Follow You, Follow Me

I hope fellow bloggers will follow me with this idea - it's our journey to the allotment, taking in a few local sights on the way. What's your journey like? We walked up yesterday morning when Hungerford was reasonably bright, though rather chilly.

Across the road by The Bear Hotel. There used to be stuffed bear, with its cub, in the entrance hall :-( I'm so glad times have changed!

Past the war memorial which the River Dun passes by on either side.

A little further towards the High Street and over the Kennet & Avon Canal, with the Rose of Hungerford moored and waiting to take visitors on a trip to Kintbury.

On up the High Street, with the Corn Exchange clock beyond the railway bridge.

Then we take an alleyway to the Croft, with the 'drunken posts' which were erected in 1863.

The Croft is a nice spot with the avenue of trees past the tennis club, bowls club and the Hungerford Club.

Onwards past the Croft Hall, Doctors Surgery and nursery school...

Past St Lawrence's Church, which was built in 1816.

Looking through the churchyard, to the canal boats in the distance.

A little incline under the railway bridge and yesterday there happened to be some sort of parade of about eight tractors - not sure what that was about, but it caused some amusement as each one trundled past.

Under the clematis which is making its way across the road via the telephone wires!

I love the name of this road and the frontage is pretty...

...with bluebells and primroses at the moment.

Further along we reach the Shalbourne Brook, locally known as the Shalbourne Leak. It's a lovely babbling brook which leaks into the canal.

And here we are at the allotment site!

I hope you liked that little walk. Our alternate route is across Freeman's Marsh, which is a lovely area for cattle and wildlife, but takes a bit longer. I chose Genesis for the song title - now over to you!

The Three Bells

Another dull day, but this time no rain so it was slightly less awful. The temperature was reasonably mild too, but a little sunshine would have made a world of difference. I put a filter on this photo of the ash tree - to make it a bit more interesting.

Today I was counting birds for the the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch. I thought they were going to be a no-show, but although numbers were low there were quite a few different species (even the robin wasn't keen on posing though).

For an hour from 3:15 we counted:
 2 x Robin (annoying as we've seen 5 together (fighting) recently)
 1 x Great tit
 3 x Long-tailed tit (we've seen 6 or 7 of these together before)
 1 x Pheasant
 1 x Wren
 1 x Blue Tit
 1 x Blackbird
So, not great but not too bad either. I didn't count the two swans which flew over; I heard the lovely noise their wings make but couldn't get to my camera in time. On the walk to the site we spotted this little squirrel in the churchyard - I know some people don't like grey squirrels, but I do.

We spent the rest of the time doing more tidying and filled the fourth dalek compost bin mostly with old stalks of sweetcorn - chopped and mashed up a bit to break down easier/quicker. Jamie packed a load of stones in around the compost bins - perhaps it will help keep the rodents out. By the time we were ready to leave it was getting dark, so we had one more cuppa and picked our veg (leeks and the giant swede) and walked home.

The church (St Lawrence) was all lit up and the bells were ringing so it earns a photo for looking so pretty.

I think it is a Swede - Best of All (from Kings Seeds)

I was fully expecting the swede to have brown heart (caused by boron deficiency) as a couple of our roots have had traces of it, but it was perfect all the way through and weighed over 1kg! It's currently being made into swede & leek soup with the addition of smoked paprika as on first tasting it was a little bland - now I understand why 'swede soup' always includes lots of other veggies!

Jamie's using the other leeks tonight in a sausage and leek dish and is making leek and potato cakes tomorrow. Still plenty more to go though...

So, today's song is... not very related to this post, but there are bells in it and it explains why I did what I did to the tree photo (the singers are The Browns). Also I love this song, though the male singer is a little bit creepy :-)

All Routes Lead to the Allotment

Ooh, that's a chilly wind out there! We went to the allotment with a plan and stuck to it but I was happy to be on the way home when I took this photo in the St Lawrence Churchyard - it's looking so pretty at the moment with daffodils, snowdrops and crocus.

On the allotment we now have about 20 cloves of garlic planted (too cold to count) in the little raised bed. I sprinkled onion fertiliser around and dug a bit in before pushing the garlic in, just below the surface.

Here are the leeks that Jamie pulled and we also got some sprouts for tomorrow's dinner. Tonight we've got leeks and Quorn lardons (like little bits of bacon, without the piggy) in a cheese sauce, topped with potato - yum yum!

I pulled some carrots (which are way past their prime, even though they're Eskimo). They're rather slug/fly eaten and the two-legged monster may be rather tough... I may make soup, but haven't got any onions. I may use some of the miso we have left over from Chinese New Year - if the carrots are ok once I've chopped them up. Or I may just have a bath instead :-)

This blogpost got me thinking about the various routes we walk to reach our Marsh Lane allotment (as you probably know, this may be the last year for this particular site). It's pretty much a mile from home no matter which route we take.

• We can walk along the canal towpath from the High Street
• and cut through the Churchyard
• or walk along further to the lock
• We can walk across Freeman's Marsh, along the River Dun and then cross the canal
• We can walk up the High Street
• under the railway bridge and go past the library (currently under threat of closure due to Government funding cuts) 
• or cut through The Croft past the Hungerford Club

What a lovely location we have, but, if we need to move so-be-it. I'd rather have a permanent site, in a not-so-pretty area than go through this lease debacle every year or so! The Council and HAHA are working on a plan - well, there's a workparty which I'm a member of so hopefully we will get something worked out.. soon.