Spring a-Springing

There was a massive clearing day up at the allotment this weekend, loads of people came to help get several decades worth of accumulated fly tipping off our gardens and into a bin lorry. Under the rubbish, signs of life are beginning to emerge in the form of snowdrops (yay!) and bindweed (sigh). We shifted several bin lorries' worth of stuff, as well as filling the scrap lorry three times over - as you can imagine, the site looks a hell of a lot better now. We finally got rid of the two fridges and wheelie-bin full of glass, the pile of foam and the least usable tyres - the difference is enormous :D We're even considering putting in a pond!

Elsewhere on site, drastic measures are being employed to discourage more tipping... heh heh heh. Makes me laugh every time I pass the thing!



I've been busy writing recently, too, mostly fanfiction, but also some funding application stuff for a potential PhD. Been sewing too, but since that's a present, I can't talk about it just yet - suffice it to say it went well and was fun to do!


I got the call that the trial was starting up again in April. I'm a bit sick of it hanging over everyone now - I mean, I know a lot of people were affected a lot more than me, but it's just always there in the back of your head, and I've had enough of it now.

Photos: Fridge-lessness; snowdrops; drastic measures

Frolicking in the Garden

17th May 2010

my lovely niall is finally back from Thailand, all sunburnt and sleepy :D he got me a cute fish purse from somewhere in Bangkok and says the wedding was great!

we went up to the allotment this weekend again, along with the usual suspects (mark, rowena, jamie, allan and puppy) where we cleared and planted and watered and such. we now have rather an impressive crop of canes ready for our climbers.

I'm still excited that things are growing :)

pictures are: mark found a poking stick; rowena and niall planting tomatoes and marigolds; jamie planting peas; the boys making a start on next year's herb garden

Back and Back and Back...

so this commences my 'posts i should have put up ages ago'. having lost the diary for last academic year i'm going to try figuring them out from the photos i have.

so: sometime in early may...

my beloved niall has departed to Thailand to attend ben and poom's wedding and i wish i was with him instead of writing endless essays :(

we went up to the allotment this weekend and, get this, there are BLOSSOMS on the APPLE TREE! this is big and exciting for me as last year none of the fruit trees did anything, so fingers crossed for fruit sometime in september! with the greenhouse (Chateaux Thaddeus) in good order and the progress made on the raised beds (largely thanks to mark and the various unsuspecting volunteers we managed to drum up), it's looking less like a bomb-site and more like and actuall garden. allan, rowena and jamie came up and helped me put in potatoes, pumpkins, tomatoes, peppers and plant out some of the stuff that's been growing on my windowsill. thanks guys!

another exciting first for the allotment was definitely our first crop of asparagus (notoriously tough to grow). they tasted great :D

Easter-tide

(4-4-10)

Easter break (ha!) was spent mostly writing lab reports for my short course. Got loads done at the allotment on the weekend though, Rowena, Charlotte and Hannah B came up and helped us clear loads of ground and we got fruit bushes planted up (fingers crossed that these survive - last year's raspberries didn't last). Charlotte did some crazy paving for the strawberry tyres and Jim and Becci helped Mark lay a floor for the 'Llama cage', our makeshift shed. The greenhouse is beginning to come on now too. We all got very muddy, Niall even posed for a picture.

In other news, Bob the Cactus has come over all funky - big pink flowers all over him - looks a bit like he has go faster stripes :)

Mad March Hares

So the madness continues... those of you who know me will be aware of the surreality of the past few months, but just to recap: murder most foul, attempted suicide (not mine, honest!), mild delirium and sporadic illness have (i hope) ended with the most recent devlopment: some *****rds' have nicked all our gardening tools! We arrived at the allotment this morning, raring to go, and what do we find? No tools, no barrows, part of the fence has gone _and_ they made off with the chain that was around the barrows. I doubt that there are adequate words for how miffed I currently am.

On the plus side, Mark got the greenhouse floor laid, for the most part, while I moved fruit trees, bushes and rhubarb about - there is a Plan, I'm not just taking them for a walk! When Allan turned up the three of us put together our first raised bed and we planted beetroot, parsnips, carrots (orange and purple), radishes and lettuce. I realise it's a bit early, but the seed packet says it's ok and if all else fails I'll get hold of some mesh and canes and create a make-shift giant cloche. We're back up there tomorrow too, with a promise of help from more wonderful friends, so we might even get the fences moved; given the break in, I like this idea a lot!

In other news, my new knitting project is going well (a nice green jumper in Twilley's freedom), and I'm possibly starting a brightly coloured scrappy shawl, for no reason other than I haven't crocheted in a while. There may even be pictures. The fimo creatures are also going well and will hopefully be photographed at some point (see my dA profile: parlanchina.deviantart.com).

The masters course is going ok, though this next week might do me in as it's my second short course (three-days on the uses of stable isotopes in archaeology). Watch this space!