March 2023

March started with a wee little financial related menty b, it is also ending with one, and I think this is how all my months will be from now on.

April is obviously the start of the new tax year and with it comes higher council tax, tv licence, shopping, prescription, and electricity costs, and no sign of the salary increasing to take any of this into account. We’ve run out of things we can cut back on, so our only option is to find more money from the magic money tree. Sigh.

Anyhoo...

We had snow this month! Enough snow that meant I couldn't go to work. Such a novelty as we usually are protected from snow here as the house is quite sheltered. I love snow. I love having an excuse to wrap up in blankets and layers and woollens.  

Crochet

I’ve had a good month! It started with a bit of a lull and I was on a right downer, but it’s picked up. This month I have made, fixed, or finished:

·       5 pairs of woollen wristwarmers

·       A cuddly robot toy

·       A jellyfish

·       A hat with a sunflower on it

·       A little sparkly crocodile

·       Darned my socks three times

·       Granny squares

·       Bunting

·       A flat piece to use as a photo backdrop

·       Started this years blanket creation, just in time for warmer weather

·       Sewn a patch onto a T-shirt for David because we don’t own an iron, and I wouldn't use it even if we did

Some of these were commissions and I’m always happy to make things for other people.

I’m giving more serious thought to opening up a small online shop platform thing but I don’t really know what I’m doing and I would struggle to keep it going if people didn’t actually buy stuff. I can’t afford to pay the fees for having a shop if I’m not getting any income from it, and even then it would only be pocket money. I never sell my crochet stuff at profit because it’d be too bloody expensive and no one would buy a thing!

Craft Group was good, we had a draught excluder workshop and apparently I entered a prize draw because I won something this week. Completely forgot about it, so that was a nice surprise. I’m expecting April to be lower numbers because it is Good Friday bank holiday, but I shall be there with my woollens on, living my best crafty life.

 

100% Wool! £35 a pair if anyone is interested...

Allotment

The plot is looking good! The compost fairy bought me four bags which filled another bed ready for seeds, and so it has been seeded with turnip and spring onion so far. I need to buy more carrot seed as I have managed to run out?! I also sowed this month:

·       Beetroot

·       Chard

·       Calendula

·       Radish

·       Carrot

·       Spring onion

·       Cornflower

·       Scabious

·       Borage

The beetroot seeds were best sown before 2018 but I chucked them all in to see what would happen, and they’re all germinating! Direct sown because I still don’t have any indoor space for seeds.

I want to get some proper pond plants and get that finished. Currently it is just a hole in the ground with murky water in it. I’m also giving serious thought to getting the polytunnel sorted out in the next few weeks.

Exercise

I am trying to walk at least one mile a day at work, but I only do this when I am AT work rather than when I am working from home. I think in April I will start hula hooping again, just twice a week to start with. I need to de-wobble my self, mentally and physically.

 

Work

My contract has officially been changed to finish in July which is good. I am having to think about future plans though, as after July nothing is confirmed, and with the way things are going I shall need a higher income. But I don’t need to think about that until June. Hopefully.

 

Mental Health

It all goes so well, and then the end of the month and budget day comes. I do a budget every month even though the outgoings are roughly the same, but with the cost of things going up I just need to keep track. I'm so wobbly and all over the place. I have food anxiety, money anxiety, life anxiety, work anxiety... It never ends. 

 

Cat Life

The boy wonder has been with us for just over three months now! He’s such a loving lump of floof. Still isn’t brave enough to sit on our laps on the sofa, but he sleeps on the bed every night and now has his favourite armchair in the lounge. He goes out every evening for an adventure but I'm fairly sure he just sits in the bamboo thicket and watches the birds. Though he does come back with utterly filthy feet so perhaps he goes down into the ditch and onto the field. He has brought back two mice so far, one of which died on the living room floor. 

 

Physical Health

I’m still unfit and far heavier than I should be. My lockdown three stone hasn’t shifted, but I haven’t done anything to actually try and shift it. My hips and knees are seizing up more each day but that’s because I spend a lot of time sitting and crocheting. Or playing dungeon keeper 2.

 

Money

It’s just all a crock of shite ain’t it. It really REALLY boils my piss (and then some) but I don’t know where to direct my anger. We need to employ the French to strike on our behalf because we’re too tame to do it ourselves. Everyone who earns over £250k per annum should be made to give a start up investment of £2.5k to every newborn which they then can’t spend until they’re 30. I dunno. I’m not an economist. I’m just angry and depressed about it all. A bag of flour cost 35p last year and now it is 69p. What the flour. I’m really beginning to understand how people with jobs and a salary end up using foodbanks. 

Garden

It’s been a good garden month. I’ve dug two new flower beds and planted one of them up. The second one I think will have a row of raspberries as I have lots in pots that would be better in the ground. I want more arches now though, and feel like I should wait for the arches before I plant the toots. I have tidied the edges of two other beds, and I need to get on and weed another two. It’s all coming together.

I still haven’t removed the tree debris from when we cleared the fallen willow, so I need to get on with that as my next garden priority. But I just ain’t in the mood. I want flowers!

You can read about the new big bed here (click).  

The new smaller bed is along the hedge and will eventually be a long border – probably 10m long. I want to mirror the wall of daffodils but I need to wait until October to get those bought and planted. This side of the garden gets the worst of the flooding so I need to think more carefully about what to plant in this bit. I want a winter flowering cherry and a couple of forsythia shrubs…

And then the last bit I did was weeding and clearing a small flower bed, and then I decided to extend it in two directions so it is now L-shaped. I have filled the new ends with veg seed – parsnip, carrot, turnip, and swede, as well as borage. I have also transplanted some variegated red dead nettle from mommas garden which will spread and become a ground cover in this bed. The hairy footed flower bees LOVE it.

The new as yet empty bed. Note that for the first time in my life I used a string line to get a straight edge! Who even am I any more.

I have also been on a one woman campaign to dig up as much of the comfrey as possible. I have cleared probably 80% of what was growing and there’s still maybe 35 plants dotted around. No one and I mean NO ONE needs this much comfrey!!

I had a little nap in the sunshine on my yoga mat in the garden and I think it’s the best thing I’ve done for my wellbeing in a long time.

This month I have also started a load of seed, so the log store seed growing area is in full swing for 2023. I have sown:

·       58 sunflowers (more is more)

·       Tree mallow

·       Liatris

·       Some other stuff I can’t remember and I don’t label anything

·       I have also re-seeded the tiered salad planter by the front door, so hopefully soon I’ll be picking fresh mixed salad which will save me a whopping £1 a month.

If anyone wants to come and spend a day in the garden digging and weeding and clearing and sorting out brash, let me know.

 

Other Stuff

We had a day in the mizzle and mist at Carding Mill Valley for a walk. It was v wet but it was v good. I channelled my inner hobbit and then we ended up in the café with a blackberry bakewell and a hot choca with all the trimmings. It was SO GOOD. It was my second day out with cake & hot choc during that week. It was a good week. 

Three of my amaryllis bulbs have finally decided to wake up, one of them has a side shoot so it must have a baby bulb under the surface. The fourth one isn’t showing any signs of doing anything.

I have seen the first parasitic wasp of the year skulking around the stonework outside looking for a bee nest to prey on. I think it was a Yellow-tipped Darwin Wasp. Obviously. Definitely a skulking variety. 

Overall it’s been a good month, helped massively by friends helping me out by commissioning things to be made! 

I would utterly LOVE to be able to make things all the time and have the same level of income from it but I don’t think that’s gonna happen any time soon. Ho hum. Onwards we plod through the treacle with spikes pointing towards us.

I'm really pleased with the garden and how it is shaping up. I have run out of plants to plant but I have lots of seed to throw around the place. I think my next focus is to tidy up what I have before I dig any more.

Onwards into April we go! 

A Morning Pottering Around the Garden

I’ve had some dirty, mucky, muddy fun in the garden today! 

In front of the pampas grass, there is now a rather large flower border. Bigger than intended, but I decided whilst I was doing it that I really ought to make an effort, chop back the pampas, dig out the nettle and bramble roots, and give it a tidy up. So I did. And the bed is now huge. But it does mean that the husbando will have less lawn to mow, and fewer nettles to get stung by. Therefore, me making more flower beds is a GOOD THING.

It is around 5ft wide by maybe 15ft long, so a fairly big space. Easy digging too as we are on flood plain, so it's very loose and silty. It's also in part of the garden that will get most of the sun in the summer, so things should be very happy here.

I laid all the pots out where I wanted things, and then liberally scattered bulbs around, before planting them all by hand. Without my gloves on and without the dibber. Because I am a GARD'NER. 

This will be utterly glorious if it all grows and flowers. I have planted a mix of autumn, winter, spring, and summer bulbs and plants, and also sowed lots of seeds for summer flowers. Pretty much everything in here will now self seed and spread, which is what I want to happen. 

I’ve got a really good mix of things for different bee species, but also to feed the birds. There’s low growing plants, taller shrubbies that die back in the winter, and plants which will grow tall and gangly, and be great for butterflies. Oh I am excited.

 

The full list of what I have planted is:

·       Quince x1

·       Lemon balm x3

·       Catmint x1

·       Chives x1

·       Bleeding heart x2 (pink - need to get 2 white and 2 red now...)

·       Lupin x6

·       Gladioli corms x 88. EIGHTY EIGHT!

·       Big daffs

·       Tete a tete daffs

·       Muscari

·       Cowslip x2

·       Teasel plants x4

·       Sage x1

·       Verbena bon plants x4

·       Mountain cornflower x2 (poss 4 but I couldn’t divide them)

·       Erigeron x1

·       Liatris corms x8

·       Crocus x15

·       Scabiosa x1 but I suspect it is slightly dead, so we'll see

·       Musk mallow (I think) x3

·       Lambs ear x4

·       Pulmonaria x4

·       Sedum x2

 

And I also chucked a load of seed around too:

·       Chives

·       Chamomile

·       Scabious

·       Cornflower

·       Bergamot

·       Zinnia

·       Foglove

·       Poppy

·       Echinacea

·       Ox eye daisy

·       Verbena bon

·       Black knapweed

·       Sea holly

·       Calendula

 

And now I’m really excited and I want it all to BE GROWN UP NOW so I can see all the flowers and the colour and the bees and the butterflies and who knows what else. I have high hopes for this flower border!!

I have also, of course, decided that I need alliums in there too, maybe a load of white ones to complement the gladioli. But that might have to wait until the end of summer sale at Wilkos…

February 2023

So it turns out that I was ill for all of February, which may well explain why I have felt so shite. One course of antibiotics later and physically I am starting to feel better.

What have I and we and the cat been up to this month?

 

Crochet

The creative juices are still flowing but I think they are slowly slowing. This month I have made, finished, or fixed:

·       Four lengths of bunting

·       Made two pairs of socks

·       Darned three pairs of socks

·       Cut off and replaced the thumb tube on my gloves that I made in January

·       Made 3 balls for the cat with bells inside

Doesn’t look as much, but I did a lot of fixing this month.

The third Quatt Craft Group was REALLY popular, our busiest yet. Long may it continue!

Allotment

The plot has had it first grass cut of the year! And my compost now has a lovely layer of green. I know I don’t start seeds until mid-March at the earliest, but I have sown onion, carrot, radish, and kale at the plot in Feb.

The almond is coming into bloom, and the garlic is growing really well.

I planted two gifted chunks of rhubarb crowns, and I also put up 98 tiny hooks on batons fixed to the shed ceiling so that I can hang things to dry. 

Exercise

Hasn’t happened because I’ve been poorly sick and fully laying it on.

Work

It’s been a year since I left my last job! It’s gone hella fast. It was such a good decision to make. Genuinely don’t think I would’ve survived had I stayed in my last job. But it does also mean that it’s time for my contract to change, and there’s a bit more uncertainty ahead. I'm still trying to go for at least one walk every day.

Mental Health

We’re getting there. Slowly. Very, very, VERY slowly. I do feel better now, especially now that I know I definitely don’t have vulval or cervical cancer, and that my feeling like shite was because I was all poorly and infected. The weather is helping, and the seasons are changing, and that makes me feel better.

 

Cat Life

The Boy has started venturing out in the evenings! He had a supervised torchlit stroll, but now we let him go off by himself. He comes back for bedtime. He shouts at me if I take too long coming to bed, and he likes to attack our feet under the duvet.

Physical Health

The hospital visit was interesting and I had a vinegar rinse done, which I feel that Gwyneth Paltrow would charge hundreds for as a wellness exercise, but I had it done for free on the NHS.

 

Money

Still poor. The new washing machine has had its first repair call out and it’s not even a month old.

 

Garden

The garden is giving me lots of hope and joy and stuff to look forward to. I still haven’t been out to dig the flower beds, but I have a week off in March so I will try to get some gardening done. Everything is starting to grow, and the chives have survived the inundation from the flood water. I counted 34 clumps of chives in the garden. This year I really must actually harvest them to dry! I usually leave them for the bees.

I made a huge leaf mould bin using tree stakes I nabbed from the skip at work, some old bed frame slats, and also some surplus metal mesh from the allotment.

I’ve picked the first daffs from the garden and have them in vases in the lounge. I need more daffs and more vases. And more empty shelves.

Other Stuff

We went for a walk at the Long Mynd and on the way back, we fell into a chocolate shop, an antiques shop, and a wool shop! How unfortunate.

I feel like I’m on the up, but this year is starting ever so slowly. I’ve still a long way to go.