Something for the Weekend

I've had a lovely Bank Holiday weekend. I visited my mum in her new care home in Devon staying with my sister, Carolyn, on the hottest bank holiday on record. As if Devonshire sunshine wasn't enough, the nursing home grounds were being used for a big party!

The live music, 1500+ people, a jug of Pimms and sunshine made for a fun afternoon.

My mum's room was very close to the stage so the music was incredibly loud but she enjoyed it and it didn't go on late into the evening. By the next day it was all cleared and there was little evidence of what had gone on the day before.

Before the party we went for a long walk along the Tarka Trail beside the tidal estuary of the River Taw.

Lovely scenery and interesting rock formations as well as lots of seabirds to look at - mostly gulls, oyster catchers and a curlew. We walked back past a lovely field of corn and sunflowers.

And an amazing field planted up with flowers for wildlife. Beautiful.

Both evenings we ate our meal in Carolyn and Paul's lovely garden.

They have a raised bed with veggies and I am envious of their nasturtiums which we must try growing on the allotment again next year.

The evening didn't exactly get cold but it was fun having the fire and watching the bats fly around us and the dark sky above North Devon was so clear that I saw two satellites (not the International Space Station). I've only seen them in Tenerife before.

Paul put his telescope up on the clearest night and we saw Saturn! Amazing to see it 'live' after seeing so many pictures of it. And, using his strong binoculars, we saw two of Jupiter's moons - another first for me, very exciting!

Then on my final day we took my mum out and, along with lots of other people, we watched The Legendary Grand Tour Mini rally as it drove past the manor - apparently the mini is 60 years old this year.

We think there were about 300 minis, decorated and tooting their horns.

My mum's hat blew off and went under a mini :-D Luckily it went between the wheels and survived' causing much amusement to onlookers :-)

But then I had to drive home. Luckily the journey home only took 3 hours, not the 5 hours it took to get there - the M5 was slightly less busy. Devon is so green compared to Berkshire; I couldn't resist stopping to take a photo of the stunning scenery.

And I do like to see windmills.

Today I planted up the cuttings from their beautiful buddleja which attracted so many butterflies in their garden - I hope they survive and we get more than just white butterflies on the allotment over the next few years..

Divine Comedy provide the song title.

Clocks

Yesterday was the first time I've visited the allotment in 3 weeks! It was a good visit because we had a really good Autumn Workday to clear up the site and, although it was really cold, it was a bright sunny start to the day and we had a big bonfire to get rid of all the broken/rotten wood and hedge clippings.

With lots of helpful volunteers ...

Clearing...

Tidying...

Burning...

They're staring at the sky because there were lots of red kites and buzzards swooping over the site.
Very impressive to see

Eating...

A little more eating...courtesy of Richard's master BBQ-ing skills.

And a bit of drinking - Ivan brought some of his Apple and Blackberry & Apple wine along.

We achieved plenty and were so pleased that it was dry, as we needed the warmth of the fire when the sun went in.And I think the phrase 'Work Party' is very appropriate :-)

The previous weekend we had the HAHA versus Hungerford Twinning Association skittles match. The HTA organised the event last year, so we hosted this year. All the attendees brought food for the buffet - what a lovely spread!

There was a good turnout and it was a lot of fun. The raffle meant that we also managed a bit of fundraising for HAHA. We won the cup, so HTA will have to try again next year.

Jamie has been visiting the plot occasionally to pick some veg - we've had the last of the peppers and tomatoes. We pulled Pentland Javelin from one of the potato bags - a good amount of tubers, but they weren't that tasty. The Nicola that we had recently were much tastier.

Oops, there's that cup again :-)

Squashes have provided me with some nice meals including this one stuffed with marinated tofu and black rice.

I'm currently making Festival squash soup for next week's lunches. We saw a good Japanese TV programme about squashes the other day; I'm roughly copying one of their recipes - I've removed the seeds but left the skin on: the squash, garlic, fried onion, salt and pepper are all in the pan with some water bubbling away. The skin has completely softened and I've just tasted it..mmm

No need for any additional flavouring - just a quick blitz and a little more water, - so sweet and smooth, perfect! The skin adds to the aroma (apparently) so it's best to leave it on.

The title is provided by Coldplay - the clocks have gone back today and it's beginning to feel a lot like Winter...

Yesterday

Today we visited the plot where Jamie sowed some more broad beans (3rd time lucky?) and all I did was made some coffee :-D The ground was too wet to do anything after the 15mm  of rainfall we had overnight.

 

But yesterday was the 1st of April - it wasn't raining and look! That's the Sun up there...

What? Can't you see it? There it is...

Yesterday, we managed to do some digging during our 3 hour stint on the allotment. Aah, it's good to be back at it.

We were mostly digging out tiny Valerian seedlings which are EVERYWHERE after we decided it was a good idea to grow some last year - it was pretty, but be warned... do not grow it on an allotment!
This is the type of new growth we want to see... our shallots have nearly all emerged.

At least on a rainy Easter weekend I managed to get lots of HAHA administration done - I even updated the website which I've been meaning to do for months (or perhaps a bit longer...).

 And I made myself some soup... that's the last parsnip of the year and nearly the last of the leeks, still a few more carrots to go.

 

I'm including this photo because I like the colour progression.

And today's blog title is Yesterday by The Beatles... Because yesterday we managed some proper allotmenting for a happy change.

Setting Sun

We were actually on the plot for over 3 hours this afternoon. OK, so not quite all of it working, but most of it... We had a welcome break with fellow plothoholder, Ivan, drinking his quince wine (Japanese quince, Japonica) and warming ourselves over the barbecue embers as the sun was sinking below the treeline.

It was a cold day but quite pleasant in the Winter sun and we had a plan - to move the compost bins from Plot 7 to Plot 3 and we achieved it. It was very tiring; lifting, wheelbarrowing and mixing - we each covered about 6km including the walk to and from the site.

We uncovered this lot while we were moving the bins... That ruined their hibernation but I'm sure some thrushes will be happy to find them where we flung them over the hedge! I'm pleased to say we didn't find any mice or rats.

Composting is so satisfying. All three bins had enough fully composted to fill a whole other bin which we'll use in our bean trench a bit later in the year.

The remaining unrotted compost we mixed up with some manure and more plot waste. We have plenty more to add, including some giant beets and more sweetcorn stalks. It's so great to create lovely organic compost from waste.

So now Plot7 has an empty spot... hmmm, what to fill it with this year...?

Well, we have had some seeds delivered, but these are mostly for our squash grotto, which needs a lot more work.

Title song provided by the excellent Chemical Brothers

Firestarter

Our first visit to the plot in nearly 4 weeks and only a fleeting one at that. So much needs to be done... But not today, because this morning we were helping tidy the Fairfields site, which HAHA also manages. The other volunteers had a great fire burning by the time we arrived.

There are plans to improve the water collection system in the new year but today was about clearing and chopping back the ivy that tries to take over the whole site - luckily we found Neal just in time 😃

Coffee and delicious home-made cakes made the morning pass quite happily and later in the afternoon we walked back to Marsh Lane to collect the one and only Giant Pink Banana squash that grew. I'm hoping there will be enough undamaged flesh to make soup - it's about the size of a rugby ball so there should be... You can see that the yellow spaghetti squash was too badly affected by the frost so that's been composted.

And here's evidence again that the glass gem corn certainly had potential if only we'd cared for it better..

So, tomorrow we have a proper allotment day planned and the GRAND OPENING of our lottery-funded composting toilet - there it is in the background. But more on that tomorrow...

The Prodigy provide the great title track..