New village "trail"

 Our village has organised another "trail" round the front gardens. Earlier in the year we had spot the rainbows, followed by displays of scarecrows over a weekend. This week (for about 10 days) it is front garden Halloween displays. Encourages families out for a LONG walk over half term as well as the making with the kids.

My contribution has been growing and selling half a dozen pumpkins at the gate!

Donations to School Meals appeal fund. 

Advertised by a local business and families. 

No officials or councils involved! 

People power.

Let's just hope that the village idiots who took peoples pumpkins off doorsteps last year and smashed them in the roads are "cowed" into being a bit more socially conscious this year. That would be a great outcome for our anti social behaviour problem!

GBBW

Did you do the Great Britain Bird Watch  (RSPB) this weekend?  I love popular science stuff! 

Our garden count was:
15 hedge sparrows (usually more but it was cold and windy and they were hiding in the hedge most of the day)
3 Great tits
4 Blackbirds (after the mealworms I had scattered on the lawn)
1 Robin
2 Pigeons
3 Magpies
Just across the road in the cereal crop 15 carrion crows, 2 collard doves  and a curlew.

BBC start Winterwatch next week so more bird watching on its way.

Then the rain clouds rolled in and the sun set in a lovely way.

The TV is teasing me with a vague advert for GBSB - Great British Sewing Bee!  I can't wait!  Who knew hobbies like sewing and baking would make great TV?  I wish they would bring back the pottery version - I only did it at school but it made great watching as it was so easy for it all to go wrong.

Sudden change of temperature

Sunny morning, a good 10C by coffee time, rain at lunch and by late afternoon......
thunder, lightening, heavy rain and HAIL!

Nearly a white out!  Dinner by candlelight.  The electric supply tripped out just as tea was going in the oven.  Quick change to do most of it on the stove top and rest went in fridge later for tomorrow. Lit the fire and closed our eyes for a bit.  No great loss, Saturday TV is a bit boring and we had nearly finished the Telegraph crossword. Is that getting easier or are we getting more intelligent? 75% from our brains and a dictionary before having to look anything up.  Luckily it was a lot of books/plays and plants which is right up our street.

Hour and a half later electric came back and heating kicked in.

Sparrowhawk.

There was a bang and then sudden silence.
"Was that you?" I called upstairs to husband who was on the computer. "Have you fallen?
"What?"
I glanced out the front windows wondering why the flock of 30 odd hedge sparrows had stopped making their early morning noise at the bird feeder.  Here's why!!

The sparrow hawk either hit the front windows himself or frightened the sparrows into them (we often get bird strikes).  I rushed to get my digital camera and focus through the grubby window. (I have photo-shopped it to get a clearer picture from the dozen I rattled off).  It gave me an evil look (only 6 feet from the window) and stayed firmly on the body of the poor sparrow. 

 It only left when husband finally slopped out of the study and demanded loudly to know what I was going on about and opened the bedroom window above me.  Honestly,  he has hundreds of £s worth of special cameras and lenses up there and misses a golden opportunity for a special photo!

The rest of the flock of sparrows spent the day hiding in the thick hedge.

Last of the summer

Thank you for the encouraging comments on my last blog.

Last blackberry and apple puddings this week. Our thornless blackberry grown on wires is so much easier than going to any hedgerows and gives large berries and super juicy fruit.

Using windfall apples as they occur.  Think husband might be ready for just apple puddings soon as the bramleys are ready as he feels we have had too many red pubs lately. It has been alternating between blackberries and autumn raspberries for the last 3 weeks - sometimes it is just nice to see a plain milky rice pud!

Do you think it is possible to over do a glut and give yourself a food intolerance?  Last week we both had feelings of bloat, bit of diarrhea, acidity, heartburn.  I looked on line and those are the symptoms of tomato intolerance?  We have been hoovering up the tomatoes = lots of fresh tomato soup, sauces with meat for main meals, incorporating them into lunches.  We eased off for a few days and things got better. But we also thought about some supermarket eggs we had for lunch as we both felt a bit funny fairly quickly and they had a funny taste. Marked as British, within date and only purchased last week.

Hot here but..

It may be hot here and dry but I am not going to complain - we could be living in this village in Greenland being threatened by an iceberg.  See this link to BBC News

Looking out of our windows all I can see is quickly ripening cereals and patchy crops of potatoes. If you look carefully at the crops there are lots of gaps in the rows where nothing has come up.  It will definitely be a low harvest for potatoes and an early one for cereals.

Spring progress

Spring is slowly coming here and will accelerate after today's heatwave.  Our hedge of British natural species at the end of our field is almost looking like a hedge after 3 years.  A couple of them have flowers.  There are several dog roses included and I can't wait to see if we get some blooms this year.

In the flower beds the perennials are making great progress.  This delphinium is romping away.

Our veg garden is gradually drying out but we know it is soggy underneath so are keeping off till the weekend. Pity our neighbour  (80 feet away) was not so impatient - he buried his tractor in a soft spot on Tuesday and will have to wait for the ground to firm up before getting a tow out!

In our poly tunnel the ground is very dry and warm and I harvested a few salad leaves and a couple of small radish for lunch.

Yummy.

Fields of gold

We went out this weekend  and enjoyed the surrounding fields of fully blooming daffodils which are being grown on by the bulb producers. Forget the yellow of rape crops this is far more golden. We have not seen many flowers being picked round here at present which is usually done when the flowers are still closed and green -  those fields must be somewhere else this year. That is OK as we get to see acres of blooms.

At the garden centre there were lovely beds of hyacinths - wish computers had scent capturing!

There was a super bug hotel in among the sales areas.

We spent quite a long time mooching around the re cycling/vintage shop. We want some wooden seed trays to make display boxes for the walls at home. They had a stack but want £4 each.

I hesitate because they were not well made and we have some pallet wood behind the shed.  I am sure we could......

My purchase of the day was a six pack of celery. We use quite a lot but have not had great success with them so far.  The instructions on these are to put in a square and put black polythene barrier round them to blanch.  They look unhappy here as my husband just dropped them!  I have since potted them on and they are coming on nicely.

Sugar beet harvest

The massive field of sugar beet at the end of our garden is being harvested this week.



Massive machines - very specialised and complex.

This trundles by. The two tractors and trailers join in to take away the big lumpy beets. Then comes a big tractor with caterpillar treads and a very big plough to immediately turn over the field. Then comes an another tractor with a complex harrow preparing the earth for its next crop. I am just a little disappointed they are not leaving the beet stalks for the migrating Brent Geese  - but this farm does not seem to be part of that wildlife scheme.

At 6 pm they are still at it, in the dark, with all the lights on looking like a moving town scape, and they seem to have done a quarter of the field.  Back tomorrow by 8 am.  We are fascinated.

We are going to walk up the road to see how big the storage heap is going to be. Because over the next two months its all going to be loaded into road lorry conveys which will go right past the front of out house on its way to the sugar factory.

I hope all you readers are supporting this whole industry and buying British grown sugar!

Moral dilemma

So I am on that local bus again; grateful for the regular service from town to our village. BUT I am a trained workplace assessor and spent 10 plus years watching people working to an efficient(or not) standard.  So this is what I observed over 20 minute journey:
1. A colleague of the bus driver is on board and has chatted with him all the time he is taking fares etc. Stands next to the driver and chats when we set off. In front of that line and the notice that says "do not speak to driver or distract them".  Ok, I have often seen bus staff do this. Common practice but not best practice.
2. Driver takes 3 sharp bends and one right turn junction with one hand clearly on his bus cab support and only one hand on the wheel. OK,  Don't fuss.  No husband often does one handed thing when driving.  I am a nervous 10 to 3 wheel clutcher.
3, We enter the fast straight stretch between villages, and he speeds, up a lot. Colleague receives a text message on her smart phone. She holds it in front of the driver for him to read and share. They laugh and exchange comments.

I got off a few minutes later with a sense of relief.

When I went indoors to find my husband having coffee and watching programme about bad driving on the A1 which, after my morning, did not look that bad but the emphasis was on the dramatic consequences. When it had finished, we discussed my observations and agreed 3 was probably illegal (Reading a text while driving? or, is it receiving and accepting and reading a text?).

So I confess. I emailed my comments to the bus company. I am feeling very guilty - was it bad enough to endanger their jobs?  Or am I Mrs Fussy who has spent too long "judging" people at work?  (I did end up changing careers to get away from that role as judge! )  But then if something had happened unexpectedly at just the wrong moment would the driver be able to react? Was I really a dissatisfied customer - my journey was free, quick, and I was not harmed?

I used my husband's email as my operating system is the same as the NHS one that got hacked so I did not want to turn my PC on.  His reaction was "Thanks, now I will be the one to get the hate mail".  I pointed out if he had driven me to town I would not have been on the bus in the first place!

Beetroot

I went to look for some beetroot today ready to cook a few more for ready for lunch time salads. I had only grown a short row as last year we had far too many. But the hares had got there first!  Four had been well and truly eaten. Honestly these animals are rare, lovely to look at but are a complete pain.

Look at those big teeth marks. 

Neighbour suggested it was because the beetroot were sweet and juicy and the hares were short of water as the dykes and ditches were dry.  Husband muttered he would give 'em a good bath if he caught them.

Rest of beetroot are boiled and in the fridge. Hopefully the hares can't open doors......

First blackberries

Welcome to another new follower.

Picked the first autumn raspberries today- not sure why one cane is so much more advanced than the other 10.   In the box are some large luscious blackberries. Before you rush to Norfolk to find such lovely ones in the wild - these are cultivated ones.

I have just netted these to make sure I get the best ones before the birds!  We put this cultivated thornless blackberry about 18 months ago and is doing very well - sending out strong branches.

I was not sure I had enough blackberries to go with apple for crumble, so I decided to go blackberrying!  First of all I had to tread a path through the grass and weeds at the end of the garden and find "bridge" over the dyke.  Its a ridge of earth over a pipe, no protecting rails, not marked, just an informal earth path somewhere down in the undergrowth.

Then I had to wade through the shoulder high grass along the edge of the barley crop. This is actually a public footpath but no one has walked along it or maintained it in months.

Eventually I reached the length of old hedge row where the path was better used (nearer the other end of the village).  There were only a few blackberries ready despite their wonderful southern aspect.  I will go back in a few weeks.  One of my grand daughter's calls this our "secret path" it certainly felt like it today!

The apple and blackberry crumble was delicious!

Day out in Cley

Too hot for gardening so we went out yesterday for the day to Cley next the Sea (west Norfolk).  The village was very small, with little flint cottages tucked here and there, everywhere grew the most brilliant holly hocks. We explored the village, wandering down cool footpaths between the houses and avoiding traffic snarls in the very narrow through road when coasthopper bus service met large lorries.

The beach is steep shingle and was caressed by a light wind. Cooled feet!

Fishing fleet was pulled up on the shingle bank, with a wonderful collection of old tractors that pull them in and out.

We wandered into the lovely church to look at an art exhibition and lurking in the gloom was this scary sculpture. Made with kitchen utensils.

This is my favourite picture. Almost monochrome. Photos were allowed on this occasion.

Traffic was awful on way home around Kings Lynn.  

A thunderstorm has just arrived here and there is the wonderful smell of rain on the hot ground.

A perfect retirement day

Left house after the school rush.

Drove through a reasonably quiet town and down some sunny empty roads.

Walked through the woods in a nature reserve till 11.30

Went out on to the sandy open land in full early sun; just as getting tired of the rather "blasted" heath land habitat found a bright spring bloom.

Avoided the large bull on the board walk on the bog.There were about a dozen cows/calves under the trees and were making a good job of taking out the flush of spring grass and leaving the reads, heather and cranberry bushes alone.

I am NOT an animal person! This is as close as I get if there are no fences!

Walked down to Wolfenden village to admire the preserved station platform (used to serve Royal trains to Sandringham).

Admired the rhodo's in flower along the roads but still feel they are an invasive species needing control.  Was trying to remember the Alan Gardener children's novel where they hid in a rhodo forest - Wierdstone of Bresmingham? Will ask son later it was he favourite book!

Pub lunch of fish dishes (local food heroes) at Brancaster Straithe. Once a month treat for us over the summer - can't afford to do it too often.

Afternoon on the practically deserted beach, a long paddle and a relaxing hour with a book.  It was hot!!!

Did my bit for the planet and picked up 4 pieces of plastic brought in by the tide and put in a bin (quite difficult to locate one!).  apart from those the water was crystal clear and the sand clean and soft, but littered with razor shells.

Quiet cross country drive home via Docking which is an very attractive village.

Home before the 5 o'clock traffic rush and in time to pick some asparagus for tea!

Perfect day in retirement!

Cold Nights

Night before last it went down to -1.5C, last night to -0.5C and tonight it is predicted to 0C. does that mean its getting warmer?

We have had a few visitors caught on our nature cam at the bottom of the field.  Here is one!

Hope this works - it is my second only video up load.

And now its back to Cauli cheese making; along with carrot soup for lunch! this will be our 9th Cauli from the spring crop and we have 10 more to go. I can recommend this very vege diet as I have lost a couple more pounds!
12 stone is in sight!

26mm of rain

Thank goodness Wednesday is over. Bleak day with 26mm of rain filling every hollow and ditch. Even the dyke at the end of the field is full - first time in the 18 months since we moved here.

And today is a beautiful spring day with that lovely smell to the air!

It was lovely to be able to walk about, in wellies as the grass squelched. We need two or three days for the ground to dry out now.  But I did plant more seeds - some early courgettes, dwarf beans and sweetcorn. Last year's seeds, so I have time to re do seeds if these turn out to be duds.

Groceries came yesterday from on line shop just to top up the fridge and stores, but I am avoiding the expensive shop at the butchers till end of week by tackling all those little last bits of meat in the bottom freezer drawer. So easy to ignore them and promise to use up another week and go and get some more tasty and desirable food!  So for lunch today we had salad and grilled mackerel fillets.  Its the last 4oz of mince for tea tonight.

I was bored yesterday, then I found a nice project in my Sew magazine (last one, I had cancelled the subscription) which I am adapting. I can't afford Cath Kidson canvas - but I have some cheeky monkey cotton print which I will quilt into an equally nice toy storage  bag for one of the younger grandchildren!

I cancelled the magazine as I was a bit fed up with the free patterns being almost the same every month and the toy patterns not quite being good enough to make. Plus it backs the Sewing Bee ex contestants all the time and needs some new writers.  I am not sure I am going to enjoy this years TV crafting highlight (for me) now that May Martin has left. The new lady has a lot to live up to!  Also the facebook updates are so frequent that it virtually gives you all the articles - really don't get that as a marketing strategy for making you buy the magazine!

I found Craft Beggars in the House way down the TV listing on the Community channel last week and despite its low budget some interesting things have come up. Least they have given up the competition format they had last year and gone for a straight interest show!

Welcome to new followers! Delighted to have you.

Wind flowers

Coming round the side of the house over the weekend I found we had quite a few of these flowers sheltering under the hedge and the buddleia tree in an area we have been gradually cutting back and reclaiming from moldering overgrown shrubs.

Grecian anemones apparently. Someone, many years ago who lived here, must have been a good gardener as various little treats keep popping up when we clear out the overgrown corners.

Very appropriate flower this week as Storm Imogen raged through. It was dry but very windy, probable no more than other storms, but I think we have had enough windy weather now and I found myself looking skyward and muttering "Come on now, you have got to be joking, give it a rest please!".  Today we have a bright blue skies and hardly a breeze so perhaps someone was listening after all. In fact it was a strange day for things flying by - a couple of hundred noisy Brent geese heading inland first thing, a couple of nosier RAF Harriers mid day and then late afternoon a silent barn owl swooped past the house along the line of an overgrown field ditch opposite.

Started to read a library book whose back cover introduction to the hero detective starts "He's fallen from grace in Cardiff and exiled to be the catch-all detective in the big bit in the middle that God gave to the sheep". Having once lived in that bit, in fact on the furthest edge of that bit, which my children always described as "where the map says beyond here be dragons"; I was bemused and amused.  Its turning out to be quite comic and a good cheerful read and not too much like the dark stories of Hinterland (BBC4/S4C).. Author Ewart Hutton "Good People".

Spring in the Village

Is that title a little too much like a "Miss Read" saga? Do you remember those, they were popular gentle early 20th century village tales so time ago.

Anyway, it was time for the car's MOT so the husband took it to the village garage at 8 am and walked home. I went back at 10.15 to collect it. Passed so only expense was the stinging £45 fee.  On the way through the village I was trying to discreetly take some pictures of the village scene by the Victorian primary school, church, vicarage and manor house where there are a row of lovely cherry trees just coming into bloom.

This is the only one that came out as it was difficult to be discreet when wearing a bright red coat. There are so many rules about public photography especially around schools  and just as I got there the secondary school where doing some street project! I will try again, perhaps on a Saturday.

As I wandered on I saw a notice board for someone running a sewing studio behind the ironmongery store so went in to chat. A very nice set up and a lovely lady running classes and doing some work on vintage materials. We have similar backgrounds and tastes so I hope I can go along sometimes.

Back home tidy B one side is mowing his grass and market gardening D the other side has got his old tractor out and is ploughing in his sprout and brassica crops.  I must change and get back out there. Yesterday I tidied the two rows of autumn sown onions and added a new row, hoed up the baby leek row and dug up more of the new crop of leeks for the kitchen. I put in 4 more short rows of early carrots in the poly-tunnel and checked this morning they were still damp. You have to keep them well watered for the first 14 days.

Spring is definitely coming!

January budget review

Welcome to new follower - knittynutter.

It is the last day of the month so I totaled up the spending on food for the month.  It works out as £5.24 per day to feed the two of us (plus 1 visitor for 2 days).  Of this 40p per day has been spent on fruit and veg that we could potentially  grow and store in future years.  The freezer is one third empty but the store cupboards are not too bad.  Will be thinking hard about February menu before shopping on Wednesday for the next fortnight.

Did you do the RSPB great bird watch count?  Its been a grey and damp day and not a very exciting day and all our usual bird visitors seemed to have disappeared! It was very mundane - tree sparrows, magpies, a single starling, collard dove, pigeon, great tits.  Where were the blackbirds, robins, wrens, kestrels, pallid harrier, curlews when you wanted to count them?  Not even seagulls in the fields today.

We also reviewed out fuel situation. Not too much oil has been used as we have not had the heating on too much, especially last week when we were outside most of the day time and 17C indoors felt warm in contrast. We have gone through a lot of logs for the wood burner in the evenings but as the sheds are improved quite a lot of scrap wood is coming out and is suitable for the fire. Some 4 in by 4 in beams are quite solid in places and in others the previous owners horses almost chewed through - not sure that was good for them?  Electric bill is up £10 partially the use of power tools and lights in the workshop but mostly the propagator and greenhouse heater.  As the greenhouse has 30+ geranium plants, several standard fuchsias, baby delphiniums and foxgloves and a couple of dozen early veg plants.  I think they are worth more than spending so far but it is a balance.

Real shame about Terry Wogan - we were remembering, with a giggle, his "Janet and John" stories.

Getting my seed sowing mojo going

Welcome to new followers - Pretty Vintage roses, Flourgirl and Debbie.

We have had a fairly dry period with lots of sun and despite the fierce wind the days are feeling longer and brighter!  Does not get dark till nearly 5pm - so lovely.  there was some room on the propagating mat in the conservatory  around my husband's Sweet Pea collection so I popped some outdoor cucumbers, Alisa craig tomatoes (an early variety) and sweet peppers into pots. It says Feb planting on the packet so only a couple days in advance. Only a few I just want to get some really early crops and as we are heating the greenhouse (well keeping it frost free at least) I may as well make use of some space.  Meanwhile some salad leaves I got going on the 8 Jan are ready and I have made a corner in the Poly tunnel and planted about 20 of the largest ones out. I added a cloche to keep them cosy for a few days till they get going.  Our spreadsheet is growing at least!

Seed sowing 2016
01-Jan	Antrinium (new seed)	Large tray
02-Jan	Winter lettuce leaves	Small seed tray 48 Planted out 20 30- Jan
02-Jan	Purple Broccoli	12 tray
02-Jan	Cauli	12 tray
08-Jan	Antrinium (new seed)	48 tray cells
08-Jan	Kale	12 tray
08-Jan	Sweet peas Spanish Dancer	12
08-Jan	Sweet peas Emily	12
08-Jan	Sweet peas Butterfly	12
08-Jan	Sweet peas Heathcliff	12
08-Jan	Sweet peas Little Red Riding Hood	12
08-Jan	Sweet peas April in Paris	12
08-Jan	Sweet peas Scarlett	12
08-Jan	Sweet peas Blackberry	12
30-Jan	Alsia Craig Toms	6
	Sweet peppers	4 (new seed)
	Outdoor Cue	2 (left over seeds)
	Broad beans	12

In the gap left by the demolition of our asbestos garage we had 10 tons of gravel delivered in the week and our youngest son came up form London to help do the spreading. This is cheaper than a month's fees at a London Gym apparently!

Luckily the techie son also brought a spare mobile phone and spent some time re purposing it to replace my disaster last week.