Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Ray Mears, eat your heart out

Christmas being Christmas means you get surprises. I for one had something unusual from Bri. Although, if you know me, perhaps not. It was the Worlds smallest whittling kit, but I have BIG plans for it. I have watched what you can do when abandoned in a wood in the snow and the bears are coming. You make a hatchet from the nearest branch, plus writing paper to send a note home, a bowl for the berries and of course, for fun, a fancy spoon with carving on the handle. So I am ready for the doing of. Armed with my new knife to go along with the knowledge, I thought I may have a go at a canoe. If I can carve a pumpkin, I can carve anything, give me a tree trunk and let me at it.
Molly had a lovely surprise too. It was a laser light thingy and she has been chasing the spot it makes and having a fine old time.
Bri's surprise was the book he thought he was getting turned into one he had never heard of on the way through the post, magic eh? I bet a lot of people got those kind of surprises this year, it was the snow to blame of course, not the post office...

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

I'm Dreamin' of a White.....

...out, well I don't mind one bit I've always wanted to step into the most Christmassy Christmas card and now I can. The reality has been a little chillier than expected but what the heck we are one day into winter now what else can we expect? One day is that all? We have embraced the weather, we are feeding the robins which come every couple of hours they know a sucker when they get one. The blackbird is on the berries back and front of the house in turn and Molly is demented with her own Christmas turkeys just lining up! We have decorated the cake with a snowman, complete with snowballs of course. But the exciting thing this week is we have finally, after all the Christmas movies we have watched, made a batch of genu-w-ine Egg Nogg and I can say it is really potent and scrumptious at the same time, bring me another cup Bri. I am watching the snow come down and listening to Andy Williams Christmas CD playing Let it Snow and thinking, for me, it doesn't get better than this as long as we can stay in by the fire toastie warm but of course we will have to go out and deliver presents, get those sprouts ready to put on Thursday for lunch on Christmas Day!!! But for a while it is Snow Day and Silver Bells is now playing and I'm ready to make Merry. Have a Good one everyone.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Highs and Lows

It's that time of year again to review what went right and what didn't down at the lottie. The obvious high is that we won Best Half Plot (Joint with Chris 2a) which was totally unexpected but we were glad that we did. The tomatoes in the poly tunnel did well, we made some fantastic tasting tomato soup from them (Sungold) however, it was a bit of a pain to have to water them on a semi daily basis during the warm weather (Yes, we did have some warm days this year!) Next year we plan to grow fewer (two per grow bag) and use our mini greenhouses instead. The broccoli was disappointing it wasn't the tight round green heads that we wanted but a straggly variety that was no use to man nor beast. The red cabbage, however, given to us by Reg, grew to huge proportions and was delicious braised. Raspberries, gooseberries and strawberries were prolific and made great jams and crumbles. Like everyone else, we grew too many courgettes so next year we promise to only have two plants which should be just about right. The potatoes (Desiree) behaved themselves admirably by growing in neat rows and not falling over. They have been really good to eat too and we will definitely grow them again next year. The swedes and the parsnips are still in the ground , swedes don't look too good but I think the parsnips will be o.k when we get to pull them after the snow has gone. Lettuce, beans, sweetcorn, apples, spinach, beetroot, onions and rhubarb were all good so overall we didn't have too bad a year. Plans are afoot for a new design next year so watch this space to see what happens.