Red Alert

Day 70 indoors and Jamie & I have reverted to our former selves and spent yesterday playing video games - Landstalker, if anyone remembers that blast from the past! We'd rather be outside nowadays but will stick with the shielding plan, even if this ridiculous government doesn't understand its own vague advice "ooh, little bit of politics".

Today we have more gorgeous blue skies and sunshine. We really have had beautiful Spring weather, but I know our fellow gardeners are crying out for some rain. We had a tiny shower yesterday, but it was cleared away swiftly by the strong winds we've been experiencing in the last week. 

I've been playing with my 'microscope camera'. The images aren't as good as I'd hoped (not exactly microscopic!), but the spikey just-emerging tomato flowers are pretty amazing.

We now have two pepper plants in the kitchen windowsill too. Jamie is still hoping to visit the plot at some point, to plant them out. And he's said he'll sow some of my Gigantes beans too. Another fellow plotholder, Kate, very kindly offered to plant up our allotment now that Neal has dug it. It's a tempting offer, but it'll be good if Jamie gets up there so we've said no, for now.

A bit droopy on arrival. They're happy now

Both our allotment sites are fully leased now, with our biggest waiting lists we've had since the beginning. It's really good to show there's a strong need for communal growing spaces in Hungerford - I wish I was there to meet some of our newcomers, but at least I've seen some great photos of their activity, on social media.

I've done a bit of cooking, I used up some celery sticks to make cream of celery soup on Saturday. I used this recipe, using milk and flour instead of cream.

I fried the finely chopped onion and celery in oak-smoked oil. It's amazing, just like Campbell's condensed soup - it needs scooping out of the jug! Even Jamie likes it - he never normally likes my home-made soup :-)

We're still eating a lot of rhubarb. We actually have brown sugar to bake it and the syrup is delicious. We've discovered that chocolate icecream goes particularly well with rhubarb.

The title is highlighting the fact that this government think we can 'stay alert' to a virus, rather than stay home to protect ourselves and others - Basement Jaxx provide the great song.