Cooler Weather and Cool Crafting!

Hello all.👋 A breezy and slightly overcast day here in wonderful mid Wales. 

All well I hope.

Not long since my last blog post but I scribbled notes for this post whilst waiting in the car for Jon last night as he broke his hand at work and was three and a half hours in A and E. No cast has been put on but it's strapped up for the next three weeks - he'll be on restricted duties at his day job!

In my last post I talked about the onset of Autumn and of how I love the cooler months. That was on September 2nd and since then the weather has changed considerably. It isn't just the shift from warm to cool but the changes to the physicality of my outside spaces, new beginnings and ultimately the end of some things, ie. this year, which I love and at times crave. I still have problems when we go out, as we did today, and felt myself getting a little emotional when people were impatient, not giving others space etc so the idea of not having to go out a great deal still appeals to me.

The garden is, to be fair, looking a little sad just now. There are some spaces waiting to be filled eg. tyres that previously housed the early spuds where I'll be planting Autumn onions and beds where I'd hoped to grow cabbages but the caterpillars properly got the best of them so that is a no go. There are other beds which will soon be put to sleep until next year with a covering of chicken pooh - managed to clean them out yesterday when the weather was dry. 

However, there are spots of my little patch of paradise which are producing edibles including carrots, spuds (maincrop and 2nd cropping), perpetual spinach, peas and dwarf beans outside. In the poly tunnel I have some longer term projects, as I have always wanted, which are runner beans, salad leaves, turnips and khol rabi. I haven't mastered the art of keeping edibles going all year by any stretch but at least with the poly tunnel I may get more than if I just had the outside beds. 

Last Autumn my boys collected leaves in old compost bags for me so these are now rotted down and ready for when my no dig beds, and perhaps the poly tunnel, will have some mulch put on them along with said chicken pooh. The compost bins should be able to provide me with some lovely organic matter, too.

With the changes in the growing season comes the winding down of part of the garden, BUT hope springs eternal, literally, as I'll be planting bulbs to come through with a flourish in the nearly months of next year hopefully in time for when we begin greeting our Airbnb guests once again. Gardeners and growers of their own like to plan for the future therefore soon I will be thinking about the sowing and growing for the coming year. 

Some people love a spread sheet but I have a simple A5 diary along with a notebook and  piece of graph paper and I work out what and where with those; there is always some wiggle room, a lot of wiggle room actually but I normally get the job done. How do you like to plan your little patch of paradise.

There is always a positive part of the year and, goodness only knows, we all need a bit of positivity and something we can rely on in these still largely uncertain times. Hunkering down for the end of the year is something I never tire of and as a family we all look forward to this time of the year, even hoping to get snowed in; careful what you wish for but that's on our Christmas list every year!

It's also the start of the new school year and in my last post I mentioned about our youngest hopefully transferring to his brother's school.   

Well, we are IN! We had a meeting at the yesterday and he is set to start on Thursday next week! Woop woop! It's going to be a very different experience for our boys and many other children but he is still very excited. They are set to continue school life at everyday normal times but obvious changes to the way lessons are organised and I'm sure, for them, this will become the new normal for the time being.

Once school starts I am tentatively starting to think about the festive part of the year. We are already looking forward to a family visit but I have already begun some Christmas papercrafting as you may have seen on my Instagram account, check it out if not. 

I've managed to do a lot more crafting this year due to lockdown it seems but there is more to come when my very fav US crafting designer, Tim Holtz, launches his Idea-ology Christmas 2020 collection later this month - sooooo excited cannot WAIT! Here is his website to give you a flavour of his style; I love his Idea-ology range, this is from the new collection earlier this year which I love so much as he is so very inspiring with the oh so cool vintage feel to all of his products which are just my thing!

Ok, I have definitely rambled on ENOUGH today so hope you have enjoyed it.

Bye for now, 

Lou.xx