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...

Bleh

Not much going on today, unfortunately. Woke up feeling groggy and tired and gave up at 1 and went back to bed again, accompanied by Poppy who just loves climbing all over me when I'm in bed. I though I'd just go up and rest, and two hours later I realise I actually fell asleep. Hey ho.

Tomorrow I'm hoping will be better. I plan on adapting a Nigel Slater recipe for his Lemon Demerara cake and turning it into muffins instead. There's only me who eats cakes and puddings in our house, D really doesn't like them, and I can't really eat a cake to myself in a couple of days before it goes off. Well, I could, but...

So, nothing much going on today at all, just a "drifting through the day" kind of day and aching for bedtime.

Battling the elements

Traditionally, the Vernal Equinox is a time of gales (something to do with the high tides at the equinoxes apparently, I don't know the science) and so today we had winds that were somewhere between a stiff breeze and a bit of a gale. Strong enough to haul the small polythene greenhouse away from its ties to the garden fence... It was tied down securely enough - well - we thought it was but obviously not quite. So it snapped its moorings and sailed down the garden, giving the hens the fright of their lives as it settled half on top of their coop...

Fortunately there was nothing growing in it, just a storage for dozens and dozens of pots and tubs. Last year it broke its moorings and I lost trays and trays of seedlings. The problem is that because its just one of these polythene ones, it's not that heavy/ sturdy so there's an annual fight between me (on behalf of the greenhouse) and the wind. The wind is a constant feature here: frustrating, but something you have to deal with.

On a more productive note, I planted potatoes in bags in the garden: more International Kidney, Anya and Kerrs Pinks. All in all we have a few different varieties, both here and at the allotment: Charlotte; Nicola; International Kidney; Desiree; Kerrs Pinks; and Anya. We love potatoes, ideally the waxy ones - the floury ones we find a bit dry. We watched a programme last night (on iPlayer) called Great British Food Revival, where different foodie TV people (Michelle Roux Jr, Clarissa Dickson Wright, James Martin, Hairy Bikers etc) promote British food. Last night it was the turn of Greg Wallace, extolling (at top volume as is his wont) the humble spud. To help him promote the variety of potatoes to suit every palate, he visited the Scottish Agricultural Science Agency (SASA) in Edinburgh where he chatted to someone I worked on a project with. The project was the provision of an integrated IT system for the Seed Potato Classification Scheme. Did you know that seed potatoes are the second biggest Scottish export after whisky? Apparently the Scottish climate is perfect for growing seed potatoes as we have almost no pests/ diseases to affect the tubers. We export to Holland, Israel, central Europe, South America, Hong Kong, China etc. So when you're next buying spuds, there's a very good chance that though they were grown in another country, they actually started life in Scotland. Your useless fact of the day!

Energy wise today was okay - up until the greenhouse went flying and that kind of sapped my energy so I'm a bit wiped now.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll feel restored and able to get to the allotment for an hour or so. I bought a blackberry plant on Sunday so I'd like to get that planted. Hopefully the wind will drop somewhat so it's less of a battle on the allotment site :-)

Progress

Some pics to let you see how things are going.  The first is of D - hard at work and looking happy with it (I think that was towards the end of the stint!)

This is how it's looking so far - these are going to have different kinds of potatoes in them.

And this is of the allotments area - gives you a little bit of an idea how exposed it all is.   The plots are half sized, only 10m x 10m, but it seems to be big enough for most folk. There are some families who have "doublers" but the single plot is fine for us.



Beginnings

With the promise of sun today, D took the day off work to go and dig at the Allotment.

By 9.30 we were there, wrapped against the biting wind that buffets from all directions on that site, and he dug out and weeded two of the 2m x 2m beds and planted up one of them with 2nd earlies: Nicola and Charlotte.

While he did the hard graft, I took my little trolley/seat/storage-on-wheels (I won it years ago from the BBC Gardner's World website) and trundles gently around one perimeter weeding and sowed peas to train against the chicken-wire fence between us and our allotment-neighbours: John and Cath's.

I nipped to the garden centre shoo to pick up some string, gloves, dibber etc, and was encouraged by the assistant to put some of my purchases back, as the garden centre owner plans on gifting some freebies to the allotment holders: plant labels, string, dibbers, and seeds! So I'll hang fire and wait for a free gift!

As D had dug through the long bed, it was lovely and crumbly, so I sowed some carrots (Nantes and Yellowstone (bright yellow), some onion sets, and some spinach. D also put out the fleece mini-tunnel to start warming up the soil in preparation for planting cabbage.

The Allotments are in a field that belongs to a farmer, and he sells rotted horse manure (at £1/ bag - bargain) so we're getting 10 to start with. It's a lovely informal arrangement: in fact, when I called to arrange to buy, it was the Farmer's Wife who answered and said her husband would call back. He's just done that, and is going to put the bags in our allotment, and we will just square up when we see him :-)

As we worked, three buzzards soared overhead, one of them came low enough for us to see the creamy markings under its wings and the feathers missing, jarring an otherwise perfect outline. The three of them soared, gliding on the thermals, and calling shrilly to each other. I don't know about you, but I love buzzards - I love all birds of prey - but the buzzard population here is so healthy, it's not *that* uncommon to see 6 of them soaring together in Spring and Summer around here. I find the sight of them in a blue sky, listening to their call, immeasurably grounding and uplifting at the same time.

At lunchtime my HR Dept called to discuss the results of the Occ Health report. They're happy with it: just want to check that I was too, and that I am able to work from home as per the report. They seem very supportive, stressing that the phased return will only be applicable when I'm well enough to return, so there's no pressure :-). Phew!

I have to say, I'm pretty tired today, but as a pick-me-up, my order of Tender II (Nigel Slater) arrived. I've already bookmarked tons of pages. I love the melding of fruit with meat, I don't know if it's all the Mediaeval stuff I've read where that was common, or just that I love fruit and would love to use it more in day to day stuff. Whatever, it's something I'm keen on, so am just *loving* the book.

Talking of fruit, the pear tree now has these big fat buds on it, and the apple trees are starting to bud up too. Did I mention that one of my (many) favourite things, is when the apple trees blossom? That appley, slightly soapy scent, the pale pink deepening to dark rose, and above all, the promise that comes with it - I love to sit out at dusk with the blossom arching over me - heaven.

So - tomorrow - back again to the allotment (to square up with the farmer!), to dig in the manure, to plant beetroot seeds, maybe some calendula, and a raspberry (Glen Ample) that someone lovely sent me for Yule. And a wee bit more weeding - the never-ending task of the organic veg grower!

Should be a good day :-)

Ancestors

I was going to head this up with a cheesy disco title punning the word "dizzy" - you know, Dance yourself dizzy; I'm so dizzy; er - that might be it actually - following my latest visit to the GP. The dizziness I experience when moving my head is caused by Labyrinthitis of all things. So between that and the PVFS, I am signed off for a further two weeks and to go back to be checked over again before being signed off again after that... *sigh* She asked if I was feeling upset/ emotional about being so poorly for so long, and was apparently reassured by my response: no, but I am impatient! This means I am not likely to be suffering from depression. Which I could have told her: I'm extremely fortunate in never having suffered and not really being disposed to. So, more rest/exertion balancing and patience required.

The sun decided to come out today, after a distinctly unpromising start of rain (IS there any truth in the "rain before 7(am), fine before 11" adage??)

I took the chance to clear the now soggy tarpaulin covering the hen coop and protecting it from the worst of the weather, and let it dry in the sun and breeze. I also took the opportunity to air the coop and dry it out (some corners get so wet they never get a chance try dry properly) and spray it with red-mite spray as a precaution. Three eggs today! The girls are really starting to improve production, last year was a bit erratic but *touch wood* this one so far is a bit more consistent. If only the weather could be...

Anyway, Ancestors.

Ancestors is a pretty big a deal in Paganism. I think it's this feeling of being rooted to the land, either ancestral or the concept of "Gaia".

My mother's side of the family have lived in the town I live in for generations. I did some digging about when she started investigating her family tree, and was fortunate enough to stumble upon a distant cousin who was investigating the very same tree, and had published it online. It showed that there have been ancestors of my Mother's Father's living and working in this town back to at least 1557. All those generations displayed baldly there, deceptively simply. Nothing other than a name, some significant dates and an occupation to leave you to sketch in the gaps and try and imagine what their lives were like. Did they ever wonder what life would be like centuries hence? Did they wonder what their progeny would be like? I often wonder if I share many traits with them, if they would recognise themselves in me. Because they weren't notable in terms of occupations or wealth, just miners and labourers, other than passing on their genes, there's little of note about them, but I find them fascinating nonetheless.

Recent research has led me to the discovery that the surname they bear is actually Norman in origin (and that means Scandinavian before that). So the family came here via the Normans, most likely in the 1200's, but the head of the tribe/ family (too early for clan, yet) arrived in and set up home in the north of Scotland, so I'm trying to find out if there was just a general "bleeding" of kinsmen south, or if land was granted and the landowner's men simply took their laird's name. Or if there was in fact a wealthy Le Grande who simply decided to settle in this fertile area, whose name became ever more Anglicised to "Grant" and who somehow lost any wealth and so his descendants became forced to work under the land to earn their keep...?

I'm not sure if it's the fact that we don't have and will never have children that makes me look to my origins, maybe to remind myself that I am part of something, even if I don't continue it. I'm not worried about creating a physical legacy of myself - the one thing the research into just that particular branch of the family tree has shown me is that there are descendants of that first recorded Robert Grant all over the world, from Sweden to South America. I have never-to-be-met cousins (umpteen times removed) in Utah, in Maine, in Finland, in Hobart, in Wellington. I am part of something, a much wider web of connectivity that stretches around the globe and goes as far back as time.

I find that incredible and oddly comforting, somehow.

And two back

Not a fabulous day today, both in terms of weather and progress.

Yesterday it poured with rain the entire day, absolutely bucketed down, so that the hens refused to leave the shelter of their coop area, and the street ran rivers which bubbled and probably developed currents as they flowed. Last night, when the rain eased, I could hear the drains gurgling as they did their best to deal with all the water.

Today the hen run is a bit of a quagmire, and the rain has been replaced with freezing haar.

One of the "features" of living on the edge of the Forth, is the tendency the Forth Valley has for haar, or sea fog. It's always called "haar" though - I wonder if that is to do with the Dutch influence as the Forth was a major route to the Low Countries. In late Spring/ early Summer, we tend to get alternating hot and dry days with cold and murky ones as the Forth heats up too quickly and then evaporates. It takes a few weeks for the temperatures to normalise to some degree. If you get high enough up on the hills outside the town, and look down, you can see a line of defined thick cloud lying along the line River out to the North Sea, which means that if you travel just a few miles you can leave the murk behind and be in the most gorgeous sun.

Today is a dreich day and utterly still.

Which is kind of how I am too, today. Pinned to the sofa with exhaustion and inability to concentrate means that reading or watching TV is just too much like hard work. So it's a day of day-dreaming and just letting the time go by, I think. I didn't *think* I'd overdone it yesterday, but maybe it's a cummulative effect over a couple of days. It's disappointing: I was hoping to do a tiny bit of exercise today, nothing much, just 5 mins of stretching as I'm feeling flabby and bleh after weeks of enforced inactivity. But it'll need to keep another day.

The leeks, broccoli, sweet pea, butternut squash, cabbage and one particularly impatient sunflower seedlings are now ready to be repotted, but I just haven't the energy. I'm sure they'll be fine until tomorrow.

Is it Spring yet?

Is it Spring yet?

No, not yet.

Is it Spring yet?

No. Need to wait a wee while.

Is it - oh, never mind, I know what the answer is! LOL!

The snow melted pretty quickly (hurray!) and was replaced by pouring rain.

To cheer myself up yesterday I planted some shallot and red onion sets in one of those modular seed trays and stuck it in the greenhouse - more as an experiment and a "oh for crying out loud, I have to plant *something*, *anything*!" :D

I was in bed by 8pm last night, telling D that, you know, I dont think I'll sleep, I'm really not that *snore*. Woke up at 7.30. And you know what? I'm shattered!! Bleh!

This morning was a phone call from the Occupational Health nurse assigned by my work, to discuss how ready I am to return to work (in her view, nowhere near ready yet) and how to phase the return when I AM ready. (In her view, I am ready when I can do my usual housework, shopping, phone calls etc and not feel that I have to go to bed for a snooze in the afternoon or that I'm weeping with tiredness by teatime... Right.) So she's going to recommend that I start back work working 4 hours Monday, Wed and Friday. One of those days will be in the office and the other two working from home. After a couple of weeks, providing I'm up to it, I'll increase to two of those 4 hour days in the office, and gradually build up the number of hours I work over a 6 week period. Which, I have to tell you, I'm so relieved at: I'd been worrying about how to deal with getting back into my work and the demands on my concentration it makes. This has reassured me no end, and D is happy with it, so just needs my HR Dept and boss to sign off on it.

I've had a productive morning: am making River Cottage lentil and butternut squash pasties, and creamy chicken, leek, bacon and thyme pies. Energy levels dictate that is all I'll be able to do today, so the floor will have to remain unswept and ironing etc left for another day. I'm slowly (very slowly) learning to pace myself (D, you can stop laughing in the background) so I'm now going to go and put my feet up and read some of Nigel Slater's "Tender Vol 1" :)

Distinct Lack of Progress

Heavy snowfall yesterday which was a bit of a shocker. Somehow. I know it had been forecast and everything, I still didn't really expect it. The ostrich approach of denial! Enough snow to turn the garden into lumpen shapes of white and precarious footing.

Despite the snow, we had to go to Stirling to pick up our meat order from Puddledub. And we treated ourselves to another Nigel Slater book: "Real Food". I spent the rest of the afternoon snoozing and reading it, while D cooked dinner: pigs' cheeks stew with mustard potato and carrot mash. It was one of the best meals I've ever eaten, just sensational. Having never eaten pigs' cheeks I'd no idea what to expect, but they were fat-free, and melted apart as soon as threatened with the fork. Sublime. And the gravy they cooked in with this recipe was fruity and rich - and if I tell you that D and I stood using our fingers to get every last drop of the gravy from the pot before it got washed, well, that should give you some idea!

After yesterday's outing, I'm back on the sofa again, this time with severe vertigo to add to the fun - phooey. However, being confined to the sofa does give me time to read and plan...

Gardening-wise, it's all just a bit of a non-starter. There's frost forecast next week, so the ground is still far, far too cold to sow anything, and it's too cold to put anything out in the greenhouse, so progress is confined to the stuff sown in trays on windowsills. However, watching Gardner's World (I admit, I'm very happy now that Monty Don is back at the helm, and I covet, badly, his garden), dear Monty suggested sowing shallot sets and beetroot seeds in seed modules to give them a good start now. What a fabulous idea, and how lovely of him to suggest something that will make me feel like I'm being productive! Lack of windowsill space might be an issue, but, pah! Maybe next door would like to "host" some seed trays for me... Hmmm...

Tsunami

Difficult to really think about anything else today other than the Tsunami which affected the entire Pacific :-(. D and I sat stunned and horrified by the footage of the water effortlessly sweeping away homes, cars, boats, with the inevitable and sickening knowledge that there are people and animals caught up in it.

How does one convey the shock and grief one feels without being derided for the safety that distance imbues in a situation like this, and without words somehow diminishing the magnitude of the disaster? You can't. I won't.


In much, much less important matters, snow is forecast (heavy at that) so gardening is of the indoor variety. Inspired by Nigel Slater in his Tender Vol 1, I am experimenting with starting rainbow chard indoors, and planting a plant or two in the garden as a perennial, rather than as per packet instrucions, which are to sow directly into the soil, and treat as an annual. Watching Masterchef last night, D was intrigued by the chard used by the guest Michelin starred chef (neither of us have tried chard before), so between that, and Nigel, I feel quite excited at the thought of growing it.

There's a sunflower seed sprouted already, it always amazes me how quickly these plants pop up. The variety is "Velvet Queen": deep crimson petals, and not a particularly tall variety, which are better suited to withstand the exposed conditions at the allotment.

Eggs today: 2. Difficult to tell which was Donalda's and which was Grizel's - surprisingly for hens of the same breed (Black Rock) and the same diet, their eggs are quite different. Donalda's are of a more round cool-beige, Grizel's a huge warm-brown and Murdina's an elongated pale, almost cream offering with distinctive rough ends. Very strange.

Today, PVFS-wise, not so good. A day on the sofa, then a nap in the afternoon, where a particularly vivid (and un-remembered) dream was interrupted by Poppy, cat, clambering all over me and waaahing to tell me it was time for her dinner! Strange thing about the fatigue stuff: I look fine (well, tired and peely-wally), so people speaking to me think I am just grand (and by default, hamming it up). And I can understand that. The reality is that I find prolonged conversations exhausting, my concentration is just woeful, and I am just unable to do anything remotely physical for any duration, to the point that I only manage to leave the house a couple of times a week for an hour at a time. It's frustrating on so many levels - I feel bad for being so self-absorbed and self-concerning when I have friends who have lives going on with stuff I should be more actively contributing to.

Anyway. Tomorrow IS a "let's go out" day. To Stirling and the Farmers' Market. It's a fantastic market, second Saturday of every month. Seafood, cheeses, various meat suppliers, veg stands, bakers, toiletries: all good local producers, and unlike some I've been to, no tat: just local farms producing good stuff. I'm looking forward to it, I do love stocking up on food - it satisfies some primal need to be secure and able to feed those I love. So we've an order in with Puddledub for pigs cheeks, and will stock up on their bacon (mmmm), and pork mince for some Nigel Slater recipes. And we'll buy oxtails for D to make the Hairy Bikers' oxtail stew, and a (free-range of course) chicken for me to make chicken pie fillings. I'm also thinking that I might make some of the lentil and butternut squash fillings for River Cottage Everyday pasties. Stuff for me to make in bursts next week and freeze for whenever. Yum :-)


"After desolation, grief brings back our humanity" (Mason Cooley)

Signs of Spring

Atrocious weather today, more howling gales that blew wheelie bins down the (thankfully empty) street, clouds scudding like galleons across the sky, turning the day alternately dark then blinding. The lovely thing, in my view, about the wind and rain is that when it clears, it leaves the river and the hills pristine and with pin-sharp clarity.

In defiance of the wild weather, my Vinca Periwinkle has its first flower open. It's a symbol, for me, of Spring with a capital "S". Not a precariously premature venturing into the season, but a confidently placed marker that dares anything to disagree with its right to be there, then.

The green basil seeds I sowed a few days ago are poking up, and the broccoli seedlings I transplanted into bigger pots are growing ever more sturdy. I think I'll have to buy more of those miniature pots (they're about an inch and a half across) to put the leeks into: they're more ready to move in than the broccoli is to move out.

Eggs today: 2. Definitely a Grizel offering, and one which is pale enough to be a Murdina one, but I'd be surprised since she laid yesterday. No matter.

Today I felt a lot more energised in the morning and of course, did too much so that by mid afternoon I had to go for a nap. And, for the first time since I came down with Swine Flu in early January, I felt bored. Just mildly, and not for long, but having spent weeks in a permanent ennui, it is hopeful and like a tiny pinprick of light at the end of the tunnel.

Signs of new life and hope indeed: it must be Spring.



"Sometimes the tiniest flowers smell the sweetest" (Emilie Barnes)

The Cailleach

I felt quite outraged when I woke up this morning, there was snow on the ground, just a dusting but enough to make the roads and pavements slippy. It melted as the day went on, but it's now blowing an absolute hoolie: dustbins all over the place, and Lola (cat) trying to somehow "duck" under the gusts of wind lest they blow her flowing mane out of place, before giving it up as a bad job and racing back in to the warmth of the house again.

Clearly the Cailleach, she who is Winter, is reminding us that she's not yet down and out in the face of advancing Spring...

Apart from a trip to the shops, it's been a very lazy day, which is probably doing me lots of good, though I'm still tired so it's hard to see the improvement...

I ordered Nigel Slater's Tender Vol 1 with the last of some birthday Amazon vouchers, and it arrived today. I've not yet dived in - I'm almost finding reasons not to, because I want to savour the anticipation of finally coorying up with it, Post-It's to hand to mark "must try" recipes. So having done all the chores I can relax tomorrow and devote the entire day to reading - bliss.

Eggs today: 2. Murdina and Donalda. Why do hens lay in the poo-iest bit of the nest box?? Our hens don't roost on a perch (after one fruitless dusk when I first got them, popping one up on the perch, only for her to jump down as soon as I reached for the next hen, and so on until I gave up as a task too Sisyphusian). So they bury down into the straw and newspaper that gets changed daily, and use one of the nest boxes through the night as a toilet. And that's the bit they lay in, despite the spotlessly clean box right next door. Stupid creatures...




"Give me the splendid, silent sun, with all his beams full dazzling."  (Walt Whitman)

Right, so where are we...?

So, the allotment we have is a half size one, and this is our first full year with it. We have had a seriously bad winter, and in early January when we were finally dug out of the snow, we went to see how it was all looking. White. It looked lovely though - mainly because everything was buried under a good two feet of snow so it was pristine. Underneath all that, it was unlikely that *anything* could survive...

Fast forward a couple of months and the snow has gone, and amazingly, there are survivors. The foresight (or laziness, if you're being picky) to leave the dead cornflower and calendula foliage in situ, has paid dividends as there is a thriving colony of ladybirds. The garlic and onions have over-wintered well, but the cabbage is a disaster. Slugs, of all things: pity, I was really hoping for at least one of them.

Anyway, the great thing about growing stuff is the opportunity to learn and start all over. New season, new slate.

Because of the lurgy I'm having to (learn to) delegate management of the allotment to D. So while I'd be at the Allotment most evenings to dig and riddle the soil in the beds, that's just not an option at the moment. So I've had to mark out on my sketching of the allotment where needs dug first.

So D has been and dug over the 7m x 2m bed where the potatoes were last year. There's going to be a hotchpotch of veg in there since we're giving over three of the 2m x 2m beds to potatoes. That bed will have carrots, cabbage, spinach, chard, broccoli and so on.

Astonishingly and wonderfully, D came home with a bag of potatoes which we'd planted for Yule but had resigned to no crop when blight struck. So that was a real bonus (and we had some that night and they were delicious :-) )

My contribution has been limited to potato chitting, and seed sowing. But that's still something, so we have a good supply of seedlings coming along and ready to be potted on and out in time.

Today has been a so-so day: out for an hour and then back to bed for three to recover... Mind you, it was a day that included being hit by a mobility scooter in the supermarket...!

On the hen front, two eggs today. Murdina's still recovering after a moult which really sapped her strength so she's only just started laying again (we've had two eggs so far this year from her), but she's such a chatty and sociable wee thing we don't mind.

Well, that's us up to date, the new game starts here :-)

                                                              (The bare bones)

"A garden is never so good as it will be next year" (Thomas Cooper)

Fresh start

Okay, this is a totally new thing for me. I moderate a (Pagan) web forum and use the blog there, but, inspired by the other people blogging about their smallholdings/ allotments/ veg plots etc, I thought I'd add my tuppenceworths. There'll be nothing terribly controversial here, this is intended to be a charting through my days, weeks, months and however long I use this.

This is a form of therapy for me at the moment as well. I'm recovering from a bad bout of Swine Flu and as a result of that and a series of chest infections I'm now (temporarily) signed off work with Post Viral Fatigue which has drastically limited what I can do both physically and mentally. Blogging will help me feel that even if I'm sitting doing nothing, I'm still doing something.

I am - I will admit, a workaholic. I (mostly) love my job (a project manager) but it can be manic most of the time. And combine that with running a house, looking after cats, hens, garden, and allotment, moderating a website - oh, and not forgetting my volunteer work at the David Marshall Lodge in Aberfoyle where I'm an information officer telling people about the Ospreys who breed annually in the area (I'll blog about that at some point too), I tend to operate at 110% as a matter of course.

Often it's hard to see that any progress is being made because I'm running around - I think that spending time writing will help me stop and smell the roses a little bit

Hubby, D, will appear in the blog, as will Lola and Poppy (cats), Murdina, Donalda and Grizel (hens) (I should explain the hens' names: D is from the Isle of Lewis (there will be blogs about that as we go there regularly) where tradition dictates the firstborn takes the name of the father. Even if it's a girl. So Murdo becomes Murdina, Donald becomes Donalda, Norman becomes Normanina,etc. Grizel is the name of one of my ancestors: - gotta get a bit of the Lowlands in the mix too :-) )

So, that's the background. Next blog will actually be about the allotment (mostly).

(2010)

"All through the long winter, I dream of my garden. On the first day of spring, I dig my fingers deep into the soft earth. I can feel its energy, and my spirits soar" (Helen Hayes)