – but I saw and heard lots of
birds and think I could actually now start to differentiate bird calls. I saw
my first willow warbler! Ever!
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| Red light just above the trees in the centre is the BT Tower |
Following a brief early-morning stint at work, I decided to
take myself up on my deal to start working with clay again. I sorted out my
boxes of polymer clay that I bought years ago, and last used years ago –
seriously, I think I last used polymer clay about three years ago. I certainly haven’t
used it since David and I have been together – I was hoping it would still be
pliable, but after sitting on an unopened pack for an hour, and then spending
another hour kneading and warming it up, it became apparent that it is not as
good as it used to be. So I went online and ordered more!
I have read a few articles about helping to recondition old
clay so I am going to give that a go, but I want to cash in on the clay
modelling urge while it is here. Today with what little clay I softened I have
made some moulds of genuine pyritised fossils that David and I collected at
Charmouth earlier in the year. I will use them to make more mini clay
ammonites, and when I can afford silver art clay (!) I shall try to make some
silver ammonites.
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| Fossil finds from Charmouth |
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| This picture is weird because the clay mould looks like it is sticking out and the actual fossil looks like it's going in and my head is hurting. |
Momma and I went back to the allotment to try and repair the
damage to the shed roof. This also required a trip to Wickes for timber and
screws, and a trip to the shop for an iced cinnamon pastry. Pro-allotment tip y’all:
NEVER rotavate where bindweed lives. I thought this was common knowledge but
apparently not, and now it is springing up all over Plot 4 and Momma is going
to have a helluva time pulling it up.
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| Pastry. |
Before we left the allotment to come home I nipped round to
Plot 31, by way of Momma driving me there, and I discovered that my first batch
of radish were ready! So I pulled them. The first harvest of 2019 and the first
harvest from my square foot / no dig bed! I was very excited, as I had been
reading last week or before about roast radish – so I’m going to try it today
with my parsnip and carrots. The other crops are looking good, so next weekend I
will sow more seeds to plug the gaps. Exciting!
My social media free weekends are harder than I want them to
be – I do like aimlessly scrolling but it adds nothing to my life so I am
trying to stop it, hence clay modelling, crochet, allotment… I have even bought some books to get back into reading!
Next weekend my big allotment project numbero uno will be
finished, and then I can start numbero two-o. I am delirious I did warn you. Here’s
a picture of Taffy-Cat.
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| Taaaaaaffffffffffffffff |
