Drouth

Drouth: Scots word meaning "a terrible thirst"

And that describes my allotment plot.

It also described me the day after D and I went out for our anniversary...! Oh, it was a GOOD night. In a dress for once, as I spend my life in jeans, we went (First Class!) to Glasgow and to a wine bar for Champagne! A wine bar!!

To let you understand, D is an old rocker, long hair, tattoos, a penchant for loud rock music and so when we go out we invariably go to a rock pub where the music is good but the wine is like vinegar... And I have to say I am a terribly conservative drinker and about the only alcoholic thing I'll drink is Chardonnay and I am fairly particular (read snobby) about what kind of Chardonnay at that. Now, when we're in the USA or Canada, their range of Chardonnays is phenomenal (I discovered Okanagan Valley Chardonnays a year ago in Canada and was just blown away by how delicious they were), and so I am spoiled for choice whenever we go there. In Scotland though, unless you're in an actual wine bar, you only get offered red or white wine, or if you ask for Chardonnay, they usually just give you the house Pinot Grigio and it's pretty grim stuff.

But, sorry, enough of my drinking habits, we had Champagne! And then, after a few glasses we yomped (that is another feature of nights out with D, walking miles) to a fish restaurant where we were thrilled that our waitress was from Minnesota and chatted to her for a while about places to visit at some point, and then enjoyed a sensational meal.

Back to the wine bar for more Champagne and then train back and to bed.

A really wonderful night out, but the next day... We were droothy neeboors* indeed!

And, despite the amount of rain we've had, the allotment is still dry as dust. It's just so strange. HOWEVER, and I'll pause here for a fanfare, we have growth! Seedlings making a tentative appearance! I have resorted to plastic bottles covering as many seedlings as I can, especially the turnips and peas.

Talking of peas, have a look at this picture.

See the nibbles around the edge of it? I'm guessing it's mice. I don't really grudge them, they were there first, but you know, I'd quite like to give the seedlings a chance so at least for their first few leaves I'll cover them up.

This is how the allotment is looking just now. It's getting there but taking it's time, and I think the funny weather has a lot to do with it. It rained a LOT yesterday but I still had to water the plot because the wind was so strong it just dried the ground out again almost instantly.

Anyway, at least it's a lot less weed-y than it was thanks to hours spent after work on my hands and knees! I don't mind weeding like that actually as it gives me a chance to really see how things are doing.

We took some chard the other day for a chicken, tomato, bacon and cream dish, and it was really lovely, cooked down a treat, and added some gorgeous colour. It's chard ruby-lights so there are some of the plants that glow like a light's being shone through them.

Gorgeous.

More allotmenteering this weekend as we plan on constructing big tunnel-like structures for the brassicas so hopefully it'll stay dry and calm enough for us to put them up.

Tonight though, to celebrate Friday and the fact that D is in Glasgow to see a band, I have a bottle of wine, something lovely for dinner planned, Downton Abbey on Blu Ray, and I'm all set.

Enjoy your weekend, whatever you end up doing :-)




*Droothy neeboors - from Robert Burns' "Tam O'Shanter"

Jiggered

There is, it seems, a Scots word appropriate for every occasion, and today's is "jiggered"! Meaning: exhausted, tired out, in need of a wee sit down and a cuppa!

And the reason for this jiggeredness? The sun, which made an appearance today (hat on and everything, hip hip hip hooray!) prompted me to get a load of laundry hung out, AND to dig out the hen run, weeding at the allotment, and in amongst all that, the paid job.

Now, digging out the hen run is bloody hard work, as it's a case of digging out the contents of the run, bagging it, and then pouring in fresh woodchip. There's an estate (as in country with big house) who process wood, make stuff out of it, and sell mulch and fresh woodchips as a by-product. And they deliver for free to local homes, for wood stoves, gardens etc but we use the unmulched woodchip for the hen run.

But it needs replaced every so often to keep things fresh, so I bit the bullet today and dug out the old and poured in the new. And doesn't it look wonderful?! All fresh and clean and pale. The hens love it because it's new things to dig through, and because when I throw bird seed and mealworm it's difficult for them to find at first, so they have to do a lot of digging. They're very industrious and diligent diggers, and take it all very seriously. Dig dig dig, step back for a second to have a scan of what has been uncovered, then dig dig dig again. I always imagine they have the theme from Chariots Of Fire playing while they dig, and slow-motion to really emphasise each powerful back-kick of the leg, woodchip flying willy-nilly behind them. They dig enormous holes each day, and backfill them the next. They are gloriously self-important about it all. Goodness knows how that rowan tree has survived without being completely dug out, but it's about 12 feet tall now after just a couple of years, so it can't mind too much.

And the beauty of the woodchip is this wonderful cycle it's part of. Starts as a tree, goes into our hen run, and once it's used it goes, along with the plentiful amount of poop produced by the hens, into the compost bins, where it rots down beautifully, or direct onto vacant plant beds to rot down gradually, and then both compost or plant beds produce beautiful and healthy plants.

Once I'd done the hen run, I had the bit between my teeth and went to the allotment to weed for a couple of hours and to lament over the dry-as-dust earth and lack of growth. Hardly any seeds are germinating, a solitary carrot or fennel, and no yellow beetroot at all. I suspect I have mice there too: there are tiny little bites out all around the edge of the pea seedlings, very neat, and I don't really grudge the mice a meal, but I'm loathe to encourage them, so I plonked cut-off plastic bottles over the inch high pea seedlings to give them a chance.

But it's not all doom and gloom there: I planted out courgette plants (Take 2, if there's another frost I will really sulk), and the potatoes are doing well. Onions are bulging beautifully, raspberry bush is, erm, spreading, and the brassicas are doing so well I'm going to have to think about concocting a Heath Robinson-esque cover as the cloche tunnels they're in are just too small now. The kale I protected with plastic bottles have re-emerged and are hopefully now big enough and ugly enough to make it on their own.

But, as you can imagine, after all that, I'm a bit wiped.

Dinner tonight (D's in Wales with work for a few days so I'm on my own and making a concerted effort to eat (usually when he's not about I forget, and you can imagine why when you see what I get up to through the day)), was Nigel Slater's Red Peppers stuffed with Pork Mince, Rosemary and Garlic. Dear reader, I urge you to try it (it was in The Guardian too): it was so sublime I'm going to have it again tomorrow too.

For now, it's Lola's time to lie beside me on the sofa and watch Springwatch. I have a glass of wine and an early night planned.

It was a good day :-)

Empty nest

This is the image from the Aberfoyle Osprey nest. There's something badly wrong with this picture, and it's the fact that there is no bird sitting there. The first chick was due to hatch by now, and we should be seeing an attentive mother bird protecting a tiny chick from the elements and a proud dad coming in with fish.

Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the female seems to have abandoned the nest, and there is no clue as to why. There have been intruders, but not to the extent that it would cause her to leave the nest. She'd been taking leaves of absence which had made everyone watching nervous, but now seems to have left it completely. Due to the chilly weather and wind, it's almost certain that the un-hatched chicks will have died.

It's very, very sad. This is the third year running that this nest has failed, with different birds.

From a visual point of view, the staff at Aberfoyle will set up a camera at a back-up nest which will hopefully have chicks hatching out for people to see, but it is a mystery as to why this particular nest has suffered three consecutive years of failure. It's also perhaps a reminder that nature is pretty damned cruel, and how precarious the lives and success of the osprey in Scotland is.

Thrawn

We had "scunnered" last entry, now let me introduce you to another fine Scots word: "thrawn".

Stubborn and willful.

Something I think can be applied to all gardeners. After setbacks you have to sulk and ruminate for a wee bit and then, set the jaw, pick up your trowel and start again. Apparently I have a real jaw-set which my nearest and dearest know means "don't argue, she's made her mind up and you'd be better keeping out of her way!"

I think Nature is the same though. She just does what she has to do, and despite the weather and the storms, it's heartening to see the apple trees forming tiny apples. I think these are lovely, little tangible symbols of hope, these hop-sized fruits.

D spent this morning putting together a new growhouse for me, wood and polycarbonate and hopefully more sturdy than the polythene one.

(I took the remains of the other one to the recycling centre where there were two other scunnered individuals dumping the mangled remains of their greenhouses - we exchanged rueful eye-rolling as we tipped the metal into the scrap metal skip). The rectangular planter I had the tomato plants in was just too small, so I transplanted them into individual large pots and put them in the new growhouse - with temperatures just 10 degrees I figure they'll appreciate the protection. There wasn't much root that came with them though - that's a bit worrying... I tell you, these tomatoes, if they appear, will be the most expensive ones ever - remind me why I don't just simply say "sod-it" and head to the supermarket??

Or, indeed, to our local farm shop? Our lovely garden centre, Hopetoun, has today opened a farm shop. And it is lovely. Unusual condiments (lots of variations on balsamic dressings - and samples to try); seafood and smoked fish from St Monans in Fife; a fantastic bakery and deli, with things like venison chorizo, air-dried venison ham, pheasant balmoral (haggis wrapped in pheasant), artisan breads, free-range chicken and ham pies, locally made cheeses; a selection of not-normally available to buy cookbooks, locally made sweets, artisan dairy products and a butchery where the produce is farmed in the fields around the shop, and everything is labelled "Estate". There are jointed chickens and whole ones, all free range, all from just a mile away from the shop.

We bought a load of stuff, amongst which was some smoked salmon trimmings, and when we got home, I rustled up a couple of quiches with the glut of eggs we currently have, with smoked salmon, the last of the garden's purple sprouting broccoli and asparagus. And they are heavenly. I've put them in the freezer and they'll do lunches for a week or a trip to see friends in Fife where it's a communal buffet.

Chelsea Flower Show

First of all, hi to Susan Allan who follows this blog for her encouragement following yesterday's fed-upedness :-)

I spent a wee while this afternoon tidying up the pots and dismantling the greenhouse frame so the garden looks a bit better. Still can't find the seedlings though, or any sign of the pots and trays they were in. How can it be that the empty plastic pots are still here and the heavy soil filled ones have vanished??

I've decided to get a big plastic tub, the lidded kind you use for storing kids' toys, to keep the pots in.  And I'll recycle the pots I really am not going to use by giving them to Hopetoun Garden Centre.  Looking on the positive side, the new greenhouse arrangement will give me a little bit more room on the patio so I can put the sun loungers out now and also the gazebo out to shade us from the blistering sun... *cough*

But, if it's cold and blowy here, it's sunny and warm (if a bit blowy) in Chelsea where I tune in to get my annual garden-fashion show fix. I've never been, but I gather that watching on TV is the best idea, particularly with the interactive options available and the Internet. Going in person is apparently a bit of an endurance test as it's usually so warm and so busy. Watching from the comfort of my sofa means I avoid the crowds and the aching feet. Plus of course it gives you the chance to see the gardens uninterrupted.  So yes, Chelsea Flower Show on the telly, a glass of wine in my hand, and I'm in heaven.

I admit to being a bit of a boring gardener, inasmuch as I prefer classic/traditional gardens, and colour. I'm not big on the fashion of a few years ago where everything was green, green, and variations on green. Similarly, things like Diarmuid Gavin's lollipops for the National Lottery, his "sky garden" for Cork Tourist Board etc, just don't do it for me. I can appreciate the concept, and the thinking behind it, but for me a garden is about the plants: the structures should be the framing, the support, the punctuation, but not the point of the garden.

But I love seeing what the new plants are in the Pavilion, and the combinations used in the big gardens.

This year, as always there are gardens I just love and which I covet. 

I love this one, because I love the rill that winds exactly the same way water does on damp sand on its way to the ocean.

The Laurent Perrier (always a gorgeous garden)have a planting plan I just love with the faded crimson irises - I would have an iris bed if I could

Absolutely stunning combinations


And I love this because, it combines fruit, veg and flowers, the perfect cottage garden

When I think of cottage gardens I think of  a Mellors-esque garden where everything is stuffed together and the veg is as ornamental as the flowers. A modern and middle-class conceit I suppose, because we, or I, don't have the same worries about the success or otherwise of my crops.  I do at some point want a fair bit more land, but at the same time, having a tiny amount (with the allotment) forces me to garden like I would like to/should live: to cram everything worthwhile and enjoyable in...

Scunnered

Scunnered, if you haven't heard the phrase, is a Scots word meaning: "fed up, annoyed, hacked off"

And the reason for that is that yesterday the country was hammered by winds up to 100mph and the destruction is just... Depressing...

Loss of life was minimal, and that's the main thing, and my heart goes out to the good people of Missouri who have been so badly affected by tornados :-(

Yesterday on the way home a lorry overturned in front of me on the motorway, causing major delays which were compounded as the storm blew trees over and closed main arterial road, rail, and air routes in the country.

A lucky break (in the guise of a heavily pregnant woman driving the car behind me on the motorway which persuaded the police to get her, and consequently me, out and on our way) allowed me to get home many hours before the poor people stuck on the road behind us. When I opened the gate though I was met, rather violently, by the greenhouse, which had torn off its chains tying it to the fence, and lifted it bodily away from the bags of earth weighing it down. The polythene cover and light frame effectively acted as a sail, and before I cut off the cover, I was borne aloft a few times and battered around the garden by the greenhouse. All the plastic pots were flying like confetti around the garden and the car park, and worst of all, the seedlings I'd been nurturing were flung out and ruined.

I still haven't found them.

I managed to locate a flat tray I'd left some aster seedlings as a stand-by, and miraculously about 4 of them are all right. I found two courgette seedlings in the hedge, so they're now back in intensive care in the house. The pea seedlings are just - well, they could be in Norway for all I know. The tomatoes are now exposed to the elements (and they are not happy). My poor, beautiful delphiniums are snapped, and my acer, oh, the poor dear, lost a branch, her second in the space of 6 months :-(

All the pots are now in the house, the greenhouse cover is in the cloakroom, the seed trays in the hall.

The hens though, are fine. Traumatised and outraged at the missiles that flew their way, but they're okay. And that is obviously the main concern when dealing with garden damage.

It's all just so... demoralising. All that work and hope just obliterated in a few hours. I've said earlier that it's a mistake I do make is seeing where my plants *should* be instead of where they are realistically going to be based on where I live. It might be pea harvesting season in the south of England but up here, they're inch high seedlings and unlikely to crop for another couple of months yet.

But stuff like this storm and the continuing windy and cold spell does highlight the brevity of the growing season here and concentrate the mind as to what can be grown.

On the plus side, we nipped to the Allotment and the shed is still standing, and all our little fleece/mesh tunnels, so that's something.

We are going to abandon the greenhouse - not the concept, but the polythene one. This is the third year running that we have had seedlings destroyed, so I am now looking at something like a tall cold frame, which is wood and plastic, and hopefully more weighty and sturdy. I really just want something to harden seedlings out and to grow tomatoes in, so it should be okay, but I will have to either rationalise my plastic pot collection or... No, rationalisation it will have to be.

Oh well, them's the breaks I suppose when you garden, no matter where in the world you happen to be. It's successes and setbacks and the thing is to remember the successes and allow them to outweigh the setbacks.

In other words, take a deep breath, onwards. and upwards.

Spring is busting out all over...

(Me with a 5 week old osprey chick)


Very exciting news this morning with the news that the first chick had hatched on EJ and Odin's nest at Loch Garten. This morning I had a look at the webcam and EJ stood up very gingerly to reveal the teeniest, wobbliest wee chick which waggled its head and then collapsed again before EJ manoevred herself with great delicacy back over it to provide it and the other two eggs shelter. It always amazes me, having seen and held ospreys, the size of those talons, how they manage to manoevre their way over these tiny little chicks without stabbing them. It does happen, but it's very rare.

The oldest breeding female osprey, Lady, at Loch of the Lowes, is due to hatch out her 49th, 50th, and 51st chicks over the course of the next few days, and the birds at Aberfoyle aren't that far behind.

So it's all go, and, as as one Loch Garten blogger put it: the rollercoaster ride begins. It's a long 7 weeks until the chicks fledge and in that time, with the Scottish weather, anything can happen. Keep your fingers, toes, legs, eyes, and anything else you can, crossed for a half-decent summer and good fishing!
On Sunday I'm heading to Aberfoyle to do a stint. I'm looking forward to it, though I've found it really hard going this week with work, and am at work again on Monday, so I'm planning a few very, very, early nights next week to help me manage. I'm quite taken aback at how exhausted I'm finding being at work, but then, as well as being at work, I'm doing all the house-work too, so it shouldn't be that surprising. Just need to take it one week at a time I think...

From eyries to earth now - I visited the Allotment yesterday for the first time since the weekend, expecting to see a burst of weeds, but also a burst of growth after the heavy rain of the last few days. I wasn't disappointed on the weed front, the grass has been putting out runners and forming clumps and mats around established veg, and there are rogue potato plants popping up beside new seedlings. Wonderfully though, there are now pea and beetroot seedlings. I had bought some young beetroot plants at the weekend, but a glut of beetroot is never a bad thing in this house as D pickles them, so they have gone in beside the new seedlings.

What amazed me though was the state of the soil: I had expected the rain to have transformed the dry cracked earth into crumbly, workable loveliness, but it seems instead to have activated the clay in the soil which has now hardened. The top layer of the soil is just dust which swirled around in the wind. So trying to yank out weeds meant that the top of it snapped off but the root remained in situ. Maybe it's not rained enough - what a dreadful thought!!
My poor kale seedlings are under attack though, from *something*. Most likely caterpillars as the cabbage white butterflies have been rampant. So I've salvaged D's empty 2L fizzy drink bottles and cut the bottoms off, and have plonked these over the remaining kale seedlings to hopefully prevent further attack. And I gave the last rites to the courgette plants which didn't, after all, survive the frost, so have more seedlings on the go in the house. One of which has an Elastoplast on it after I cleverly managed to snap one of the stems, and I'm living in hope that it wasn't snapped right off and can mend itself!

The weather here has been awful though - we've had gales all week and temperatures barely into double figures, but in reality pegged back by the wind to much colder than that. I'm worried that my greenhouse isn't generating enough heat to keep the tomatoes going, and I resorted to putting a clear polythene bag over the butternut squash plant in the garden. Though I'm thinking that what would be really useful, is a huge clear plastic bottle I can butcher and turn into a cloche/greenhouse thing. Something like offices use on their water-coolers. If you know of anywhere I can get my hands on one, do let me know!
 

Blog award fabulousness

This was awarded to me by the fabulous Caroline at the Numinous Wilds

These are the blogs and bloggers I choose to pay the award forward to:

Freebird's Flight of Fancy
The SmallestSmallholding




And my 7 bits of randomness:

I like tomato ketchup but not tomatoes
I once dislocated my knee doing the Timewarp (it was the jump to the left)
Family lore has it that an ancestor of mine was Lord Mayor of London back in the early Mediaeval ages.
I taught myself to play the piano but can't read music.
I got married up a mountain in Colorado wearing jeans and a T-Shirt
Cats, even strange ones, love me
I was the youngest person at Uni when I first started, having started school at 4.

Answers on a postcard

One our feathered little darlings must have managed to squeeze out under a gap in the chicken wire today.

I was confused though because there was no evidence of an ecstatic, manically digging hen in the veg beds, indeed, all three hens were in their run looking as though butter wouldn't melt.

But the evidence was all to clear, veg beds which were dug over, dug out and dug up. The salad bed with only a few sparse seedlings to show yet: dug so thoroughly I couldn't have done a better job myself - if I'd wanted to...

Clearly she'd got out (my money's on it having been Grizel) and for whatever reason, her teeny brain had told her to get back in to her run again.

What's stumped me is why she totally avoided eating the sprouting broccoli, or the spring greens that we grow specifically for them. Bizarre.

Anyway, the thing is that now I have a salad bed with no salad stuff, an asparagus bed with no asparagus (they were bare root plants which have not taken anyway), and a butternut squash plant which has taken a bit of a battering...

In at the office today to work for the first time in months. It was all meetings and just me trying to catch up on what everyone's been doing. Good gods, but it was exhausting though! Could feel myself really struggling at points and getting quite dizzy... Thankfully I'm working from home tomorrow so a bit less intense.

And if there are any sunny spells I can have a go at repairing the gap in the hen run and seeing what I can salvage/ replant...

Back to work

Today was my first day back at work again after a whopping 15 weeks' sick leave. I guess that isn't that much when compared to other people who have been far sicker than I was. Any rate, today was me doing a phased return, so 4 hours working from home. The time was spent just trying to wade through the emails. I'm surprised by how tiring I found it. I had just blithely assumed that because I was managing round the house and allotment, I would find sitting in front of the PC a doddle. Unfortunately it seems to require a lot more concentration and by the end of the four hours my concentration was waning and I was really tired, more than I'd been in a while.

Tomorrow sees me in the office for four hours, most of which will be spent in catch-up meetings. I hope I can take it all in!

In gardening news, I was amazed and delighted to see flowers on my tomato plants in the greenhouse. Poor things were a wee bit pot-bound since the salad leaves planted as an interim measure in the planters weren't quite ready to be pulled out and the tomatoes planted. However, since I have planted salad stuff outside (though the Gods alone know when they'll actually germinate), the priority in the greenhouse is the tomato plants so I pulled out some of the young plants (and used them in a salad) and stuck the tomatoes in the planters. Fingers crossed there will be some fruits!

Is it just me or is everything really slow to germinate this year? Carrots, peas and beetroot seedlings are taking forever to germinate. I don't know if it's the warm weather which dried out the ground, and I'm hoping that this current wet weather will trigger some action, though it's now turned a lot cooler and very windy... Can't have it all ways I suppose, though warm rain might be nice!

I've a notion to paint our allotment shed. I took a wander round the allotments the other day and there were a few which were brightly painted blue and red. I'm assuming that they sought permission though, checking the rules, there's nothing about regulating paint colour, only that the shed should be maintained. Anyway, I had a look at a coloured varnish selection in Homebase, and I'm really taken with a lovely damson shade. I think I'll nip in to the garden centre and check that it's okay to paint it, and that will be a weekend task. When it stops raining of course...

Neighbours

I spent some time today at the Allotment (between walking my parents' dog every few hours, ferrying hubby to the train station, feeding and cleaning cats and hens) cutting out the limp and blackened foliage which was frost-damaged. There are, thankfully, healthy green shoots coming through on the potatoes, but I fear the courgettes may be terminal...

Our allotment neighbour on the other side made a rare appearance today. Poor couple, they're busy with home and garden commitments and haven't really got the time to deal with preparing an allotment for planting. I'd had my suspicions about the yellowing colour of their weeds and they said to me today that they had been spraying weedkiller on their plot as they hadn't time to really weed :-( I admit I'm disappointed - they did this last year and I can't help but think that if they're so pushed for time they have to resort to weedkiller... I'm also concerned that some of the weedkiller might contaminate my plot. I don't put chemicals on my plot, or garden for that matter, and though it's time consuming and back-breaking work, all weeding is done by hand. I like being able to reassure people to whom I give veg/ fruit to that there are no artificial chemicals used and it's as organic as I can manage (though it wouldn't meet, say, the Soil Association criteria because it's on previously used farmland - and of course because our allotment neighbour uses weedkiller...)

I've told you about the shed at our Allotment haven't I? Because our neighbour across the path had decided not to put up a shed, ours stood exposed to the full fury of the North and Westerly gales, and given that 60mph winds are fairly routine, even in summer, with gusts to 70mph and beyond also being fairly frequent, our poor shed took a fair battering. Once we were able to go back in February to see the damage the Cailleach had caused, we saw that the shed had been blown backwards, and off its plinth. Consequently it had a rather jaunty listing to one side, and there was a knack to opening the door: standing at one side of the shed and pushing it so it (temporarily) righted itself and the door could be hauled open.

When I was engaged in the act of shoving the shed, John, one of our allotment neighbours on one side, stood with mouth agape at the palaver. He came over to investigate and see if there was anything he and his trusty electric hammer drill/screwdriver thing could do. When he was sliding planks of wood under the shed to balance it out, another plot-holder we're friendly with, Jack, a retired joiner, came over to see what was going on and before I could demur effectively, they were both tackling the problem of the shed and how to rectify it.

Half an hour later, our shed is elevated up a few inches, but thanks to the judicial positioning of some planks, a "bracing" on one corner, and some other jiggery-pokery, it is now level and stable and the door can be opened and closed easily. The bits of the shed that had come loose because of the warping, have been securely screwed back into place.

Jack, bless him, is going to fashion a wee plinth to act as both a step and to conceal the props under the shed.

How fab is that? It just reminds me how genuinely kind and helpful people are and how there is a real sense of community in the Allotments.

Now, as Jack says, we have a "proper" shed, a proper allotment shed.

Now to think about how I can pimp it :D

Patience

Ask anyone who knows me and they'll confirm that of all my admirable traits (I do have some, honestly), patience is not one of them. I want to know how things will pan out and I want them to pan out NOW. I'm not good with suspense. I'm the person who reads the end of a book just after starting, so I can relax and enjoy the book. With films, I look up the synopsis so I can enjoy the film without any nasty surprises.

Growing things is just the same. I want to be able to tell, NOW, how the plants will turn out, whether I'll get a good crop, what problems I'm going to encounter and which of those problems I can ignore and which to deal with. Some it's a no-brainer - caterpillars and too much rain/ not enough sun. And, really, I should have been able to foretell - or at the least be prepared for - frost. I was lulled into a false sense of security by the lovely weather, forgetting that it can also be accompanied by vicious overnight frosts, and so I was caught out this week when two nights of temps around zero degrees struck. After the first night I hastened to protect the vulnerable little courgette plants and chard with bubble wrap and fleece. Yesterday the temperature increased considerably and brought persistent heavy rain, so I popped back to the plot today to see how the young plants had fared.

Not so great, to be honest. And not just the seedling plants. The courgette plants have no leaves as the frost killed the leaves off, though the chard seems to be not too bad. The potato plants are just a blackened, wilted mass. Tomorrow I have to go and cut the foliage off to allow them to regenerate - hopefully. I've also taken the precaution of planting more courgette seeds in the house in case the ones in the ground are real goners. Would just be good to be able to tell whether they and the tatties will survive. The good thing is that the potatoes are grown for the underground tubers, but I just hope that the foliage being damaged hasn't affected them.

Would be nice to have a crystal ball and be able to tell how they'll turn out!

Sunshine

And yet another gloriously sunny day :-)

If you're reading this from a country that habitually gets good spells of sun, and has a proper "Summer" then I can only urge you to think about everything you've ever read about Scotland's weather - which is all true, by the way - and then imagine how wonderful this warm sunny weather is for us and why I feel the need to talk about it every blog entry!

So today is a Bank Holiday and that meant D was off work too. Since we'd used up nearly all the bird seed in a futile attempt to quieten the hens yesterday (they hooted and buKAWKed for nearly 5 hours as they all wanted in to lay at the same time), we headed up to Dobbies in Stirling to get some more. Interestingly, I've just thought that we could have gone to the one in Livingston but it never crossed our minds... Hmmmm...

So as usual when surrounded by so many plants I lose my head a bit and decided that their offer to buy four perennials for £10 would be very useful and we could pretty up the front garden. Now of course, back at the casa, I realise that there isn't really the room but I'm sure I can squeeze them in somehow!

I also had a brainwave that enabled me to buy some veg plug plants. The carrot seeds are taking *forever* to germinate (it's probably the dry weather) as is the kale. So I bought some plug plants to provide a crop while the seeds grow and mature, thereby providing a continual cropping. Clever, huh?

So this afternoon we adjourned to the Allotment and while D watered (no hosepipes allowed, only watering cans) I got on with planting out the chard and leek seedlings I'd grown. Also sown some fennel and since I've decided that the peas I sowed are duds, some different pea seeds.

Tomorrow marks the first day of my holidays - my sick leave has now officially ended but I had a few days booked for a trip to Belfast that never happened. So I'm on holiday and it feels... remarkably similar to the last few weeks... I feel I should be doing something "holiday-like" but to be honest I think it'll be like every other day. Maybe going back to work will be good to provide a contrast and let me appreciate holidays more!

Thursday I have decided to go to Aberfoyle and the ospreys. The weather's to change, and D's working from home, so I'm relieved of house and allotment duties. As well, it's the Scottish Parliamentary elections, and a day away from the media coverage seems like a very good plan!

It's been disappointing to see the UK Government's plan to remove the burden on local councils to provide allotments if there's a demand. It doesn't affect Scotland, but it does seem short-sighted when the benefits are so great and there is land which is waste land and is fulfilling no other purpose. Let's just hope that sanity prevails...

Beltane

Well, unless you've been on another planet you can't have failed to notice that there was a wedding yesterday. We had a house guest who gamely put up with the telly being on so I could see the nuptials take place. What can I say? I think the couple seem genuinely happy with each other, and I like weddings, and seeing people being happy, and of course, taking the opportunity to people-watch and point and laugh at some of the god-awful outfits and hats on display. Money, it seems, can't buy good taste. The bridal party though were unsurpassabe, I have to say, I just loved that dress. It was beautiful. White and elegant and slinky. The bride's frock was lovely too :-D.

This might not be traditional wedding season, but it's certainly a season of fertility and sap rising and all that. Today is Beltane. I *should* be not far from William and Kate's alma mater with a lot of Pagans, setting up my chair in a garden and catching up beside a bonfire, before retiring early to catch some zzzz's in advance of a dawn dance round a maypole and jump over the bonfire. Instead I'm at home wih a sore throat and feeling shattered. I didn't want to risk coming down with a lurgy since I have to go back to work in a week. Hey ho. Sense prevails but I'm not exactly thrilled at missing out on a celebration with people whose company I enjoy and whose friendship means so much.

Instead I celebrated Beltane at home, quietly. Myself and D tied red, yellow and golden ribbons onto our apple trees while making wishes with each one, and there's incense and libations poured and in that small way, I feel I've welcomed in Summer. :-)

And - wow - hasn't it just?! It's glorious here. The allotment and garden need daily watering. I spent an hour today cutting down potato foliage and spraying with Bordeaux Mixture as once more, blight seems to have affected them. The crop in the autumn was, well, blighted, which prompted our decision to plant the potatoes in another bed. So I was frustrated to see that the new crop has been affeced too. I'm hoping we caught it early enough to ensure a half decent crop. At least the potatoes in the garden are doing well.

In the field that adjoins the allotments, a farmer has a flock of Jacob sheep, and today I watched as the farmer and his two rough collie dogs rounded up and herded the sheep. It was just like "One Man And His Dog" - brilliant stuff :-)

Tomorrow is May Day - D is taking me out to dinner to celebrate Beltane/ commiserate the enforced change of plans. The Boathouse in South Queensferry - I'm looking forward to it :-)

Confetti

One of those near perfect days today. It's sunny and warm, and the garden is a real sun trap and is blocking out the worst of the breeze which is cool on the exposed fields of the allotment.

I was along at the allotment this morning and planed out the broccoli seedlings, and covered them with the cloche tunnel. I also riddled over the soil in between the broccoli and red cabbage, since the Cavolo Nero and spinach seeds seemed to be doing precious little. The bed was planted with potatoes last year and there seemed little point - or indeed time - in riddling out that enormous bed, so the soil is pretty rough: stony and lumpy. But now part of it at least is soft and crumbly and just begs for you to plunge your hands in it. Or maybe that's just me! Anyway, I've re-sown some spinach and Cavolo Nero, making a note for myself here that I really must cover the kale plants when they grow this year, as last year they were absolutely decimated by caterpillars.

Speaking of caterpillars, we've been seeing a lot of the woolly bear caterpillars around the house. They seem to be migrating just now - we stood and watched one very determined one make fairly swift progress across the street and up onto the grassy verge. They're funny looking things, like their hairy bodies should be poisonous, but they're innocent enough. Apart from wanting to eat my plants of course.

Gardening work is over for today, and probably for a few days in fact as I'm pretty much on top of things for the moment. I've grown impatient at the lack of progress with the peas I planted at the allotment and have sown some in pots in the greenhouse to see if I can start some of there. It could be that it's just a bad lot of seeds - it happens. It happened sigh the sunflowers (Velvet Queen) - only two of them have germinated :-(

A surprise to me in the garden was the emergence of a plant which I'm pretty certain is Bergamot. It certainly has the same kind of foliage and the leaves smell faintly of orange. But I didn't label it, and chances are that it was a seed I sowed last hear and forgot all about it! If it is, it should have the most gorgeous raggedy pinky red flowers and be a real bee magnet.

My laissez-faire approach has spread to some self-seeders in the garden: acqueligias, or "granny's bonnet" as we call them here. I've tended to just let them settle where they may, and they're springing up in between paving slabs and at border edges, and since they're so lovely, and varied, I'm content to just leave them be. Sometimes a haphazard approach to gardening is one that can bring real joy and delight in my eyes. If gardening is humans shaping and controlling Nature, then it's only right that Nature be allowed free reign to some extent :-)

So just now I'm sitting out in the garden, with Classic FM playing out through the open patio doors. The hens are industriously digging through their run - except the one who's in lahiniv and chatting away to herself. The cats have chased off the mouse for the time being. Swallows are nesting in the eves and swooping up and down and chirruping noisily, and blossom petals from the pear tree and one of the apple trees, is floating off in the breeze and covering the patio and beds in a soft sprinkling of confetti...

Easter weekend.

I feel slightly cheated this Easter weekend given that I'm still off sick and therefore can't really enjoy the feeling of having a few days off work! This is my last week off sick, officially I start back on May 2nd, but I've actually booked a few days off as leave so that I start back to work on a Monday and a full week, rather than on the truncated week after the May Day holiday.

As you'd expect, we don't celebrate Easter. There are some Pagans who celebrate Ostara, after a deity named Eostre, but the jury's well and truly out as to her existence. Though I suppose it does then segue into the argument about whether humans create deities out of their own needs/ requirements, or whether the gods exist without any input or need on the part of humans... So while I don't celebrate Ostara, I do acknowledge the Equinoxes, and in a few day's time will be celebrating, in rather spectacular fashion, Beltane.

The weather broke on Saturday with cold wind and pouring rain. Ah well, the Allotment and garden really did need it, and today it was sunny and dry, if not quite as warm as our English and Welsh neighbours have been enjoying.

So there was no gardening on Saturday, but we did make a trip to Edinburgh Farmer's Market. There were more stalls there than on our first trip and some terrific food selections. Given that our freezer is full to bursting, we didn't buy masses of stuff. Just some smoked mackerel, rabbit and apple chutney pie, buffalo stroganoff burgers, pork and marmalade sausages, and some pheasant breasts with basil and tomato dressing. Oh, and some tablet which is just EXACTLY like the stuff we remember when we were kids. And our dentists probably did too.

Allotment yesterday though, gotta keep those weeds under control. Or at least give them the opportunity to show me how well they're doing... And they're doing spectacularly well. The flower seeds I've been strewing around are starting to come up, but then I have to dig about to try and oust the grass roots and fear that I've buried the flower seeds that haven't come up forever...

The garden centre to which our allotment is attached was giving away freebie bags to the Allotment holders, plant labels, twine etc. And a notice that there will be an Allotment competition in August where an ex Beechgrove Garden presenter (Beechgrove Garden is a Scottish gardening TV show) will judge the best allotment based on various criteria. I spoke to a few other allotmenteers who say they aren't bothered... Aye right, I guarantee that there will be a rash of suddenly spruced up plots over the next few months...

This morning I decided to plant out some of the stuff in the greenhouse. So I put the butternut squash out in the garden, and took the courgettes, cabbages and some chard to the allotment. Tomorrow will be the turn of the broccoli. I'm all organised: have the glut of eggs baking as pasta frittatas, and I'll take a slice of it along with me for lunch so I can spend most of the day at the plot, planting and weeding.

Can't wait :-)

Busy busy

Wow, can't believe it's been a week since I updated!

I've had a busy week. On Saturday I was at the Pagan Federation Conference in Edinburgh, where I met up with people I haven't seen in far too long, heard some brilliant and interesting speakers, and managed to avoid the ones who I would have found less than inspiring. Vivienne Crowley's Grail talk was really interesting, and the lady herself funny and managing to combine healthy scepticism with belief. The other workshops of note were two run by Christer Ellingsen talking about Shamanic Trancework. His first session was talking about the trance work and the term "Shaman". It was interesting (and reassuring) to hear that he considers Shamanism to be a craft, a method, rather than a religious path. He was quite adamant that it is not religous at all, and that he does not consider himself a Shaman as that is a specific role which doesn't really have a place in today's society. The second workshop was a practical trance workshop which was incredible, with him drumming and which left everyone I spoke to afterwards feeling drained as though they'd been running.

As usual at these things, there's a real mix of the earthy and ethereal. Workshops about unicorns and chakras might suit some but I steered clear! The shopping stalls were as usual, too enticing for my bank balance so I bought a couple of things, including a pair of earrings from a very talented lady who I know, Peggy at MoonlightForest.com.

The evening entertainment involved my having to act as magician's assistant - a task which was suitably embarrassing! It was followed by the amazing Damh the Bard, who I have never seen live. He was fantastic. Great music which everyone sang along with, and the man himself self-deprecating and plain funny.

Despite having had next to no sleep the night before, I managed to last the whole evening and am so very grateful to my friend Andrew for being taxi driver :-)

A couple of days later I was up at Aberfoyle, resuming duties as Osprey information officer. The new chap in charge was keen to reassure me again about the lack of pressure to sell memberships. I have to say I was kind of shocked at how young he looked - am I getting old?! The room is completely re-done, with windows (hurray!!), more touchy-feely exhibits, more screens, more animals to talk about. It was great to get back into the swing of things again. There are birds on the nest - though not the usual pair who haven't returned :-( This pair are the third on the nest in the last couple of weeks, but look as though they're the ones who will hold it. Neither of them are ringed which means we have no idea about their history. But they're mating and nest building so we expect an egg imminently! Usual left-field questions - the best were "Which route does the West Highland Way go at Inversnaid?" and "Is the road through Thornhill still closed?"...

After a full-on couple of days I was totally exhausted. As I suspected, speaking to people is what really tires me out and drains me, so it's been nice having a very quiet couple of days since.

At the Allotment, all is going well, particularly the weeds... We've had such good weather I've had to water the veg beds, not that I'm complaining! The raspberry bush is spreading like wildfire - makes you realise how much of a rip-off raspberry plants are at garden centres! It's lovely to see everything springing up.

And the swallows have returned!

Summer is definitely a cumin' in :-)

All change

As expected, the weather took a turn this week and we've been plunged back to more typical April weather: cold, damp, blustery. The salad crops I planted in the outside planter have done absolutely nothing, so I'm pleased that I sowed some in the greenhouse, though, at the moment it's not a lot warmer inside there.

The fruit trees are really starting to blossom though - the pear tree is now fully out, leading me to hope that for the first year we'll get a really good crop.  Last year we got about 4 or 5 decent-sized fruits, in what is the tree's - what - third year since we planted it?  By now the tree will be about 5 years old so it should be starting to get into its stride.

Isn't it just a thing of beauty?

The front garden is difficult to really plant - it's north-facing and most of the day is shaded by the house, so only the top of the garden - where the planters and tree are, get any consistently long hours of sunshine and that's at high summer.

And - another reason it's difficult to garden is our neighbour who is retired and as soon as you step out the house is there to "help" or offer advice.  Bless him, he and his wife are retired and elderly, and I'm sure he just wants the company, it's just difficult to really get anything done when he's there.

Indoors, the courgette seeds I planted just a couple of days ago have erupted spectacularly into life overnight. I looked at the seeds last night before going to bed and saw they were still the big, flat, tear-drop shaped seeds I stuck point-down - I'd just assumed they'd take a few more days to germinate!

The purple sprouting broccoli from the garden was a success: dark green and purple and very tasty with the individual chicken, bacon, leek and thyme pies I'd made (and frozen) a while ago. There are some more spears on the plant but I'm definitely going to grow some more - have to think about where to put it since it's a "long term" plant and is in the ground for up to a year...

I went into work  yesterday to discuss my phased return to work with my boss. It was very constructive, we've agreed a return over 8 weeks rather than 6 as proposed by Occupational Health, and it'll be reviewed part-way through to make sure I'm not struggling too much. Just before the meeting ended my boss nipped out to speak to another colleague - at which point I admit I sagged as I thought he was going to try and squeeze in a quick work meeting while I was there - but instead he came back with a bunch of flowers, an orchid, an Amazon voucher and a card signed by most of the Division. I was struck dumb - and it's not often that happens!  I was touched and delighted.

I think the visit though took a lot of out of me - and that was just for an hour. Today I've had to go for a snooze (with Poppy, who also snoozed so that we were nose to nose) and I feel a bit wiped.   Hopefully over the next couple of weeks I'll be improved enough that my stamina for being in at work will be enough that I don't suffer the same exhaustion after such a short time.   D is adamant though that if I'm still feeling exhausted, I'm to go and get signed off again - I really don't want that to happen.  I suspect that part of it is not sleeping well due to being so cold at night now that we've changed (somewhat prematurely and probably inadvisedly) to the lighter summer duvet! Hopefully the weather will start to warm up soon - but regardless, it doesn't seem to be stopping things growing.



First Harvest

We've been blessed the last couple of days with the most gorgeously unseasonal weather. Temperatures reaching for 20 degrees - at the start of April! Amazing!

Yesterday we went to the Farmers' Market in Stirling and picked up pigs' cheeks and bacon, and a piece of hot smoked salmon. Delicious.

In the afternoon, I went to the allotment. I was delighted to see that an allotment holder a couple of plots up, has returned and seems to be working on her plot. We thought that last year she had given up after being told that she could not paint her shed pale blue and had to paint it brown again. Which might come as a bit of a shock to her neighbour, whose young girl was gaily personalising their shed by painting flowers, handprints, squiggles and her name. I have to say, I really love those allotment plots I see from other parts of the country where the sheds and other buildings are a kitcsh, higgledy-piggledy and eclectic mish-mash of individuality. Alas, the planning permission for the field our plots are on, were specific in their rules about what is and is not allowed. So no trees, no painted buildings, no structures over 1m tall (more on that in a sec) and no livestock. That last is a disappointment, I had harboured hopes of a bee-hive...

The rule about 1m tall structures - being conveniently overlooked by the allotmenteers. Walk-in fruit cages and greenhouses etc are appearing all over the place as people plan a little bit more permanence and possession over their plot. Be nice to see them remain, but I know the people who live round about the field being quick to complain about any infractions to the planning rules, given they didn't want allotments there in the first place. Apparently there were vociferous objections to turning the field into allotments - living next to a farm I honestly am bemused by this: allotments are a darned sight quieter than a field that needs plowed, fertilised, harvested, cleared, etc etc.

Anyway. The highlight of the visit was taking a couple of rhubarb stalks which I stewed today to have in a crumble for breakfast tomorrow. The first harvest of the year! Very, very exciting! And, a purple sprouting broccoli plant that's been growing in the garden doing absolutely nothing, has now, suddenly, sprouted purple broccoli! I know that theoretically that's what it should have done, so hardly a surprise, but yet it is. So in another couple of days it'll be ready to eat. Makes me think I really should grow some at the allotment.

Update on the mice, the peppermint essential oil was an absolute... failure. It achieved absolutely nothing. They still seem to be there - at least, the cats are still enthralled by some of the clumps of geranium and the flap of the compost bin, and when I sowed sweet pea seeds this morning, one of the clumps shook violently and I thought I saw something flash by out the corner of my eye. *sigh*

Weather's supposed to break tomorrow, I'm not too disappointed in a way: Summer here is too brief most years, you always worry that a spell of good weather in advance of the summer months means it's peaked too soon! We expect cold, windy, even snowy weather in April, the last few days have been a welcome respite from the Winter we've endured, but I'd hate to think that this was as good as it's going to get!

My Favourite Things

I'm a woman of simple pleasures.

Lots of things come under the heading of "favourite things".

Digging for spuds, buried treasure of precious golden (mis)shapes. Apple blossom on my trees. Watering the garden late in a warm summer day, revelling in the fact that it doesn't really get dark at Mid-Summer and I can be out there at 11pm in near daylight, in near silence.

And listening to my iPod at the Allotment. I put in my earphones, and put on a playlist I have as my workout music when I'm at the gym. It's an eclectic, up-tempo, utterly personal mix of music tracks that I mentally - and sometimes physically - bop around to when I'm weeding and I hope nobody else is around to either notice or bother me. So I listen to things like Texas "I don't need a lover"; All About Eve "Every Angel"; Treacherous Orchestra; Muse; Dr and the Medics "Spirit in the Sky"; T-Rex "20th Century Boy"; REM "The One I Love"; Peatbog Fairies; etc etc. Very much a mish-mash of stuff I like and don't care if anyone else does. I love it and will potter for hours, lost in music (if you pardon the pun).

So this morning I spent a very happy hour or so at the allotment, listening to music, and sowing the first of the "April" seeds: beetroot and Cavalo Nero. I liked last year having flowers round the borders of the plot as they attracted bees and looked gorgeous, so this year I have more calendula (which I really must use to make into cream), red poppies and cornflowers. I ended up opening all the flower seed packets and emptying them into a bag, shaking it and then scattering the mix in the ground so that there's a really lovely mix of flowers. The neighbour across the path from us was there and, glory of glories, building a shed! The last owner of the plot had said she didn't want to put up a shed, she wanted, in time, to put up a greenhouse, much to our dismay because we were hoping that her shed would break the full blast of the wind and give ours some protection. For whatever reason she no longer tends the plot and the people who now do, have decided to put up a shed. We'll wait until it's built then see about repairing ours and re-setting it on the plinth it was blown from.

Back at the garden I've sown chamomile seeds - I love the scent of chamomile and I love chamomile tea. I suffer from periodic migraines and drinking the tea when I have one is immensely soothing. Again though, I really should do something with the flower heads beside tea, and make cream. It's a very healing and soothing herb, great for burns and soreness.

Also sown courgette seeds - I admit that neither of us really care for courgette. But a friend last year gave us a plant and it would have been rude to not have planted it, and if was a roaring success. We were harvesting courgettes on an almost daily basis from July to November. A food magazine contained a recipe for a courgette and garlic tart, and since it required courgettes and lots of eggs, it seemed like an ideal recipe for using up gluts of both. And it was delicious, really lovely. Moreover, it froze beautifully, so I was able to make up plenty lunches for work. This year, based on the success of the courgette, we're going to plant a couple of plants - to be honest I think they're a better crop for us than fennel which we grew very successfully, then decided we really didn't like the aniseed taste and had about 30 fennel plants to get through...

Not sure whether there will be much planting tomorrow: we have to go to Stirling Farmers Market and pick up pigs' cheeks from Puddledub, and, since today has been gloriously sunny and warm, tomorrow is forecast to be misty and cool along the Forth.

If nothing else, it's nice to feel that I'm on top of things... How long do I leave if before I regret saying that?!!

Grass

I garden organically. It's because I believe in beneficial planting and in a fairly "live and let live" approach (or, as it's also known, the "oh, can I really be bothered doing that?" approach). It works quite well, but it does mean that when I do knuckle down and weed, it's fingertip weeding that gets done which is time consuming and difficult at times.

I don't mind weeding, it's one of those jobs that you can really see a difference when you do it and makes the place look neater and more organised. In the allotment there's a wide range of weeds to cope with, but the one that really, really does my head in, is the grass. It is just impossible to eradicate. The roots run so deep and so far that no matter how deeply you dig, and how "rooty" the clump you haul out, you're not even scratching the surface. I swear, if there was a nuclear explosion, in addition to the cockroaches, grass would still be thriving. The allotment holder on the other side of us sprayed his plot with weedkiller last year (yeah, thanks for that), and he had I think a blissful week of hiatus between the dead grass and the new stuff coming up. So hauling up grass is a full-time job at the allotment.

It's a job that needs done, but I admit to feeling guilty at un-housing the ladybirds who shelter in the clumps of grass. And there were a lot of them today. I've ended up leaving a patch of ground wild, just so they have somewhere to shelter. I really want to make sure they hang around - they were terrific last year at keeping the aphids etc down.

We "bracketed" the allotment work with a visit to Craigies Farm Shop at South Queensferry and a visit to the new Dobbies Garden World in Livingston.

We'd heard great things about Craigies from friends, and have an order in for mutton, so thought we'd go and see. It was great - very well laid out, with a field full of free-range hens, an orchard, couple of (frankly enormous) pigs (thankfully sound asleep) and some cows. The shop has a great butchery bit full of Puddledub pork and beef, and a terrific deli. So we bought some pork stir fry, stroganoff meatballs, venison salami, free-range chicken liver pate, and some boar, cheese and tomato sausages. Delish.

Dobbies in Livingston is brand new and was absolutely heaving. Much bigger than the one we usually go to in Stirling, it certainly has a much wider range, and is much more geared towards the whole home-furnishings thing with furniture and - strangely - wall-mounted fires.
I think though I prefer the one in Stirling. Call me parochial, and a bit of a bumpkin, but I love the location of it and the fact that you're closer to hills.

Back at the ranch, I found the bag with seeds-to-be-sown in April which I had lost. I've searched high and low for the last fortnight and, whaddya know, as soon as I asked out loud, I find them a minute later. Handily "tidied" in a bag I was going to take with me to the allotment and then didn't take...

I also bought some peppermint essential oil and soaked some cotton wool pads with it, and scattered them about the garden where the mice seem to be. I'll let you know how that goes,

Tommorrow I am therefore going to start sowing April stuff: chamomile, courgette, kale, beetroot, etc. Looking forward to it :-)





























In the garden it

Wind, rain, sun - and mice

Wild weather the last few days - fluctuating temperatures, torrential rain and howling wind. At night we've been woken by the wind moaning, and venturing out in the street is an obstacle course with wheelie bins blown into the road. The other day was 6 degrees with a significant wind chill, today it's 14 and the wind feels warm. And the sun has now come out. It's like there's a battle for Spring and we're caught in the cross-fire!

The rain's been enough to keep me mostly indoors over the last couple of days, which has been fine because I've not been feeling great. Today though I feel marginally more like myself so decided to take the opportunity of dry weather to repot some seedlings. Potting delicate seedlings with those micro-fine trailing roots, and trying to gently ease them into new pots while the wind whips at the plant is a task that takes practise. Fortunately I get plenty of it! Of course, if I'd had my head screwed on I would have moved the pots that take up a shelf in the greenhouse and potted in there, tight a squeeze as it is. But I don't have my head screwed on just now which is why it takes me twice as long to do anything. Yesterday, driving to the agricultural supplies shop in Stirling I had one of those "tra la la... pretty birdie, gorgeous hills...  -  Whoooops, I'm driving, aren't ?! moments" I can tell you this because you don't live/drive near me so you can feel both safe and relieved... :-D

The greenhouse is starting to fill up nicely now. The planters for salad/tomatoes is doing the job of acting as a ballast to hold the greenhouse down and there are seedlings coming up. I ran out of plant labels so I can't remember what got sown in what part of the planters - it'll make a nice surprise I suppose!

The butternut squash is still living and the chard seedlings seem to be okay - bit shell-shocked but I'm sure they'll be fine, they're fairly hardy plants. I'm not sure how many chard plants to have... Never having grown it before I really don't know how much we'll use... I admit I'm growing it as much for looks as eating, the "Rainbow" variety looks so gorgeous and glowing jewel colours that even if I don't manage to eat all of it, it'll look good.

Elsewhere in the garden it's looking good. Bit drookit (soggy) but good.  Shoots now present in all the potato bags, hopefully at the allotment they'll be starting to come up there too.

But - oh - nightmare, we have mice. Just in the garden, they were there last year and seem to be back. We live in a fairly rural area surrounded by farms, so it was inevitable, but still... The concern is more the neighbours and whether they'll point the finger at the bird feeders, compost bin and of course, the hens... The last thing we want to be accused of is being an environmental nuisance. It's difficult to see what - apart from dig up the garden and concrete it, get rid of the hens, discourage birds etc, we can really do. The cats are pretty good at harassing the mice (if not actually killing them, apart from on one occasion), and when they're in at night, our neighbour's cat seems to take over. The hens I'm not worried about - omnivores that they are, they will eat mice. Thinking about it, it's probably more the bird feeders that would be the cause: there's no food left out in the hen run once they go in for their roost, but the birds are messy and scatter seed around. I've found some sunflower seedlings coming up from discarded seeds. I hear that cotton wool balls saturated with peppermint essential oil and scattered round the garden is effective as the mice can't stand the smell. Will see about doing that.

Allegedly, it is to be dry tomorrow. I'll believe it when I see it, but if it is, then I'm off to the allotment to plant the onions which I sprouted (and are sitting in the seat-well of the car after I decided not to plant them the other day), and to measure my rhubarb leaves to see if they're long enough for me to take a couple of stalks to stew...

Timing is everything.

Visited the Allotment today, just for a little while, to see what progress, if any, had been made since our last visit.

Nothing much (including weeds - yay!!) apart from the rhubarb which has put on an almighty growth spurt and is now a good 7 or 8 inches tall, with leaves the size of - well, not quite dinner - but tea plates.

We bumped into our allotment neighbour Cath, and chatted for a while about the dilemma of whether to consider that the instructions on seed packets to sow in April, really meant that (for us in our more northern climes) or whether it would be more prudent to wait.

Monty Don in this week's Gardners World says to wait until the soil feels warm, but Carol Klein says that you can sow when the weeds are germinating. Given that the soil here doesn't really start to feel warm until July, I think I'll go with Carol's advice and go with when the weeds start making an appearance - but then - what weeds? Chickweed seems to grow all year round, couch grass grows from bird seed that the little beggars throw away, speedwell has been spreading like mad (it's a beautiful flower), so which weed??

Just to be safe, I think I'll wait another couple of weeks. It's no big deal: last year when we first acquired the allotment, we didn't plant until May, and that turned out well. Hmmm, maybe having the allotment is an easy deal after all - can't plant before May so may as well relax and not panic about getting everything ready...

Back in the garden, there are potato shoots coming up already in one of the potato bags: Anya. Very exciting!

The onions in tray seed tray have really grown to ridiculous levels so they really have to go in the ground soon. I've put them on the patio to harden off. The butternut squash has burst out of its pot so I repotted it in one of those tall pots that clematis come in, and put it in the greenhouse to start hardening off. Tomorrow I think I'll need to transplant the chard seedlings and the basil ones too.

PVFS-wise the last couple of days have been a bust. Definitely a case if two steps back. I did try and sleep yesterday afternoon, but ended up being "Poppied". Poppy, or "Tubs" as she is known due to her pudding-ness, loves, just loves, climbing on me when I'm in bed. She clambers on me, purring like an engine, and settles to sleep, snoring comfortably. Even when I lie omy side she's un-deterred, her ascent is a bit more precarious, but she usually finds her balance point and hangs on, purring, her tail thumping into my face (she can never quite master the art of climbing on me so that she faces me...) If she can't lie ON me, she'll lie as much on me as she can, and if she can't get close enough, she simply sits and wails... It doesn't make for a relaxing nap, but I'm a big softy and never have the heart to turn her out.

The hen coop needs a bit of attention, or, to be more specific, the timer that closes the door automatically. It's a wonderful, wonderful thing, but it's been a bit flakey recently, and last night, for whatever reason, the timer stopped at 8.30 and didn't move on, which meant that the door didn't descend. Fortunately I checked it, and adjusted the timer manually, but it's a bit concerning. It's even more concerning since I woke up through the night and looked out of the window, to see a fox trotting by the garden. It seemed totally unconcerned that there were hens living within a few feet of it (which is reassuring) but there is a healthy fox population and it just takes a really smart one...

Waiting and watching

Back to the docs again yesterday where the doc agreed that I am making progress, albeit at glacial speed. So I've been signed off for 4 more weeks, in the hope and expectation that that will see me, finally, ready to go back to work. I think that's about right, I definitely do feel like I'm entering the last lap, feeling like I'm being more "me". Can you believe that that'll be 14 weeks since I came down with Flu?! I'm still tiring out really easily, but in between feeling much more normal. So, more rest/exertion balancing, and "social tolerance" (as the doc put it) build up. In other words, trying to get out a bit more in busy situations - I've been a bit of a hermit these last few weeks but if I'm to not be totally overwhelmed by being back in work in an open plan and busy office, I need to get used to being in amongst people again.

Pity, in a way. I've enjoyed the peace, but I'm lucky in that I can have a bit of both hustle and bustle but also retreat to solitude and peace. A lot of people I know don't have that luxury, either due to location or circumstances.

Growing-wise, there's not been much happening. No, strike that, there's not much I've been doing, I think Nature's being pretty darned busy without needing my input! I'm an observer at the moment, as much due to the weather as anything else. March roared out like the proverbial lion, and April has come screaming in, with gales and pouring rain. It's warm though, which is the weird thing - if it weren't raining I could be out in shirt-sleeves quite comfortably. The best of Scottish weather though: you don't like this weather? Stick around for 15 minutes and some more will come along...

We haven't been to the allotment for a few days because of the weather, but to be honest at the moment there's little we can do. It's just a case of waiting for the soil to warm up sufficiently to put in some things like fennel, spinach, cabbage, and of course beetroot. Our beetroot crop last year was a roaring success. We'd discovered roasting it with a bit of garlic, thyme, olive oil and balsamic vinegar (try drizzling olive oil and balsamic vinegar over a chicken, and putting in with the chicken in the roasting tray some root veg (including beetroot and new potatoes), and roasting until the chicken's done, it's beyond delicious), and D pickled some. This year he wants to pickle more so we're giving more space to the beetroot - both the traditional burgundy-coloured variety and a golden one, which when roasted, is sweet and mellow.

The plants in the veg boxes outside and in the greenhouse are slow to germinate, probably the temperature is a bit too erratic just now. The plants in the house are doing well though - the little smout of a butternut squash that had just two small leaves, is now 7" high and developing leaves as big as my palm. I'll wait another few weeks and then move it to the greenhouse to harden off. The onions I put in seed trays are doing incredibly well too: shoots so big I've had to take off the seed propagator cover. They'll need to go in the ground soon.

So yes, things are moving apace, and doing very well without intervention from me. It's a strange feeling - for me - to be an observer rather than a participant, but you know, that's not a bad thing really.

Progress

There could be huge changes in Lewis with the enforcement of an element of the Human Rights Act. It could mean the end of swings tied up on Saturday nights so kids can't play on them on Sundays, the closed swimming pool, and the closed golf club. If enforced, and there's every chance it will be, it is nothing short of revolutionary. As an outsider I think the changes are necessary but don't (at the moment) go far enough: supermarkets won't open, petrol stations will remain closed etc, but I concede that it brings to an end something quite special and unique. Lewis is a place apart, its remoteness emphasised by both distance and the customs of people who live there. It's a shame in a way, and I hope, futilely, that the Lewis-ness is preserved.

In other news, osprey season has well and truly begun with the shock arrival of Scotland's oldest breeding osprey, Lady, at Loch Of The Lowes at Dunkeld.

Last year she nearly died due to a mystery illness, and her death throes were watched live on webcam. As thousands of viewers of the webcam watched horrified she fell off the nest, apparently dead, only to haul herself to the loch side and drink (ospreys get all their liquid intake from fish and never drink), and then, a couple of hours later, regain enough energy to fly back to the nest and eventually feed herself and get her strength back. She raised two chicks, her 47th and 48th. When she left for her emigration at the end of the season, everyone bid her a tearful and final farewell, certain that the rigours of the 3000 mile journey south would be too much for the weakened bird.

We certainly didn't expect her to survive the winter or to make the trip back, and yet, incredibly, she has. Such has the reaction been from the public, the Scottish Wildlife Trust has crashed, and has had to disable posting comments facility, to allow their staff to focus their efforts on the osprey.

This osprey is just astonishing. She has returned to breed in the same nest now for 21 years. Twenty One years. The contribution she has made to the osprey population, not to mention our knowledge of ospreys, is inculable. It made me very emotional to see her again after such trials. And she seems in very fine fettle, raring to go. So fingers crossed for a healthy season :-)

Pottering in the garden

Despite the best part of 11 hours' sleep, I woke up feeling wiped and really dizzy. D, bless him, tries to make sure I get out at least a little while each day so I don't go completely stir crazy, and comes with me to make sure I'm all right. He even goes round garden centres with me, now *that's* devotion!

Today we went to the garden centre so I could get one of those fabric containers for growing salads/ tomatoes in in the greenhouse. This will serve the additional bonus of acting as a ballast to weigh the greenhouse down once positioned so it's on the lower frame. So I've sown some lettuce seeds, but need to get more salad seeds, and bought four tomato plug plants: Roma.

Now, tomato plants and I really don't have a successful partnership. I have no idea why: I grow them in lovely soil in the greenhouse, giving them as much warmth as a Scottish Summer will allow, feed them and water them, support them (they do like a bit of cheering on :-D ), and do pretty much everything you're supposed to do, and they reward me by doing absolutely nothing... However, being a gardner, hope springs eternally each Spring, so once again I will try and grow them. This variety (Roma) apparently can be grown outdoors, which means outdoors in the more consistently warmer climes of southern England, but if the weather is kind, I might get away with the greenhouse. We shall see.

I've had some success with my onion sets that I planted a week or so back, the ones I put into a seed module tray and stuck in the greenhouse to sprout. The red ones are still to come, but the shallots in particular (on the right) have done really well. In addition to the shoots, they have sprouted roots so when I gently tug on them, they remain fast in their cell. I'll wait another couple of weeks and then transplant them in the allotment.















I removed a dangerous and violent clematis from the garden, much to what I imagine is the relief of our elderly neighbour. Poor soul, he's getting on and every year he complains that the clematis causes him to swerve on the way out of his parking space past our house... We have no idea why, the plant tumbled over the garden fence but for it to be any kind of obstacle, our neighbour would have to be driving within 6 inches of the fence. Terrifying thought...

However, it was a fairly rampant plant, and had a tendency to choke the apple trees it grew next to. It would have been more forgiveable had it been a pretty plant, but it wasn't - to my eyes at least.

Inspired by Gardner's World the other night, I planted some dahlia tubers in the place of the clematis. Dahlias do well in our garden but I do keep forgetting to lift the tubers in the autumn and they die off. This year I'll remember. Honest.

A "foodie" day

After a night of most unsatisfactory sleep - not a hint of a breeze, still and stagnant, ugh - I have to say that today has been a bit of an effort.

But an effort worth making - we'd talked about going to the weekly Farmers' Market in Edinburgh, so since we were up early to placate the gurning hens, we decided to head through.

Edinburgh. We are the same distance from there as we are from Stirling, and and yet we never, ever go there, due entirely to Edinburgh's Council having an anti-motorist policy which makes getting to the city an expensive pain in the ass. Once you're there, and if you live there, it's fine: the public transport system is fantastic, but actually *getting* there is expensive, time-consuming and a pain. Compare to getting to Stirling which is easy and parking is plentiful and inexpensive. Put it this way, it cost us £5.50 to park for 27 mins in Castle Terrace Car Park in Edinburgh, and £1.50 for 90 mins in Stirling...

Anyway. We made it to the Market relatively unscathed (those bus lanes!) and were mightily impressed by the selection of vendors. We were constrained by two factors: wallet and freezer capacity. So although places like Sunnyside Farm where we'd bought some Rose veal were there, and Fletcher's Venison, we had to ca' canny, and restrict ourselves to selected purchases. So we bought a dressed crab from Eyemouth (which I had for lunch with salad); some chamomile and geranium Caurnie soap; some game pie mix; Puddledub Bacon, and for dinner tonight, pheasant breasts in sun-dried tomato and basil.

After that, and a trip to Stirling since it was agreed that the compact layout would be easier for me, I was fair jiggered this afternoon so there was not much opportunity to do anything else.

In lieu of actual gardening I watched Gardner's World. I was heartened to hear that Monty, dear Monty, doesn't think that Sweet Peas have to be sown in October, and that you can try planting some seeds direct - which is just what I was planning on doing to accompany the seedlings I have on the go.

Tomorrow my Dad is coming up with a step-ladder so I can prune the apple trees. Yes, I know it's a bit late but I should just about get away with it. The trees are about 11 feet tall, and too tall to pluck any fruit from. As well, last year we had bother with kids nicking the fruit, but (even worse) then throwing the fruit onto the ground... To me, this is sacrilege, since the deity I honour and have done for decades, is the Goddess of the Orchards. To wantonly destroy her fruit is desecration so far as I'm concerned, so while I don't mind the kids eating the fruit (and we collared them last year and told them to ask for fruit if they wanted to eat it - and they did and were very polite), to just take a nearly-ripe fruit and then smash it is something I just cannot countenance. So steps are being taken to minimise any vandalism. I'll offer some cider to the spirits of the tree and to Pomona for the prunings and in hope that I get away with the tardy pruning, and a good crop this year again!

All about the birds

To start with I've sorted out the mad time issue I know at least one reader has spotted, the miracle of how I can enjoy a few hours at the allotment, sit in the warm sun and it still be only 8am - in Scotland. I had my time zone set for some exotic location in the Pacific, but it's set back to Blighty Time now.

After yesterday's exertions at the allotment and then spending hours on the phone chatting to friends, today is a wash-out. The sun is shining (though it's a lot colder), but I have absolutely no energy today at all. That there will be napping this afternoon is a given, which is a real pity because I was hoping to get out and about. No chance. In fact D is going to have to do the shopping and housework on his own while I lie on the sofa. What a nuisance.

So today's blogs is about birds.

My minuscule back garden, as well as being home to hens, also has a fair few wild bird visitors to the various bird feeders hanging from the apple trees. I have regular visits from a pair of blue-tits; a pair of coal-tits; a charm of chaffinches (isn't that a great collective noun?); a pair of sparrows (who also happen to be resident in the clematis hedge that I should really have cropped back, but didn't have the heart to so they could have winter shelter), and a pair of blackbirds.

Today the blue-tits have been hard at work nest building, they've been stopping on the apple tree with beaks full of moss, before heading onto wherever their nest is. The blackbird - the female one in particular - has been amusing me by her "lawks-a-mercy" antics. She'll quite happily land on the bird-seed tray while you're in the garden, and ignore you while she feeds, them as soon as she's done, she pretends to be outraged and terrified that you're there, and flaps off screaming indignantly. She'll repeat this process endlessly, which always makes me wonder why she is astonished at finding me in the garden with her...

So yes, it's very nice seeing these signs of spring and sap rising and all that.

However, the big neon "IT'S SPRING" indicator arrived back in Scotland yesterday: EJ the ospey returned to Loch Garten.

I've been hooked on the story of EJ and ospreys for years. These raptors who eat only fish, who come to Scotland every Spring to breed (the long Scottish Summer days means they can fish almost 24 hours a day, ideal when you've hungry mouths to feed), and whose life stories have thousands as glued to their daily antics as any soap opera. Who were extinct in the UK only 50-odd years ago due to hunting but who now number 250 breeding pairs. I am so enraptured by these birds that I decided to volunteer at the David Marshall Lodge in Abeerfoyle, in the Trossachs, where there is a healthy osprey population, to share my enthusiasm with others.

Flying back from Senegal and the Gambia in March, these birds travel hundreds of miles in 3 weeks, returning to the same nest they left back in August. When they arrive, their stories are ones of adultery, violence, infanticide, heroism, desperation, sacrifice, heartbreak and miracles.

So now the games begin again and the questions which are posed at the start of every season will be eventually answered.

Will Odin, EJ's regular mate return in time to stop her mating with Red8A, a male who has at least one other mate and nest on the go?

Will the "camera'd" nest at Aberfoyle be successful this year? The last two have seen empty nests when fighting males kicked out the eggs.

Will a miracle occur and allow Lady, Scotland's oldest osprey, to return, or will she have died on her migration south last year after some of the most incredible events last year which had people all over the country weeping, and then cheering as events unfolded on webcam?

Stay tuned :-)

NOW it's Spring

Woke up to clear blue skies and a totally different "feel" to the air. Like a corner had been turned out into the sunlight and the shadow and chill had been left behind.

Spring, now, is here.

To celebrate, D took me to the Allotment and left me there to weed contentedly for a couple of hours, before coming to get me (in case you're wondering, yes, I drive and yes, I'm capable of driving short distances (concentration is a bit of an issue for longer drives though), but he's keen to make sure I don't overdo it, so by dropping me off and picking me up, he can ensure that I don't work for too long and tire myself out).

So I spent a very happy couple of hours weeding and now the allotment is looking pretty darned good and ready for planting. For some reason though, known only to the allotment owner, the water supply is still off, which had been becoming a bit of an issue, given that I and some o the other allotmenteers had been putting in some plants and the ground was cracking with dryness. Jack, one of our allotment friends, asked the garden centre staff when the water would be coming back on. Next week! Which seems a bit bizarre given that, even up here, gardening does start in March in a good year. The garden centre staff, being obliging souls, switched the water on for us today, so I was able to give the new raspberry and blackberry, and relocated cranberry, a much desired drink.

We also paid our fees for the plot for the year: £140. I know it's probably a LOT more expensive than council allotments, but since the latter are like hens' teeth round here and our plot is only 2 miles from our house, not to mention the fact that the owner is very accommodating (and gives out freebies from time to time) we really don't grudge it. So that's us paid up for another year.

Back at the house, I have taken a chair and set it up on the patio. Our garden faces south and is an absolute sun trap. It's one of the reasons we chose this house (a new build when we got it), purely for the direction the garden faces. It's not a huge garden, it's really tiny in fact, but we have a patio with lots of tubs; a bed down the length of the garden in which sit our (espaliered-but-not-really (laziness)) apple trees and flowers; 4 of those 1m x 1m veg bed kits set up on a square of gravel; and at the end of the garden, and up the side opposite the apple trees, is the hen coop and run. Bijou and compact I think you could call it.

But it's pretty productive too, what with the apples (we have a pear tree in our front garden), and the veg beds. This year I've decided that we should use them to grow stuff that enjoys a bit of heat and space on its own, and so I've put bare root asparagus in one bed, strawberries in another, salads in the third, and the 4th I'm going to see if butternut squash will fare well with a bit of cossetting.

So I'm sitting, enjoying the warmth of the sun, the crooning and gentle clucking of the hens as they dust-bathe, and the faint scent of freshly watered soil. I can almost *hear* the plants growing. Or I could if it weren't for the incessant lawnmower symphony that starts now and ends in October...

Potting and baking

Today started at 6.30 am. No, I have no idea why either, but since I was wide awake (more or less) and had feed our girls, then go and feed friend's cat, and get rolls while the shop still had the fresh ones from the morning delivery, I decided to get up. I always feel I should be trying to be as "normal" as possible, so getting up, showered, dressed etc, just makes me feel less like I'm malingering and more like myself should be. Plus there's the daily early morning requirement to run in and out to shush the hens with corn and other delights when they start gurning and screaming because they want the nest box and someone, who shall remain nameless (Murdina) hogs the best one.

Anyway, of course, by the time 8.30 came I was absolutely exhausted and needed to go back go bed again. I was in bed 2 minutes, literally, and the buhKAWKing started: Grizel with the most piercing "crow" and just generally making her displeasure at being out on her own, known. Giving up on sleep I got dressed and decided to pot on some seedlings out in the garden to keep her company. Don't ask me why they shut up when you're out there with them, but it works. So I potted on the broccoli into bigger pots, and the leeks into the dinky pots the broccoli had vacated. The butternut squash took a spurt over the last couple of days so it's now in a 4 inch pot. I also potted on the sweet peas, and have taken a chance and stuck them in the greenhouse (which will hopefully stand for a while), as much to create a bit of space in the windowsills in the house!

After just half an hour, both Donalda and Murdina had produced their eggs (a record timing), so I decided to head back to bed for a snooze. Just as I was dropping off: the phone went. Wrong number. Trudged back up to bed, this time I think I managed 5 mins, and then the doorbell went.

By this time I was swithering over whether the universe was trying to tell me not to bother, but I'm not thrawn for nothing, so finally managed to get an hour and a half by lunchtime.

Feeling much restored this afternoon, so decided to make Nigel Slater's Demerara Lemon cake from his Kitchen Diaries, only I made Demerara Lemon muffins. Oh. My. Gods. They are absolutely sublime and a total doddle to make. Of course, I'd read the recipe properly, I'd have put the syrupy lemon slices on top of the muffins to bake for the duration of the baking, rather than just flinging them on at the end and baking for 5 mins, but no matter. They are heavenly. Fudgey with the ground almonds, and lemony and just altogether gorgeous. Maybe they won't freeze well and I'll just have to eat them all over the next few days.

I know, what a disaster that would be...