Just a Little Bit Longer

We don't need to move to have a lovely new view from our window for a few weeks and the weather has been so dreary that it’s been a welcome spot of brightness even during the day.

Hmm, what else has happened over the last week... well, I had a day off and went to a shop... it was self-service so I didn’t really feel the COVID-shopping experience. I did get to cook the one and only spaghetti squash that we grew this year - it didn’t get looked after as much as it normally would, which I guess is why it only produced the one fruit, but it was quite a big one. I had two meals of it as Jamie doesn’t like it. It was so delicious with Spanish spicy beans and topped with cheese.

Halved and cooked cut-side down for 45 minutes at 180°, then filled and put back in the oven for 15 minutes was just right for keeping the ‘spaghetti’ firm. For the last 15minutes I pricked the skin to let the juices escape.

I also made some thick and tasty chilli, carrot and coriander soup. I’m missing our usual supply of home-grown carrots and squash, we’re so used to eating loads at this time of year, so I put a shopping order in with Jamie 😊 (He's looking forward to me getting the corona virus vaccine before him so that I have to do the shopping!)

We had a couple of hours on the allotment yesterday. It wasn’t foggy, like Saturday, but it was very dull. I cleared the bean poles away and put all the runner bean stalks into the compost bins. Look at that root! I’ve never seen them grown thick like that before and it had a really strong smell of runner beans.

We were watching the birds while we sat having a cup of choca-mocha in the polytunnel. 

The robin was enjoying finding grubs where I’d moved a large pot and these goldfinches were chirping away in the trees in the hedge.

And now a question for you growers. I saw this on Facebook: 

Is my globe artichoke actually a cardoon? I hope someone can tell me! Or maybe I just need to chop off some of those stems to taste them  - what do you think?

We’ve just watched the Hungerford Virtual lights switch on video. Fun to see so many plotholders who are involved in other town groups. Our HAHA Happy Christmas is around 14mins 20secs if you can’t sit through the lot 😁 And the beautiful Hungerford Christmas lights are on - yay, we can see a couple from the flat but I think we'll have to take a wander up the high street one evening next week.

So, Jackson Browne provides the song title with a little poetic licence, just a little bit longer in Lockdown#2, a little bit longer till Christmas and a little bit longer till the vaccine is available to us - hooray, lots to look forward to!

Walk of Life

What a busy weekend that was!

We've finally planted everything, (oh, excet the brassicas): the Rocky cucumbers are in the tall pots in the front of the photo and a Jack Be Little pumpkin is to the right. This is Plot3 and we've put the mesh up for the spaghetti squash and the Cucamelon to clamber up. My sister gave it to Jamie for his birthday. It's such a tiny plant, hope it grabs the mesh soon and holds on tight!

We've had no rain, lots of heat and plenty of sunshine so have needed to water every day, but it's worth it with everything growing well. The Pickwick dwarf runners have produced masses of flowers and the beans are on their way now...

I wore Jamie's pedometer and walk about 5km everytime we have a watering session, so good practice for the 5km Race for Life walk I did in Oxford with my workmate Ruth on Sunday - I wasn't going to attempt running it. I so love Oxford that I had to take a few photos. Looks good with all the walkers wearing pink (not quite all). It supports all cancers now, not only breast cancer and these events raise a huge amount of money for research.

After having an amazing Paneer naan wrap from Kebab Kid on the Cowley Road I went home and, you guessed it, we needed to water the allotment. The High Street was closed off for Hungerford Carnival so we wandered up and stayed to watch the floats. We saw a few of our plotholder friends in the parade and watching it. Maybe next year we'll be organised enough to have a HAHA float...

We watered everything in the hot evening air, everything looking beautiful around us.

There were 7 Red Kites flying overhead! And so many butterflies fluttering by.

So pleased that some of the freesia bulbs, planted in Spring, have flowered. The fragrance is amazing.

Ivan has stripped down all his pea plants, so gave us his "left-overs". We made a delicious pea soup with garlic, onion and vegetable stock.

So that's another long weekend over - I took Monday off as a recovery day. This hot weather is so gorgeous but it wears me down a bit these days, luckily I have a week off very soon!

The song is by Dire Straits, with such a ground-breaking video in its day!