Weekend Getaway; Day Two.

Day Two started with a ‘spoons breakfast (in the other ‘spoons, about 0.2 miles away from the first). We then went to Greggs to get baguettes and drinks for lunch before heading to the beach for a couple of hours. By 10am it was PACKED.

We had a splish and a splash and a swim, before heading up to the Isle of Portland. David and I have a map of all the places we have been together and I wanted to add Portland to it. We admired the view and then went and found some ice cream…

AKA the BEST THING EVER.

Look at it!! Two scoops of strawberry ice cream, two squirts of whippy cream, white chocolate shavings, a flump, edible shimmery sugar dinosaurs, strawberry sauce, topped with chocolate ammonites, all in an edible wafer bowl. I was in HEAVEN. Whoever at this establishment came up with this needs a friggin’ payrise. GENIUS.

After the sugar-rush-bowl-of-joy, we drove up to Portland Bill to have a good nosey. Neither of us had been here before so didn’t know what to expect. There is a lighthouse. You can climb it (we didn’t).

We only spent about an hour here, before climbing back in the car and starting our journey up to Bristol. We couldn’t find a hotel room for less than £120 anywhere on the South Coast for another night!! We rolled up to Bristol and lay on the bed in the hotel in our underwear swigging beer. A very long drive on a very hot day rendered us incapable of anything else. Eventually we managed to shower and head out for dinner and Frankie & Benny’s where upon I treated myself to a woowoo cocktail.

We were in a loft room at the hotel with a sky light; I snapped this photo of the sunset before we went out for dinner:

Weekend Getaway; Day One!

David and I managed to grab a decent block of time off work together – five whole days! We decided to head to the seaside as David hasn’t been yet this year but we couldn’t afford much as we were a week before payday.

On Friday we headed down to Lulworth, via the Cerne Abbas Giant and a couple of stops en route. 

We always stop at Gloucester Services for CAKE

Well. The Giant was quite a disappointment (seriously – I thought it was going to be life-changing). Whilst we were there David got stung by either a wasp or bee down the back of his collar. I pulled the sting out of his neck with my nails (it was TINY, like a really small, fine eyelash) but I thought wasps retained their stinger?

Lulworth was absolutely beautiful. Gorgeous. Full of people (not so good) but we had an ice cream and I had a paddle, then I decided to go back to the car and put my swimsuit on, bought some sea-shoes, and went for an actual swim in the sea! First time in a long time – the last time I went swimming in the sea was off the coast of Arran during fieldwork in 2013. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

After Lulworth we drove over to our stop for the night in Weymouth, a little B&B on the seafront. Dinner was care of Wetherspoons, pudding from Tesco. The beach and seafront were nearly empty as we walked back. Straight to bed we went, lots of sun and excitement for one day!

And so, to bed.

Allotment Life: July 2019

It’s quite hard for me to remember what I did yesterday, so thinking back to last month is a gargantuan task. I don’t think I spent much time up at the Plots for varying reasons. I also fell out of love with my blog also for varying reasons, hence not writing anything for a good long while now.

Luckily for everyone and even for those who aren’t interested, I take lots of photos! So I can tell you that in July I did this…

I dug out and relocated a couple of beds. This has been done to make large beds into multiple smaller beds, thus making it easier to reach crops. I am also trying to make more of my plot cultivated which means using up more space on the edges and shifting beds over. Thanks to my job I can actually afford timber and compost nearly every month so I am cashing in and beginning to give all of the veg-growing spaces a raised timber surround, and fresh peat-free compost. In October I am going to start barrowing poop from the shop too, to let it rot over winter and fertilise the beds.

I made plans for a new, three plank deep, square bed at the front of the plot. I have decided that I definitely want an almond tree, so now I am making a house for it! Planning only got as far as deciding that I wanted it there for sure, so there are no photos of my thought process for this (sorry).

I dug up and laid out the onions and garlics to dry. The onions were sets bought from Poundland and they’ve actually done alright. Some even look like proper onions! The garlics were mostly cloves that had sprouted so we planted, not sure of the variety. A lot of the garlics were so small that a whole bulb basically equalled a clove.

I saw this wee common blue butterfly enjoying one of the fallow plots…

Our Plot 4 marrow/courgette/patty pan harvesting started – and has yet to show any signs of finishing…

And that’s basically what July looked like! Hot, busy, sweaty, lots of plans made and lots of courgette eaten.