Holidays

After much deliberation we decided to go abroad on holiday, we chose Turkey and we had a fabulous time. The sky was blue, the sea was warm, the temperature was a bit silly pushing 40 degrees most days but we had a brilliant time together as a family.

I haven't flown for five years so for those of you panicking about the Welsh Girls carbon footprint I am sure this should still make us better than most !


The beaches at Olu Deniz are pebbly but still its a fab place to have your holiday !

Here you can see my just turned 4 year old stomping off to the sea on her her own because daddy was 'boooring' for wanting to sit down and have a rest ! She learnt to swim in three days and our belt and braces approach to floatation was reduced to just arm bands on the second day ! I have always hated swimming pools and have never learnt to swim so I was exceptionally proud to see her whizzing across the pool and bobbing in the sea - my little mermaid !

More weeding

More weeding - not much can be said to expand upon allotment jobs at the moment, I have been away for a fortnight and the weeds have gone rampant, bearing in mind that this photo is about three weeks old you can imagine how bad it looked.

I have taken to plotting in the evenings, as my daughter is still off school at the moment, so Daddy comes from work eats his dinner and looks after his little girl - unfortunately last night they decided to tattoo each other with felt pens she now has smiley faces and mam and dad tattooed on her arms - she is very proud of these and still will not let me wash them off - I think I will have to sneak in her room when she asleep and scrub them off.

There are two problems plotting in the evenings, firstly the midges are very hungry and I have been bitten to hell, the other as can be seen below is that you can get a bit too involved and not noticed that the nights are drawing in rapidly and you end up recieving frantics calls from home asking - are you OK - can you see how dark it is ? Obviously not as it was 'proper dark' by the time I locked up and walked home, I think I will have to set the alarm on my phone for about 8.15 as this will give me time to pack up and walk home as 8.45 it is completely dark - grrrr long winter nights are on their way.

N.B. this was taken with the flash on !!

Rescue the carrots and leeks

On Wednesday evening it was the turn of the leeks and carrots to be resuced.



If you look really - really hard you can see the difference !! Three buckets of weeds came from that small area not that you would know from the photo.



On the next visit I will clear the ground between the leeks and the peas on the right of the photo and that will be another little bit done.

Save the onions

In amongst the weeds there are some onions trying to grow - so on Tuesday evening I thought it would be nice to give them just a fighting chance and very kindly weeded them.



After one and a half hours grovelling on my hands and knees, getting attacked by ants, midges and rogue brambles they now look like this.

Much better, there were a few casualties along the way but they came home with to use up as we need them. I seem to having trouble with my red onions - they just don't want to grow and most of them have gone to seed.

Luckily a conversation with my mother yielded some handy info - if an onion has gone to seed or even if it is trying and the stalk has gone quite hard you cannot store them as they will rot.

This will not be front page news for experianced gardeners but may be useful for newbies like me.

Time to rescue my pitiful crops

The tomatoes were in desperate need of being rescued, they were getting crowded out by dying foliage, grass and weeds. Sunday morning was gorgous and as my little darling decided 6 O' clock was a good time to get up I pottered around did my house jobs and waited for my husband to crawl out of bed at 10 ( he had been out on the sauce all of the previous day at a biker do - but that's another story !) so, he was forced out of bed - I am not sure who was looking after who but my daughter seemed to keep things in order and I was able to get down the plot.

First the grass, which has now grown into a hedge had to be clipped and trampled down, then began the painstaking job of hand weeding. I prefer hand weeding as it feels like a sort of penance for not doing things properly and keeping on top of the weeds




There was also a lot of iffy looking foliage. I am a bit worried that the potato blight has started to affect the tomatoes so I gave the plants a haircut whilst I was there. They are a bush variety but I thought that thinning out the iffy branches would allow more air to circulate and if they are dieseased bits good riddance !

By the time I pondered and kicked a few tumps of grass it was about 10.30 and so after weeding - almost solidly - for two hours my husband and daughter came to collect me to take me to my mothers for Sunday dinner. For some reason best known to my mam we had a Christmas dinner - turkey, sausages wrapped in bacon - the full treatment - as it was the hottest day of year it was almost comical to see such a spread but I was so hungry it was a fabulous sight to behold - thanks mam for a dinner I was truly ready for !!!

Here's the finished result - it looks much neater in person - honest !! Still plenty to do though.