Brummagem or Bust: 25 Years!

Decided on a whim that I would post daily blog entries, directly copy & pasted from the diaries I typed up. Every word written is by Momma P. I'll try and include relevant photos from the day too. This will be a daily entry until the middle of August so I hope you enjoy me being all sentimental and gushy. Some of it is very matter-of-fact, some of it is more wordy, but it's 100% what Momma wrote.

Living in Saudi was a big part of my life and I honestly do miss it every damn day. Every day. 

So - 

Thursday 30^th May 1996

Start 9:15am after three hours packing. Taif 800km.

Dave Friday came with us 100km. Took us 1hr to do 43k as we had to find a garage with air pump! Permission to travel says cross border on 31^st May! No chance. Only Taif by then, then onto Tabuk, then Haditha to cross. Probably Sunday morning hopefully.

Stopped at 11 for wee & water at a gas station. Left 11:40.

One horse town – Main street, mosque, a couple of car repair shops!

11:57. Taif 671k.

Strange mud flow hills to right of road. Taif 530k.

Flat plains with lots of green scrub. Loads of camels & shoats (clicky for wiki). Villas in back of nowhere – can’t see what livelihood people have here apart from camels.

3:20pm. Toilet stop at SASCO garage, family restaurant so we had chicken & rice, water, 4 teas – full of sugar and with bonny evap!, sprite for kids – 4 bottles, all cost 36SR!

3:45pm. Left this houses of delicacies; I sat in the back and Richard in front to give him a break from Lauras chatter! (Have I packed my jewellery?)

Laura in front. Emily and Richard enjoying themselves singing to her Walkman – one ear plug each!

4 o’clock. 454k to Taif.

Large obvious river bed, mud & puddles, must have been an amazing sight when full. Lots of hills, starting to climb now – I know this as my feet are swelling. 438k.

The road is fenced, no chance yet to look for a campsite.

5:30. Just passed a junction and noticed that the fence is no longer there so we have decided to halt now for the night in case we can’t get off the road! We shall not pitch the tent; just use the beds and mattresses.

7o/c. I’m writing this – all else scouring the desert for wood.

We shall have sausage & egg, or burgers. Emily is having chicken cup soup.

Did not eat – still full from c&r. Bed by 9. Awake again at 10.10 due to lorries thundering past on the road.

Highlights from the Past Week

There’s a couple that spring to mind.

1.       We got married! Third time lucky as we were originally planning for a pre-christmas wedding, and then an early spring date, and then finally it was all rescheduled to late spring and in a whirlwind of anxiety, it was all done and over within about ten minutes.

Second highlight is something that I’ve been lusting after for a while but hadn’t seen any UNTIL THIS WEEK and oh boy was it worth it.

2.       Salt n vinegar quavers!!! Best flavour ever, and I finally found some – in The Range by the checkout. We don’t have a corner shop around here but if we did I’m sure they would also have them.

And that’s it. Them’s the highlights.

I guess seeing my brothers was also nice.

And we went to the seaside.

And we went on a funny colour railway.

And we spent £40 on chish and fips at Harry Ramsdens and the fish was looooooooooovely but I’d have preferred to have chips from our local with it instead.

And Momma P and I done did the guttering on my allotment shed.

All in all it was a good nine days off!

J.O.M.O

Or, the joy of missing out. Estranged sibling of FOMO, fear of missing out.

I decided this week to take a break from twitter & Instagram. I have deleted one and blocked access to the other. I still use them for work though so it’s not as fool proof as planned. Anyhoo, I am not using them personally. I am still not using personal faceache very much, I only really use it to share blog links now.

Muscle memory is a very real thing and it takes every ounce of my being to not immediately get onto twitter as soon as I come downstairs in the morning. I have started doing a few games of solitaire instead. On my phone. So I’m still using my phone but trying to wake my brain up with games rather than twitter.

I am also working on my puff stitch crochet blanket as a way to keep my hands occupied. Can’t scroll while you hook.

We had some bad news about a friend recently and we’re both anxious about varying other things – namely a wedding that is happening soon. We’re both convinced that one of us is going to abandon the other at the altar. I don’t even know if there is an altar. I can’t abandon him. I don’t know my way home and he’s driving.

Slow life is good. I’m having an admin week this week for work so I am not out with groups, but am instead sat in front of a laptop all day catching up on fun things like risk assessments, report writing, e-learning, and scheduling the next months worth of social media auto-posts. Fun fun fun! But given the weather, I’d rather be inside than out.

We’ve had our rental inspection this week and she said nothing about the nudey gnomes on the mantel but did say she was very impressed with what I’ve done to the garden and how good it looks. Good job I’m a gard’ner then ain’t it.

Trying to slow down a bit. Social media is very rapid and frantic and likelikelikelikelikelikelike and full of cliques and cliches and I fit into none of them. I keep looking out the window as I write this. I want to be DOING STUFF in the garden and the allotment but the weather is crap and I have no money and I need money and guttering clips and timber to make window frames for the shed.

I’ve had a tension headache for two whole days now. I’ve been growing out my nails ready to file and shape them for the wedding but I broke two today so I bit the rest off. I have also trimmed my nose hair, so that’s something.

End ramble. 

My head hurts.

Very pink.

Allotment Life: April 2021

The big news for this month – SHED!! It arrived at the allotment on St Georges Day at 8:30am and we left site at 8pm. David and his son Sam built it for me, and I helped them after work with the roof panels. I LOVE HIM SO MUCH. So I now have a shed!! It’s HUGE!! 10x8ft! Honestly it’s massive. It’s almost as big as two of my old sheds put together. I have emptied my polytunnel and moms polytunnel and put all of my stuff in it, and some other bits and pieces (lengths of guttering and pipes) and there’s still enough room to sit in it and be able to socially distance. It. Is. Huge. Need to decide what colour to wallpaper the inside. I am going to get some faux flagstone effect lino flooring to go down in it (easier to sweep than the wooden floor it comes with, and looks well posho), and I am slowly building shelves using offcuts from the decking as brackets and pieces of timber for the actual shelf. Entertained myself building a tool rack so nearly everything has its place now.

What else happened in April? Shed kinds tops everything to be honest.

·       Momma P planted my potatoes & first load of peas

·       I sowed more carrot, parsnip & spring onion seed in the double height bed and covered it over to stop the birds digging

·       We planted up a herb bed

·       Painted all of the raised bed timber

·       Sowed wildflower meadow seed mix in the gaps between raised beds

·       I laid four massive paving slabs on sand, bedded them in AND got them all flat and level

·       Planted about 100 leek seedlings

·       Finished up and built the brassica cage, and planted cauliflower & calabrese, and then sowed carrot & parsnip seed in the middle

·       Put up the shed

·       Painted the shed twice

·       Planted out the first lot of French beans

·       Planted some flowers (artichoke, calendula, tagetes)

·       Watched the birds lots

·       Planted up a wild patch along the other side of the shed in front of the bamboo

The allotment is very much where I’m spending my weekends now – I am back to full time work and have four groups a week now and frankly at the end of the day I am too tired to drive all the way to the plot to do anything. Also, there isn’t actually a lot to do as I get loads done at the weekends. 

At home I have been starting more seeds, ready for planting at the allotment when the plants are big enough. I have done more peas and beans (more is more), courgette, pumpkin, patty pan, flowers, and some mixes of wildflowers.

Hot choca and a cinnamon swirl

Christened the shed with my wee bucket