He just can't be trusted.....

..... Mr Milly that is!   I left home on Wednesday morning with strict instructions about the jam from this  post,  I've come home tonight and very quickly could see that something was amiss,    3  yes you did read that right - 3 more jars of jam have been re homed!  It's a good job I had managed to make a few more earlier in the week, but now I have decided I am going to hide it as it would appear Mr Milly is unstoppable!  LOL!

Tired and Cranky

That is me right now, I've gone from being crunchy to being cranky - I think Mr Milly prefers crunchy!

I think it is the thought of having to go away again tomorrow for another 2 days, sometimes like this time I just don't want to go and would much rather be at home.  It is affecting me all round at the moment and even going to the Lottie right now is a bit of an effort.

Yesterday I picked these;-

Yummy yummy fresh peas - quite a few of the pods didn't make it home I have to confess!

Tonight I have picked more strawberries - the weight of these was 2.5 pounds.  A few more jars of jam will be made tonight.  As quick as I am making it Mr Milly is giving it away...  I have made 8 jars of jam so far,  one has been opened and 2 more are sitting in the kitchen,  the rest have all been re homed.  He is now on a strict warning that I like strawberry jam and would really like to have enough to last until next summer.  I'm not too worried though as the strawberry plants are still growing little green berries, so the promise of plenty more is there.

The potatoes are looking huge and healthy at the Lottie all nicely topped with little white or purple flowers.  A couple of times I have had a furtle to see if anything is happening,  today I decided to dig one up and see if there were any potatoes.........

Woohoo!!! - some really very good sized one and these are from just one potato plant,  I'm really pleased and a little relieved that I hadn't wasted a perfectly good potato plant by digging it up too early.

Alison

This made me laugh today

From this Blog that I regularly follow  Our New life in the Country,

I  for one am definately crunchy!!

Thank you Sue for making me laugh today!


Alison x 

Jam Anyone?

I've been away for 3 very long days this week - so no blog update as there really isn't anything interesting about working and staying away from home.

Tonight I couldn't wait to get to the Lottie and check on my newly planted greenhouse,  I didn't know how it would have coped with me being away and not here to water it for 3 whole days!  I needn't have worried as everything was perfectly Ok and not dried to a crisp.

Then it was onto a bit of harvesting,  Mr Milly had put in an order for some onions as we have none at home,  then I pulled out a few weeds from the salad bed and noticed that some of the radishes were getting big,  too big infact as they were like ping pong balls....  I can confirm they were very tasty, but extremely HOT!!

I turned by attention to the strawberry bed next....  as soon as I walked up the plot I could see lots and lots of red berries.  I found a reasonable size plant pot and started picking,  very quickly I filled that pot, found another - filled that one and then had to search high a low for a 3rd pot.   I was delighted,  I was beginning to think that the strawberries were going to ripen in dribs and drabs and I would never had enough to make any jam.   I couldn't wait to get home and weigh them,  put into a bowl there seem masses of them and the scales confirmed it 3.5 pounds of strawberries!!  How brilliant is that!?

Right now the strawberries are sitting in a pan,  jam jars and in the oven and very shortly I will be making my first batch of jam for this year - fingers crossed it works out OK!

Alison x

A bit of Recharging

Life does seem to have been busy of late,  lots to do at the allotment, far far far toooooo much football on the TV...  visitors in and out, popping to Wales every couple of weeks,  coupled with lots of  stress and overload at work.  Both me and Mr Milly have felt a little worn out and frayed around the edges.

This weekend we decided to try and re-charge and we had a lovely weekend!   Saturday;  I finally, after being nagged and prompted by Mr Milly, had my hair cut and coloured, so that was a couple of sitting still hours in the hairdressers....  Mr Milly was out late Saturday afternoon to watch our eldest nephew compete in a swimming gala,  I just quietly pottered about at home,   the sewing machine was out for a little while and then out came the crochet hook to do a bit more work on the blanket.   It is very rare for me to be home alone and for a short time every now and again - I quite like it!

Then we went to Mr Milly's sisters for tea and sat for several hours at the table just chatting..  Lovely!

Sunday was Father's Day - A day for Mr Milly to rest.....  we went to the Lottie for a couple of hours in the morning,  Mr Milly read the paper sitting in the Sunshine whilst I poodled about,  Barney from across the way came for his Sunday morning coffee and chat both Barney and Mr Milly are huge footie fans they sat for an hour or so, drank coffee and chatted footie.  It would be fair to say that I am well and truly fed up with the football.....  I just carried on in my own little
world.     

A Little Lottie harvest - lots of scrummie Strawberries,
a perfect 2 person size lettuce and some
 red and white onions to kept us going for a week or so.

Home for a quick shower and a bit of smartening up and we went out for dinner - we sat alongside the river for a few hours,  chatting, eating and generally just enjoyed being together.

This is where we had lunch

Home in time for yet ANOTHER football match...... my crochet hook kept me amused.  And that pretty much was the end of the weekend.  

We did re-charge and it was definately the best weekend we have had for a while..   I thoroughly enjoyed spending lots of relaxing quality time  just me and my hubby.

I hope you had a good weekend too!

Alison

In the words of Gordon Ramsey

Done!!!

The greenhouse is fully glazed WooHoo!

The polycarbonate finally arrived this afternoon and after work I set off to the Lottie armed with a ruler and Stanley knife.  I couldn't wait for My Boy and thought I would give it a go myself - how difficult could it be?.    A couple of hours spent measuring, marking, cutting and fixing and the Greenhouse is now a proper, fully glazed, functioning little addition to my Lottie.  It is a miss match of glass and polycarbonate - but who cares!?  It all works the same!

The first planting in the greenhouse,
a couple of Sungold tomatoes a solitary cucumber plant
 and just out of view are 2 pepper plants.

Would you believe it is nearly the middle of June and for the last 2 days I have put the heating on for a couple of hours a day - completely unheard of for this time of year!  Mr Milly hasn't been too impressed, but that is one of the downfalls of working from home - I sit in a little room all day on my own and I do tend to get cold easily.   The weather forecast is rain, rain and more rain.

I'm not sure how things are going to work out at the Lottie this year,  I'm not holding out any great hopes of bountiful harvests and think I will just have to be grateful for anything!   We have picked a few strawberries here and there as they are very slowly ripening - enough for a little bowl for me and Mr Milly.    Radishes too have been doing OK  with a handful coming home with me every now and again.  

Today's radishes

And after all of this time, the Greenhouse is very nearly completed.   I dug over the whole of it at the weekend, cleared all of the weeds and laid some paving slabs for the pathway.   I have deliberated for months now on how to glaze the missing panels and finally decided to go with Polycarbonate.   I was just reluctant to be spending any money on it and was hoping a cheap option would be found.   But as time is now moving on I bit the bullet and ordered some cheapo poly from Amazon,  this is due for delivery tomorrow.   It wasn't terribly expensive for the 10 sheets and as the greenhouse came from Freecyle and to date has cost absolutely nothing - I did feel justified on spending the few pounds on the polycarbonate.   My boy has offered to help with any cutting that needs doing and hopefully by the weekend I can finally, after 5 months, plant something in it!

Greenhouse laid out ready for planting

A very wet looking herb garden next to the greenhouse

The little greenhouse in the garden is full to overflowing with all sorts of bits and pieces,  it has been really useful this year bringing the seedlings on and now it is at full production and planted with tomatoes, peppers, chillies and aubergines.  The other pots are all waiting to be moved to the lottie Greenhouse and some  to go out into the big wide world.   If it ever stops raining I might be able to plant them!

Planted grow-bags and lottie ready plants

Full to overflowing

the tubs at the bottom are planted salad leaves for home,
 3 pots planted 3 weeks apart for a succession of salad leaves

Changing of the Guard

Today we went to Windsor which is approx 6 miles from home, it is a place that we visit often but for shopping as it has some of our favourite shops.   We arrived today just in time for the Changing of the Guard,  I casually chatted to one of the police ladies to find out the best place to watch,  she happily pointed out the best view point and away we went,  I was really excited and felt like a proper tourist with camera to the ready.   It is quite a sight to see and as you hear the sounds of the marching band in the distance  a funny sort of tingly butterflies start and you can hear people around whispering - 'they're coming!' - actually I think that was me!   

We definately had the best seat in the house,  the soldiers marched directly towards us and very  close then turned right and marched towards the castle and then in through the castle gates.   How exciting!  Time then for a quick visit to the Cath Kidston shop - which was empty as people were still milling about after the parade.  Then a return to the next best spot in the house to watch the exiting Guards leave the castle. 

I can share some photos with you,  it's just a shame though I can't share the excitement!

The new Guards walking up the hill and arriving at the castle

A little one dressed to match the guards - how cute!

The old Guards leaving the castle and heading back to the barracks

A lovely Windsor cobbled street decked out for the Jubilee Celebrations

   

The growing season has arrived

Everything is now growing well at the Lottie,  I have been picking a handful of radishes every now and again,  the autumn planted onions are being lifted and used as needed now.

Good sized Autumn onions 

The spring planted onions are looking promising and are beginning to bulk up

At the weekend we found a couple of ripe strawberries - these were quickly picked, but didn't make it home!  Nothing else is yet producing a harvest, but the promise is there!

Ripening strawberries

The two best looking crops at the moment are the peas and the potatoes

Potatoes,  some are just beginning to get their flower buds

Four lines of peas,  the 2 lines on the right were sown 3 weeks after the others

Lots of flowers now appearing on the pea plants

And best of all - lots of pea pods now appearing

The bean frame seems to be working well,  with the runners and french beans now doing their thing and beginning to climb the strings.

The next job and the most pressing  is to get the greenhouse sorted!  I am short a few panes of glass and have been debating for what feels like months the most cost effective (cheapest!) way of replacing the glass.  I have now ordered some Polycarbonate sheets,  hopefully these will arrive by the end of the week for the greenhouse to be completed this coming weekend.   I'm quite looking forward to getting this finished and planted up as I have never had a greenhouse before - it will be interesting to see how it works out.

Guests for dinner

Today we have been surrounded by people, which makes a change for us.  My Sister-in-Law visited this morning with the 2 little boys,  my sister-in-law had her shopping to do in the supermarket - the littlies didn't want to go with her, instead they came to the Lottie with me ,  the Portuguese Housekeeper is staying with us for a while and she came too.   It rained!  We managed to plant the pumpkins and do some tidying up jobs - which the boys really enjoyed as it involved moving bricks and breaking up pallets - proper boy things to be doing and all of the extra hands was brilliant!

After taking them home and playing with Millie the puppy for a while, the Portuguese Housekeeper and I came  home and made cakes!  Little cakes this time, which I haven't done for a while and I think I am out of practice!  They all tasted OK - but I would have preferred them to look a little better.

This evening My Boy and his friend  Steph came for dinner, so that was 5 of us, dinner was followed by scones made by Steph with cream and jam and cupcakes.   As it is the Jubilee weekend - I tried to make the cakes fit with the theme - I had spent a couple of hours yesterday making the pin wheels and flags to go with the red white and blue cake cases - overall I was quite pleased with the effect.

Just one minor hitch - we were due to be visiting friends tomorrow and cupcakes were to go to,  enough cakes were made for visitors today and our visit to friends tomorrow which in totally was going to be 10 of us, unfortunately they have had to cancel -  now every tin and box in the kitchen is filled with cakes with just 3 of us in the house to eat them!     Cake anyone??????

Alison x 

Watch this..

I was sent the link to this You Tube wedding proposal and it is brilliant!!!  Take  a couple of minutes to watch and see if you cry,  like I did!

Wedding Proposal

Alison
x