Random Ramblings :: A whole lot of Random

Hi there everyone 😀

My random ramblings are often driven by the random photos that I take on my phone or my iPad and today is no different ...

We seem to have had a really busy couple of weeks ... with foodbank shifts, a bit of gardening, actually getting up to date with the housework and the odd excursion thrown in for good measure.

Following the Government announcement last week about making face coverings mandatory in shops and supermarkets I have been inundated with orders and spent a full day at the machine, with the same on the cards for later this week ...

Following reading my latest 'Reading Corner' post a good friend let me know she pretty much had the full set of Jack Reacher books so I’m set up for the foreseeable ... I've just borrowed the first six for now though ...

She also may have the David Baldacci that we are looking for ... so another visit to the library may be on the cards.

There has been another new recipe tried on the recommendation of another good friend ... fish pie mac and cheese... very tasty it was too ...

The cherries are now all but gone, with the last few left for the birds. The tree has been very generous this year, after a serious prune last year, and we resorted to our old favourite recipe for another couple of batches of jam. I think we are now set up for a good few years ... if I stop giving it away to all and sundry that is ...

It’s onto blueberries next ... not sure what we will do with these as I still have a freezer full from last year but this first batch will be frozen to join them ...

The blueberry has done us proud since we’ve had it but there are a few stems with not many berries this year so I think there may be just a little pruning layer in the year.

This week we had a big day out to the garden at Sezincote, which I will tell you more about in another post ...

We also had a visit from Alison and Bobby and spent a lovely hour or so in the garden ...

Totally out of the blue we also had a very exciting contact from a lady who was working on tales away from the Western Front for the National Heritage Lottery Fund and wondered if we would mind sharing a summary of Will Sidney's war time story as she was interested in people who had been in the 29th stationary hospital in Turin and had survived the war ... We were above excited and are waiting to hear more once she’s had chance to read through all of my blog posts before putting together something for the website ...

Add in the fortnightly shop and errands for parents and neighbours and it’s made for a very full week ... 

Oh ... and we’ve booked a holiday for next year ... we are heading back to the very lovely Llyn Peninsular.

Next week looks very similar ... more time at food bank ... another day out catching up with another old friend, more sewing and hopefully a bit more time to spend in the garden.

I will leave you with this picture of this solitary evening primrose which has just come into flower. Being biennial they don’t appear in the garden every year and this is the only one which has popped up this year. Whenever I see them they remind me of my best friend Lesley’s mum, who is sadly no longer with us, as she let me pinch some from her garden. I really hope this isn’t the last we see of them ...

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Random Ramblings :: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme

Hi there everyone 😀

Well we actually managed a full day with no rain this week ... we even had sunshine 🌞

We were definitely overdue a day in the garden and we started off with a project which has been lingering a while and it was good to get it finished off.

Doing most of our cooking from scratch we use a lot of fresh herbs and there is pretty much always a pot or two of supermarket coriander, parsley or basil on the kitchen windowsill.

We have always had rosemary and mint in pots by the kitchen door ...

... and two bay trees, which do really well out front ...

... but we've have never really tried growing much else herb wise.

This year with lockdown giving us plenty of time to spend in the garden and a renewed interest in growing our own we decided to give growing our own herbs a go.

I started off with parsley ... from seed back at the beginning of April and it's doing really well ...

We've already chopped the smaller one once and it's growing back lovely.

We've also shared seeds with Jackie & Phil and had a go at thyme, sage, tarragon, chives, oregano and dill ... with mixed results ...

The sage isn't doing too bad, though still looks a little flimsy ...

The tarragon looks ok, but I have to be honest ... we've used it once and it tasted pretty much like lettuce, which was little odd ...

The first attempt at chives just didn't come up at all, but we bought some more seeds and whilst we haven't yet got anything usable, we do have some very fine growth ...

We are not overly impressed with the dill, which is a bit of a disappointment ...

... and we've not had much look with the thyme either ... having tried to prick out and pot some on a couple of times we have all but given up with this ...

As well as growing from seed we've had a go at taking cuttings too ... starting with some supermarket mint, that wasn't even bought as a growing herb. We just stuck it in a glass of water and roots appeared so we potted a few sprigs and it's doing really well ...

The other thing we've tried taking cuttings from is a supermarket basil. I watched a YouTube video where someone had done this and basically grown loads of basil from one supermarket plant. We weren't that ambitious as our growing conditions are not ideal but I did take three cuttings from our supermarket plant that we bought a month or so ago and again, these rooted really quickly and are now doing really well ...

We've also planted basil from seed and it's doing well but is ready for splitting ...

I have now set myself an objective of not buying any more basil this season and have gone back to our original plant and I split it into three. Two of the three are doing really well and I think it's time to take more cuttings ...

There was a mass of pots of herbs accumulating on the arbour and I wasn’t sure what to do with them all ... I was wary of putting them totally outside, with no protection at all, as they seemed to be doing well where they were, getting a little bit of shelter from the wind and rain and being out of the heat of direct sunlight.

Martin ended up making me a shallow box that to hold the full collection ... in pots ... 

We've lined it with an old compost bag, so we can water without the water dripping through onto the arbour, where it fits a treat ...

You may be wondering why I didn't plant directly into the box ... well I did think about this but decided it would be handy to stop plants taking over ... like mint. It would also give the chance for me to take things out and replace if they are not doing too well. 

I love it ... it may be a little bit rustic ... but it's my very own herb box ... just like the chefs on the telly have 😂😂😂

In other gardening news we have emptied the strawberry bed and topped up the soil levels with some fresh compost and re-planted 30 of the 100 strawberry plants that we found in there ... all of these came from 3 originals, so definitely value for money. I'm currently trying to re-house the excess ...

There has been a bit more harvesting. Our first tiny, but very tasty, spring onions ...

And I think it's been the best year ever for the Morello cherry ... we have more jam making on the cards for tomorrow ...

After watching the cabbage white butterflies fluttering around the cauliflower and broccoli when we were in the garden we took a leaf out of Monty's book and found some netting ...

... and the blueberry with it's laden branches currently looks like a big white ghost as we've had to cover it with fleece to try and stop the birds from feasting.

Not sure what our next project will be out back but it's kind of comforting knowing that whatever the World is throwing at us things just keep on moving ... from strawberries in June, to cherries in July, followed by blueberries in August 😀

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Random Ramblings :: Finding our own new Normal

Hi there everyone 😀

Whilst there is lots of lockdown easing going on we are still in very strange times and trying to find a new normal that works for us.

Martin and I are both typically cautious ... none of those  investments that can go down as well as up for us 🙈 Maybe it’s a legacy of a huge part of my working life being as a risk manager and Martin doing lots of health and safety audits as part of his job, but weighing up the risks of the current situation we’ve decided that we are going to be waiting a good few weeks yet before we consider relaxing our day to day activities.

Don’t get me wrong, we won’t be locking ourselves away, but we will continue to be very selective with what we will be getting up to and where we will be spending our time.

I think my new mantra is ... just because you can doesn’t mean you have to.

Whilst we will continue to look for low risk days out, where we are unlikely to come across high numbers of people, making social distancing difficult, there will be no pub or restaurant visits for us for a good while yet.

We will also continue to keep in touch with friends and family but will be trying to keep to the 2 metre rule ... only relaxing to 1 metre plus when there really is no alternative. And our friends and family catch ups will continue to be outside for the time being ... with maybe the odd toilet visit allowed.

All in all we are still pretty happy doing what we’re doing ...

A bit of gardening ...
It was not that many years ago that after the month of May the only colour to be spotted in our garden was green ... we have worked hard over the last few years to try and change this and make sure that we have plenty of colour in the garden the whole year through and I think we're starting to get there ...

We've also been very pleased to get both of the new vegetable beds fully in place and planted ...

A bit of harvesting ...
We've already had plenty of strawberries and spinach. It's now time to harvest the morello cherries and we have iceberg lettuce and courgettes in abundance ...

A bit of cooking ...
Obviously, like everyone, we cook everyday ... but we've continued to try and find new and interesting recipes ...

... and we've made our first batch of morello cherry jam. We have used a new recipe this year which gives a soft set jam ... really delicious and will be great on pancakes or ice cream, but I think we will be going back to our old favourite for the next batch ...

A bit of crafting ...
I've finally made up my next new baby girl blanket and taggy gift ...

A bit of chilling ...
Early on in lockdown we got stocked up with borrowed jigsaws ... imagining ourselves spending wet afternoons sat at the dining room table doing them. Well, the table has been pretty much fully occupied with sewing but last week this was all packed away and we actually completed our first jigsaw in a couple of days ... we were quite pleased with ourselves ...

... And the occasional day out ... 

We already have our next foray in our minds ... just waiting for the weather to be on our side.

So ... please don’t be offended if I turn down an invitation or continue to keep my distance ... it’s not personal, it’s just how we are deciding to cope and keep all of us safe for now 💜💜💜

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A Trip to Windsor #6 :: Trains, Planes & no Automobiles

Hi there everyone 😀

Welcome to the last in the series of posts from our trip to Windsor back in February. It seems such a long time ago now. I'm so glad we went as we've had to cancel our two spring breaks to Scotland and to Yorkshire and we are not away now until September, which seems like forever away.

Having seen all of the major sights ... The Changing of the Guard, The Eton Walkway and The Castle ... we made our last full day in Windsor a nice and slow one with a late start followed by a trains, planes and no automobiles wander.

We started out in the opposite direction to normal ... not heading for the High Street, but out the back way, passing the Office of The Duke of Edinburgh's Award and the very pretty Western Cottage ... I know, shame about the wheelie bins ...
We'd spotted an interesting looking statue in Bachelors Acre on a previous wandering and we started our walk off with a detour to have a closer look at what we now knew was 'The Windsor Lady' ...

From here we headed back into Central Station to have a closer look at the Queen's Train ...

From the station we headed along the platform for the footbridge and lift down into Alexandra Park Gardens ...

We were on the lookout for the Hawker Hurricane ... point 52 of interest on The Queen's Walkway ... and we were delighted to find it not too far away ...




After photographing it from every angle possible we made our way back along The Thames, with a quick look at The Jubilee Fountain ...
... before heading into Brown’s for a quick pitstop before heading back to The Courtyard for our Valentines' meal in.

Saturday morning and time to pack up and head for home. We were both sorry to leave our cosy apartment and it was the first time we’d actually got in the car since we’d arrived in Monday,

We’d had a fab break ... we’d both loved Windsor and our first Airbnb ... if you’ve not been then we would definitely recommend a visit ... especially if you can get to go out of season when it’s a bit quieter. It was a real treat ... now to get home and get cracking with 2020 ...

... if only we'd known what was just around the corner 😀

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