Mid-Week Musings

So the boys left with the Gramps Sunday lunchtime with Jon going back to work on Monday.

I have been keeping myself busy and on Monday...

I finally planted out ALL of the beetroot. You can look at it in one of two ways, either I sowed too many seeds in the beginning or I was cleverly thinking that I wouldn't have to grow it two years on the trot as I will have jar upon jar of it pickled! You decide!

Then I weeded around the turnips, onions and broccoli.

I had a few sugar snap peas in a drainpipe in the Poly House and have now put these in one of the tyres around a tripod; I hope they perk up as they were looking a bit poorly. I think they were a bit overshadowed by the cucumber plants; this is a close up to show said cucumbers which are growing very healthily and that there are lots to come, it seems.

I re-did the canes on the beef tomatoes and they are much more secure now.

I managed to turn over the compost heap with the help of both wheelbarrows. It is definitely coming on well but I really need to get right down to the bottom.

(I should point out that I've had to move the laptop to the other end of the kitchen table because the sun is streaming through the front kitchen window and I couldn't see a thing on the screen!)

Yesterday I gave the Poly House a really good tidy out including brushing out seed trays that are now empty ready for next season's sowing. There is not much going on in there at the moment; I'm sure there is something I could be doing but can't figure out what.

I managed to do some good work on my December Daily and finished three pages. Then domestic stuff was washing done and put outside, some ironing and clothes and bedding put away. I have the boys' school uniform washed and put aside but not doing anything with that yet as not sure how much of it will fit them by the end of the summer hols!

Jon and I went to the builders yard for supplies, more of that in a moment, after he finished work and he bought this for me. Aaah.

You can just see in the background my lettuces coming on. Decided to try growing these along with the leaves that are in the drainpipe above.

I am a little concerned about the tomatoes. I have picked some and we have eaten them, yum, but the bush ones are not turning red at the moment. I have, however, been reliably informed that when they turn red they emit a gas which helps to turn others red; maybe I just need to be a little more patient and not pick any for a while when they DO turn red. My middle name is definitley "learning all the time".

Now, regarding the trip to the builders yard. You may remember back in January I wrote THIS post, and then I wrote THIS one! The end room is really coming on and this is the bathroom. The tiles I mentioned a while back which the boys were helping to carry into the shed were used for the back wall, Jon made the frame for the mirror we had in stock as well as the duck board for the shower tray. That was another freebie; the tray was lying around at the saw mill, was a bit long so Jon shortened it, glued it back together and sanded it down and you would never know, then the toilet was from Freecycle and the door was a bargain on Ebay.

Last weekend Jon painted the living/sleeping space and we chose this fab purple for the end walls and used magnolia on the other two.

Carpet is coming in a couple of days, grouting on the shower, which is to the left of the mirror, will be finished tonight then it will be done for now. Later we need to look at curtains but we have a great side unit that was going for free, you see we love that word! which will go in later of course. So, where am I going with THIS ramble you are probably asking? 

Well, surpsingly we have changed our mind, yet again. The end room was to be a guest room and nothing more but I have a friend with a self-catering cottage down the road from us and she said we should put it on Airbnb. You may remember that I said I didn't want people in the garden, the space taken up which we had dreamed of for so long etc. etc. However, Jon and I think we can do this without too much impact on ours and the boys' lives. The other thing is the field we own down the road from the house would take a lot, and I mean a lot, of money to turn into a viable plot for camping and would take a good year or more to get done. 

Therefore we are going back to, not sure what plan X, Y or Z, where we use the field as more of a smallholding to be as self-sufficient and self-reliant as we can with our pigs, Jon's agricultural building store, his tool shed, maintenance materials, all his other manly stuff and who knows what else. He would be able to give up work then as we are not looking to be millionaires, just get the qualtiy of life we have both been looking for and want for the whole family. I pretty much do as I please and always have since we got here, and I am very lucky in that, but this would mean Jon could be at home, we would work together, have our desired pace of life for us and the boys and do what we want to do.

Another phew! We may get this first room let out in around October just to see how things go and after that Jon can look at converting the next two rooms.

Isn't life a killer? What can I say but what a ride! As it says at the bottom of my blog posts - 

It isn't love that makes the world go round, it's love that makes the ride worth while.

I can't think of anybody other than Jon that I would want to travel on this wild ride of ours.

I think that really is quite enough rambling.

Bye for now.

Lou.xx