Put away your purse & become debt-averse

PurpleFairy26

Enjoy your day, I’m sure that chutney will smell even better today. Grey and wet here too but the garden will be thankful. 

foxgloves

Thanks Purps. Yes, it is smelling very fragrant, bubbling away on the hob. Very grey here, though the flowers are enjoying the much needed rain. It's getting really windy here, which is probably the same where you are, as you are not all that far away as the crow flies.
F x

Kantankrus_Mare

Good morning all.......A very belated birthday to you Foxgloves! Not sure why with all this extra time on my hands I havent posted here for a while. Feeling a bit bleeeurgh today. Weather has changed drastically and I woke up early worrying about my greenhouses at the allotment. I had left the doors ajar yesterday after watering as it was so hot and from past experience, I know the winds can cause much glass damage so I got up and was at the allotment for 7.15 shutting the offending doors. Have sat vegetating on the settee since returning and cant get motivated. Got the news on and finding myself getting a tad annoyed at the wishy washy things that are supposed to be addressed tonight by Boris. Keep alert??  There are so many different connotations of that and I fear some people will twist that to their own interpretations. Whilst I understand we have to make steps back to normality, I think the advice going forward isnt going to be clear at all. We shall see. Right I have to move and at least get dinner prepped. Have a good day all.

crazy_cat_lady

I can't believe how quickly the new patio has been done foxgloves. Hope the weather picks up again soon and you can enjoy it properly...

foxgloves

CCL - Yes, it has been quite speedy, just one last process to finish it off, which should take place tomorrow, then I can do the nice part, which is decide where all my best pots & garden bench are going to go, plus I am intending to re-do the bird feeding station.
Everywhere I look at the moment, I see about 20 jobs which need doing!

Kantankrus -Welcome back! I thought of you the other day when I was watering the veggie garden. I was hoping you were just busy on your allotment & not poorly. Yes, I think tonight's address re lockdown measures will be pretty woffly. The media have been spreading tales of how things will be lifted from Monday, but I don't see how it can happen with infection rates still so high. If only the testing hadn't been stopped so very soon into the process, the UK might be in a better position. Just heard that someone I know (but not that well) has lost a parent to Covid in a care home. The care home was apparently locked down before the official UK Lockdown measures were announced, so the virus can only have been taken in by staff, & we have heard how hard they've been struggling to get the proper protective gear. The whole thing has been managed so poorly by our esteemed leaders (not very highly esteemed in our house, I can tell you) & I wish I had more confidence that tonight's messages will have the necessary clarity. I think telling people to 'be alert' is very much open to interpretation, especially as some people seem to have struggled with something as simple as 'stay at home'. Ah well, we will see.
F x

Kantankrus_Mare

Been very busy at the allotment and its never looked so good! Just waiting for this cold spell to pass and can hopefully start getting things into place. I would have been lost during this lockdown if it wasnt for my plot and the lovely weather we have had is making it feel it is later in the season than it actually is. 
I live in a dead end street and the whole street trimmed the houses for VE day and almost everyone sat in their front gardens with drink and food. Was so nice to see the neighborhood coming together.
Right.......lets see what Boris has to say.

foxgloves

Yes, May is such a busy month for gardeners, Kantankrus, esp veg growers. I am really hoping to catch up over the coming week. Less f*rting around on the internet for me & more horticultural endeavours required!
F x

foxgloves

Hello Sunday Sunbeams,
Actually, nothing in the way of sunbeams around this neck of the woods today. Plenty of grey sky, squally showers & quite strong gusts of wind, though.
Quite a productive day today. I was mixing up a sourdough loaf at 6.30 am & as soon as I'd had breakfast & the bucket of coffee I seem to need to kickstart the old bones these days, I got on with transferring the chutney ingredients I prepped yesterday from their soaking bowl to the trusty cauldron. Just the 3 bulbs of garlic to add (no vampires here!) plus the sugar & it simmered away quite happily until bottling time. Spiced Carrot & garlic. A Sophie Grigson recipe from that TV programms/book she did years ago called 'Feasts for a fiver'. I listened to my current audiobook while I was doing all that. Very civilised. Skyped my sister mid-morning, more coffee & a leftover scone from the batch I made the other day.
As I've already mentioned, May is a crazy month for veg growers. The tender stuff (summer bedding & tomato plants, courgettes, etc) can go outside at the end of May, so it's a case of getting that lot all potted on (to keep the plants strong) & starting the hardening-off process, as well as getting the later sown crops (in our case beans & sweetcorn) through the seedling stage, so they can also go out when their turn comes. The early sown bedding can go out now if it's half-hardy & properly hardened-off, & I've already made a start on planting out calendula & cornflowers. I still have 4 or 5 trays of those to do though & the next flowers for hardening off will be echium & cosmos. So my greenhouse is absolutely rammed at the moment. I decided I needed to go out in the rain (I don't mind if I'm under glass) & complete just one task, so as to catch up with at least something after a week of not being able to access the garden much due to workmen & the new courtyard needing to set. The most desperate job was potting up the courgettes & squash, so I did those, & used a mixture of bagged & garden soil stirred together in a big trug, to make my supplies of bought-in stuff go further. The germination rate has been pretty good for these this year. I've got 3 Lebanese variety courgette plants (I really like the fruits from these), 3 yellow zucchini, 3 french round ones like little tennis balls, 3 'Black Beauty' & two of each of a yellow & a pale green pattypan squash.  They will be grateful to be out of their modules & into bigger pots, in their first stage of getting ready for life on the outside!
Mr F has not been idle....he decided to tackle the conservatory which has been a builders' throughfare for a week & was rather cermenty & coated in a layer of dust. He's also cooked a nice meal, so I've had some leisure time this afternoon. 
I need to have a very productive day tomorrow, so am intending to have another early start when Mr F gets up for work.
Wishing everyone a safe & productive week ahead,
F xx

NorthernSoulSouthernLife

Hello Foxgloves & friends 
A very belated happy birthday to you 🎉🥳🎂
lots of real life stuff going on which has kept me off the forums for a while , I hadn’t realised how long until I had over 200 posts to catch up on 😱🤣
It feels good to be back reading your tales of cookery & gardening.
Great news on the progress with the patio too.
love to one & all 

Onebrokelady

ladyholly said:

To be fair to Boris exercise Cygnus happened under the Cameron government and was buried by the May government. (Boris was foreign secretary so would probably not have had much input) The common factor to both previous governments was the health secretary Jeremy Hunt. Unfortunately for all of us these exercises rarely result in any good coming from them. My DH was involved in one or two simialr though smaller "events" many years ago and in general they were a farce.

I hate Jeremy Hunt and Theresa May even more than Boris 😀