Four dry days in a row

Well, except a pathetic dampness for 5 minutes. Its been dry, sometimes sunny, and we have had a really dry and fierce wind. So no time to hang around indoors I have started to weed the flower and fruit beds. They look all tidy and neat and the wind has dried the top surface within a few hours. Our soil is lovely to work at present, soft loam, and you can plunge a trowel right in and "pop" out those dandelion roots.  Such a lovely feeling - taken two seasons to rid one bed of giant dandelions.

I am not going to look at the veg bed this week as it  is  in desperate need of a lot of digging over to get the large weeds that just have not died over the winter before the rotovator can cultivate it.

We came indoors later in the afternoon to sow some seeds - mostly tagettes which we grow among the veg and around the place to deter biting insects in the summer. It seemed to work last year so we are going to repeat but have gone for a bright yellow this time. Last year they were 80% dull orange/red - pretty but not really bright.

I have divided up all the meat and fish purchased fresh yesterday into 200/250g parcels - which is about right for an evening meal for two of us.  There are 14 parcels in the freezer so no shopping trips to the next village but one, which has the best butchers and fish market, needed for nearly 3 weeks. My count includes the two legs I cut off the whole chicken before cooking it tonight. I like to cook the leg meat in chicken stew type dishes from scratch and you don't get quite the same taste if it is roasted first. This meant the rest of the chicken roasted more quickly this evening - we had two slices of breast meat each and I will use the rest during the week.  Luckily the spinach has re grown in the tunnel so with some soft cottage cheese in the fridge I have quite a few chicken dishes I like in mind. I will be keeping some chicken just for me too as I have been brave and brought the husband some liver.  He loves it. I hate it and hate cooking it but tough it out every few months just for him.