Busy Time Ahead So.....

....wish it had been Thursday today.

Before I explain that just to let you know what we have been up to since my last post.

I forgot to mention that on Saturday afternoon I got round to soaking the rhubarb leaves. Already they are looking a bit putrid but I didn't get my nose too close! Those cabbage whites are gonna get it!

On Monday the weather was glorious so me and the boys had our lunch outside.

The boys sat on the logs around the fire pit and I sat under the tree in the shade.

Yesterday, Tuesday, I took the boys and Jake down to the river for an hour so they could cool off in the water. They LOVE it there! We went so we could pick Jon up from work on the way back home.

In the Poly House the tomatoes on the small bush have FINALLY started to turn a little red - my anxiety levels were getting a bit high as I thought it had stopped growing. Phew!

Today, after taking Jon to work, the boys and I went to Aber to do the shopping ready for our guests arriving on Friday evening. Lots of yummy things -  for supper Caeser salad with fresh anchovies, breakfast on Saturday is croissants, smoked salmon and strawberries, then chicken, turnips, pearl barley and such for a lovely Saturday lunch broth. We are out for Tapas on Saturday night then it is a big breakfast on Sunday morning. I thought I should have flowers, too, so treated myself to some lillies; £3.50 at Lidl. Dressed up a big clip-top jar so it didn't look so plain. (I love love love that bunting!)

So, back to wishing today was Thursday. You know when you're getting ready for people to come, you need to get things done but you don't want to clean up too early or make that cake too early? Well, that was me today because I made up the bed in the end room but couldn't complete it because I need a new quilt, I didn't want to make too much of an effort with the cleaning as I have at least one bed to change tomorrow and washing to do, I want to bake a cake but it needs to be fresh for Friday, plus I need two bread loaves - I think you get the picture. Consequently I didn't do much today, which is un-characteristically like me, although the boys and I did clear stones from the garden so Jon can strim it before Friday and I did a wash load.

When Jon came home we discussed the finishing off in the end room and think, if we are going to let it out before October 1, we need to spend a few more pennies, hmmm. Anyhow, I watered everything when it cooled down outside and cut these beauties!

The largest cucumber weighed in at 8.6oz! We will put the cucumber in the Caesar Salad on Friday and have the courgettes as part of our tea tomorrow.

Well, I look forward to a very productive day tomorrow.

Bye for now.

Lou.xx

Glorious Glory Days

How so very lucky we have been with how wonderful our weather has been this last week. The view from my kitchen window most mornings.

The sun is bringing out the best in the strawberries so have added extra straw around them.

In the Poly House the courgettes are in flower and looking good, although a couple of other things are a little cause for concern but I'm sure they will work out.

After Jon's dad was so helpful clearing the garden things are moving on apace regarding outside useable space. There is a lot to do but we want to be able to use the garden as the summer holidays are only six weeks away. Can you believe it - for those who it matters to.

My brother in law had some wood going spare last weekend so, never one to pass up something going free, Jon brought it home and after discussions we decided a seat around one of the trees would be great as they boys could sit and read in the shade. 

 But it is great for a bit of outside eating, too, including our lettuce leaves which are de riguer at every meal right now!

Very yellow sponge cake made with our eggs!

In addition to the tree seat we have always wanted to include an outdoor cooking and eating area in the garden; I have never wanted a conventional b-b-q so we are having a fire pit! I think eating outside is a great way of slowing down the pace of life.

This area is perfect as is near to the back door and the side door of the conservatory for getting back into the house. Jon fetched wood chippings from the saw mill yesterday and the area is lovely and spongy as we put a good few inches on it.

This is the actual pit and as I write this I can hear the chain saw as Jon is re-modelling some logs for seating. (Photos another time.)

We have also moved the slate topped table to the end of the guest room and it is a lovely spot in the shade.I can use if for potting up things, sitting at for a drink or just admiring the view. Ooh talking of the guest room, we went to Craft in Aber yesterday and bought a sink, taps and pedestal for the bathroom for £8. Get in!

Ooh, nearly forgot. When water the Poly House this morning I decided to see if some of the spring onions were ready to come up - and look see!

How exciting is that?! They will be on my lunch plate today, for sure!

One of the chickens caught a mouse the other day and one of them managed to hide when I went to put them to bed last night as I found her wandering around the enclosure when I went to feed them this morning. We have bought a childrens' fishing net so we can scoop some more of the algae off the pond a bit more easily. The love it so much they congregate in the corner when they see me with the net, instead of the sieve I used before.

Well I think that is it for today. We have had a fantastic week for the boys' half term,and are taking one more trip to Skimmer Island this afternoon. Jake has found the heat tricky; if only he would take shade from his house Jon made for him!

Take care.

Lou.xx

Garden Doings For Today

This morning I have got a few good jobs done. The rose bush which climbs up the front of the house and over the door needed a bit of a pruning. This is not one of my strong points but I think it turned out ok.

Then I moved the compost bin. Just hope Jon doesn't think it needs to be moved again! I ended up taking the contents out of it, moving the bin onto some pieces of wood and levelling it with a few stones - we are not short of those in the garden! I put the contents back and in and gave it a bit of a stir, pushed it down and put the carpet back on top. Should be ok and is in a bit of a sunny position at the side of the Poly House as you can see.

My father in law has kindly finished in the garden with the digger. It would have taken Jon a lot longer having to do it between work and probably would have cost a lot more, too. Here are a few more shots of the garden. I don't think you need a before photo to see there is some difference!

This one kind of shows where we are having our outside space. Behind the tree in the middle of the picture you can just see a row of stones. Well that is the edging to the area we are going to cover in bark, build a fire pit and then Jon has some great wood to make into seating for us. To the left of the conservatory we hope to grass that when some more ground work is done.

I am pleased that getting down to the chooks is not such a death trap as it was getting difficult to see what was underneath all of the overgrown grass.

I have posted a picture from this angle before and it is now very different.

All of the bamboo has now been dug up! The root balls are sitting in the far corner of the garden to dry out before being burnt or we may shift it to our field to get it out of the way. Not sure yet.

One last photo from one of the bushes in the garden. Just coming into flower and just lovely but, as usual, not sure what it is!

My magazines arrived today. I have to say, for once, I was excited more by something other than my wonderful Country Living! My first issue of Grow Your Own arrived with free seeds for my store box! I have already entered the competitions, sent for a pear tree for which I just have to pay £5.95 postage and written a letter to the Readers' Letters page about how excited I am to be on my grow your own life change. Yes, officially obsessed!

The boys went out with The Grams at lunchtime to King Arthur's Labrynth at Machynlleth so this is why I have had an hour and more to read my magazines and write this post. They will probably be out for their tea as well so no rush.

We have been reassessing our plans for the summer hols. I think we are really hoping the summer will be a good one and now think we will not go to London. The boys are more than happy to stay here now the garden is a new adventure plus we can go swimming at Skimmer Island with a picnic, we have plans to do a couple of road trips during the first two weeks when Jon is off, we want to go to the beach at Borth and there are so many other things as well. I think we just want to enjoy our first summer here as much as possible. I have been collecting Summer 'bucket lists' of things to do with the boys so will start and look at those soon.

Well, as usual, I could ramble on forever but I really need to do some ironing. The weather here is, yet again, absolutely gorgeous so will get the necessaries done and then head outside again.

Take care.

Lou.xx

Weekend Wonders.

What a weekend! 

Friday afternoon - weekend starts there here! - I finally, I keep saying it I know but I think I mean it this time, finished that flippin' flower bed I was weeding/digging.The weather was wonderful and I thought I had to get outside. I thinned things out and put aside some daffodil bulbs to take to my sister at the end of the month. I have just too many and even found a tonne of bulbs buried in a corner that hadn't even grown, they were just lying in the soil not that far down. 

After Jon came home from work we all went food shopping and then took Jake for a walk on the beach whilst we waited for our Chinese takeaway we'd ordered. It is a treat every six weeks or so and when we do have one it makes sense for it to be on the day we do the food shopping as it means the boys don't have to wait for tea too long when we get home.

On Saturday morning after breakfast we went into Aber to buy laying pellets and corn for the chickens, get fuel and a few things we didn't get last night; we need to find some suitable receptacles to put the chicken food in now. 

When we got home the boys checked for eggs; we already collected four in the morning, one of which was mahoosive as you can see! 

 and there was one more - our best day yet with a total yield of five then we had some lunch and headed out to the garden. l did the final dig over of the veg patch and Jon helped me take up the root of a bush or something right in the middle. I think I will make a sign to stick on that spot of the patch as we won't be able to plant anything in a circle about a foot across, but we can work round that.

Jon was busy digging a space for the strawberry patch. We LOVE strawberries in our house and it was Jon's only stipulation that we had a sizeable area to grow them. Therefore we used the last four of the railway sleepers from the far right corner of the garden to make wonderful space. We put a membrane down, that Jon suddenly remembered he had in the shed, and filled it with compost.

We decided to head to Sky's Garden Nursery, which opened a few weeks ago not far from us, and we bought eight traditional red strawberry plants and two called Pineberry that are white and apparently taste like pineapple.

I feel a little bit of a fraud as I was trying to keep to the grow your own thing but if we were going to have enough of them for the summer this was the only way. The owner of the nursery was very helpful and is popping round one Monday to get one of the bamboo bush root balls once we have dug them up; I plan on snidely getting as much free help and advice out of him as I can whilst he is here! 

On the way home from Sky's we stopped off at the river Ystwyth near to where Jon works at the saw mill and just ten minutes from the house. 

We call it Skimmer Island as the boys love to skim stones down there and they had put on their shorts and flip flops being determined to get in the water, as was Jake! 

I stood on the sidelines taking pictures whilst enjoying watching them having a wonderful time and declaring they would spend all the summer holiday there and who needed to go abroad - that's my boys! 

(We put the strawbs in the greenhouse when we got home and gave them a good watering as we didn't have time to plant them.)


This morning was my turn to let out and feed the ladies. We've been really busy over the weekend but still had a lot to do. I got a pot of tea on and the yeast sitting for some bread and fed the boys. Jon had already eaten and was outside pruning trees and cutting back unwanted, over grown ivy etc in the corner near the veg patch where the apple tree is; the blossom is looking fantastic. 

We plan on getting a few more fruit trees when the ground it clear; I KNOW it will be soon.

When the kids had eaten they set off with Jon for near to Aber for straw bails for the chicken bedding and a small amount of top soil for the strawberries. The plan to get top soil from Lampeter was shelved when it transpired that the man getting rid of it did not have a digger and Jon would have had to put it on the trailer by hand!

I finally had my breakfast at 10am and put the bread to prove again. The weather had started off rainy and a bit miz but soon improved and it quickly turned into another wonderful day. I scrubbed the kitchen table whilst waiting for the bread then went to iron during the last prove - I still had the boys' things to get ready for school!

I cleaned out the chickens and managed to start clearing some of the cut and pruned branches before Jon and the boys came home then we had lunch and set to again. This is where the bedding has ended up for now.

I planted the strawberries

and Jon was sorting out containers for the chicken food and doing some shed tidying whilst the boys added more branches to the fire pile. Because it was so hot, 25 degrees, there was only one thing for it; we headed off to Skimmer Island, again, and I'm sorry I didn't take my phone as the boys were swimming but no photos. Watching them in the water we know this was one of the things we signed up for when we moved here, a wonderful pace of life. I can see sunny days being down there with the dog and a picnic and having to drag them home! When home we were all a bit goosed so me and Jon are enjoying a beer whilst the boys veg out on the sofa.

As Jon and I were looking out from the top kitchen window on the chickens, my washing blowing in the wind, all be it around Jon's trailer, and the greenhouse we thank our lucky stars we are where we are.

Lou.x