Sometimes When Life Throws Deep Ends, You Just Gotta Jump In

Our landlady has sold our house.

We moved in a couple of weeks before the first lockdown, before the world went to shit, before I even knew what the word furlough was. Momma P and I viewed the house on a Saturday, and the following Saturday David and I got the keys and moved in.

We love this house.

We love this garden.

We love the nature reserve at the back, the sounds of the river in the evening, the occasional buzzard that lands in the tree over the back.

We’ve loved watching the blackbirds use our garden to raise a family and feed their brood, and to take their baths.

We’ve loved hearing and watching the woodpeckers shouting at each other and swooping over the garden.

David has loved target practice against the squirrels.

It’s such a beautiful area – middle of urban sprawl but SO peaceful. Every time we have been for a walk (granted, not many) we have been amazed by just how quiet the area is. We live near an industrial estate but the walks along the river are so quiet.

We saw a kingfisher.

I saw my first ever treecreeper.

David is convinced he heard an otter last year.

Our first house together has been truly great and I think we’ll miss it. I know I’m going to miss sitting with the back doors wide open and just looking at the garden. Listening. Yesterday I had the back doors wide open as the rain came crashing down.

It’s made such a difference to my mental health, living here. Living with David. Having our own space. Being able to slob out on the sofa.

It’s a small house but we’ve made it work. Yes we lost the front bedroom to an office/exercise room but it’s worked so far for us.

I am going to miss the garden.

 

But enough about that.

 

Our landlady has sold the house. It was officially on the market for 3 days. It sold over the guide price, and had 14 viewings. We can stay, if we want, with a new landlady (who I have met, and she is lovely).

We have been given the opportunity to completely change our life, our lifestyle, where we work (for me, at least), and our life/work balance. We have been given the opportunity to move out of the urban environment – probably for the rest of our lives. As long as I can afford the rent when D pegs it in 40yrs time.

So we’re moving!!

We’re moving to the countryside. I don’t like peaches but I am going to make myself like them.

We haven’t signed the paperwork yet so I don’t want to jinx it but all signs point very strongly and accurately to us getting this house. We’re probably moving at the start of September.

We will have done 18 months(ish) in this little urban cottage. We will miss it.

Need to start digging half of this up...

The view from my new home office

Allotment Life: June 2021

Haven’t really felt like blogging for lots of reasons but last week I was reminded that I hadn’t done my June update for the allotment, so here it be. I feel like I didn’t spend a lot of time at the plot during June – work has been quite busy and I’ve been struggling to manage time/lunch breaks/work load so the allotment has fallen a bit, especially during day times. Generally in the evenings I am too tired/hungry to go up and do an hour but I think I need to start doing this maybe once a week. I tend to cook dinner every night so it is ready for David when he gets home and sometimes we don’t eat until 7pm, and frankly wearing a bra after 7pm is criminal. So I don’t go to the allotment. And no I can’t drive without a bra because the seatbelt isn’t comfy. Anyway, June…

This month I have sorted out the polytunnel. I have shifted all the timber out and piled it somewhere else, and then put pebbles down on the floor and arranged the slabs. I then decided it’d look nice if I planted herbs by the slabs, so I removed the pebbles, cut holes in the weed fabric, planted herbs, then put the pebbles back. It looked well good.

I bought new timber and got that painted up, and used half of it to make a new raised bed at the back of the shed. Momma P helped me put the netting up across the back so I can grow things up the shed. The raised bed now has sunflowers, tomatoes, cosmos, clematis, beans, squash, amaranthus, mixed flowers, verbena bon, and a pumpkin. And then I remembered it was supposed to be for the quince. Oopsie.

I barrowed a lot of muck in the pouring rain, that was a good Sunday.

Saw a bullfinch in the trees at the end of my plot – first one I’ve seen there. It was a chunky boy.

Weeded, watered, weeded weeded weeded. The flora has really enjoyed the warm and wet and now my plot is covered with bindweed, couch grass, thistle, dock, mares tail, and other fun things like fat hen (I think it is fat hen), and wood avens. All these things that need to not be there. So a lot of my plot is still covered with cardboard and tarps to try and kill stuff off. This winter I will cover EVERYTHING with cardboard and tarps for 4 months and hope that things will die.

No major harvests in June, except the garlic. Half of which went into the wheelbarrow to die and is now on the compost. It just wasn't work keeping. Everything is behind this year anyway, and also I am behind as I took this plot on in March and most of my young plants died at home so I had to resow everything three or four times.

I am really pleased with how the plot is looking but there’s still loads I want to do, loads I’ve done and now want to tweak and improve, and loads that’s just on the to-do list waiting for money and infrastructure. Mainly money. Allotments ain’t cheap y’all.

Shed is big enough to use as a workshop when it's pouring down with rain

Blueberries