Edit: I have updated the blog theme and increased the default font size. Wahoooooo!
Part time furlough is quite nice. I have a four day weekend
every week and will do until the end of August. I have time to do things; watch
movies on Netflix in the daytime, go to the allotment for a few hours after
work etc. I would include crocheting in this but I have run out of yarn so a
few projects have come to a standstill.
Mental Ill-Health
I am a bit better this week but I still feel dumb, empty, brain
foggy. Things are affecting me so David is having to choose his words very
carefully lest he upsets me over something really bloody stupid (he stole a crisp;
I cried).
I am jittery and jumpy and cannot settle. I want to bake all
the things! But I don’t want to get fat(ter). I haven’t got the drive to crochet
and I am resisting the urge to start another blanket, which is my go-to jittery
mood project. It helps to keep my fingers and brain busy, which is why is started
the new squares blanket. It’s probably the reason why I started all of my
blankets.
I am feeling very useless and pathetic and low. I think I look
ok on the outside but on the inside I just want to curl up and hide.
Work
Nah.
I had a huge work delivery this week as we can’t have things
posted to the office. It’s very exciting – new first aid kits and hand washing
stuff.
Homelife
I’m not sure what to write. We’re still here. We’ve been in
the house for four and a bit months now. We had a locksmith out this week as
the front door was fucked, so we’ve now got a new lock and new keys. Baking is
happening at very regular intervals and I need to stop but I like cake too
much.
I put solar fairy lights up the stairs and stuck the solar
thing out the front door. It looked really pretty but then kept us awake all
night as the top of the doors upstairs have windows, so the light came in. I took
the lights down again.
We have a bunch of sweet peas on the table that are being
replenished at regular intervals. Picked from the allotment, of course.
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| We are defo regulars at the local dominos. |
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| I have attached the front to the back of my new cushion cover and now just need to sew in the zip, and then buy a chunky cushion pad |
Garden
Is very green and full. One of the pumpkins is HUGE and
taking over – but that was the point. I wanted it to grow and fill the shrub space,
and it is. A couple of the other pumpkin plants don’t look very happy at all. I
have picked the first lot of salad leaves from the hanging basket. I am leaving
the huge courgette on the plant as I am paranoid that my 24hr tummy bug was
courgette induced even though it is more likely to have been the lamb. The giant
strawberry plants in the hanging basket have produced miniscule strawbs – I think
next summer I need to actually try to remember to water stuff.
This week I have added two new wildlife records to my list –
a large skipper butterfly, and a common wasp. I also had a white-tailed
bumblebee fall onto the bedroom floor as I folded laundry that had been out on
the line.
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| Beans! |
Allotment
I am so grateful for this space. I am trying to go the plot
after work twice a week to decompress after six hours in front of the laptop.
Momma P has strimmed, I have sheared, and it is looking quite tidy – apart from
the wild area down the front. I’m leaving that though, it’s fun to annoy the
neighbours.
I haven’t been able to afford timber etc this month so no new building has taken place but I have budgeted for timber and assorted goodies on payday. This means I can build new raised beds and start the polytunnel project! I am going to put it up, build raised beds to go inside, and have a slab path down the middle. David doesn’t know yet.
I decided this week that I wanted a hammock for the plot so
that I could go, do some allotmenting, and then lounge in a hammock in the sun
reading a book. We’ve been thinking about where to install fence posts to rig
one up but I wanted one that I could move about so I can have it in different
places and follow the shade. David has ordered me one off ebay! I am excited.
The sweetcorn are starting to develop their female flowers;
most of the boy tassels are out now but it is nice to see cobs. I haven’t grown
sweetcorn on the allotment for years and years so it’ll be nice to get a
harvest.
The tomatoes have been pruned and pruned and pruned to within an inch of their life and they look like weird trees – a single straight stem with a few leaves and flowers at the top. I have been brutal in the pruning to allow air and light to circulate to reduce blight and it seems to be working. The tagetes that I planted around them at the bottom are glorious and colourful. I don’t really like them but I thought they’d be nice around the tomatoes, and they are.
The French beans I transplanted from home are mostly ok – a couple have disappeared. They are growing well and should start flowering soon.
This week I have been and sowed more salad crops in one of
the beds. I did: radish, mizuna, carrot, parsnip, lettuce, chard, leek, spring onion,
and spinach. Toward the end of August I’ll put more in – more leek and spring
onions as these will over winter, and chard will too.
I have also chucked a load of flower seed into the bulb bed under the plum tree. This bed was overhauled earlier this year – oops, I checked, it was actually September last year! – and I planted over 200 bulbs in it. This year I have decided I need to sort it out as it is not square to the bed next to it which makes grass cutting quite difficult, and is not at all feng shui. So I am going to remove the wood, dig out the bulbs, square the wood up, and replant the bulbs. What fun. In the meantime I have put flower seed in it – I put calendula, foxglove, clary, clover, sunflower, nasturtium, and other stuff. Bit late to the summer flower party but with climate change it shouldn’t matter too much.
I made a new wildflower patch under the plum tree too. I have wanted this to become a wildflower patch for a while as it isn’t usable for growing veg but the soil is very rich. Wildflowers like poor or low nutrient soils, so I dug some grass out, turned the ground over, added half a bag of sharp sand and dug it in, then put down a load of seed. I put red & white clover, red & white campion, red & white deadnettle, heartsease, meadow vetchling (which I already have on my plot), cowslip, field scabious, and something else I can’t remember. I rigged up a cover using bits of wood, bits of plastic and bits of brick. This is just to keep the birds/rats off so they don’t eat the seeds.
I broke my car and David had to come and fix it for me. What a nice boy.
It’s been a very allotmenty week as it still the only place I feel I can go and not mask up, potter about and do nothing much, and generally be outside but not around people (perfect). I am getting lots of small jobs done but I really want to sink my teeth into something big so I am going to buy timber and screws and maybe a new tin of paint when I get paid. I have been in crochet limbo as I am trying to get things finished before I start new stuff, but I really want to start new stuff. I am trying to distract myself all the time so that I am not alone with my thoughts for too long, but I think I need to find new coping mechanisms that doesn’t involve eton mess or cake.
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| Poppa H has goldfish in one of the water butts in the garden. There used to be six but now there's only two. |
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| David has tried his new camping gas stove on the plot and made a MASSIVE vat of coffee which was undrinkable as he didn't have a cup to decant it into. So it went onto the compost heap. |
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| My one true love. Came rushing down the garden 'cuz she thought I was Momma P, then realised who I was and gave me THE LOOK. You can even see her furrowing her brows. >:( |
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| An ichneumon wasp with her ovipositor (egg laying tube), ready to lay eggs in a solitary bee hole. Except she was at the wrong end of the shed and investigating screw holes in the door. |
