Usually I would be moaning my socks off about the rain, the dreaded rain! But it’s actually a welcome relief, things were starting to look a bit parched, and I imagine my water butt is brimming again. Of course, it also saves me all the watering of an evening too. Not such a bad chore, but it’s good to have ‘free time’ to do other ’stuff’.

I haven’t really been that active at the Smallest Smallholding lately. Lots of work and stress in other areas (praying for funds to clear, only to be bitterly disappointed that I am going to have to wait yet another weekend with not a penny to my name), as well as trying to forge ahead on the allotment. We are currently undertaking the UTTERLY BORING task of removing all the twitch in the ‘upper section’ of the allotment by fork and hand. It’s going in a metal bin to be burnt later on. I also cleared around the raspberries (still haven’t worked out whether they’re summer or autumn fruiting), and am currently sporting a slightly infected splinter wound, thanks to our ancient wooden-handled rake.

I managed to get at least 50 more sets of my Hercules onions in here at the Smallest Smallholding though, only 50 more to find space for. Although, if I’m honest with myself, I am really pushing it a bit now. Last year I got through 50 sets in around 3-4 weeks, and by August I had cleared them out. This year I hope at least my inability to plant anything on time has translated into a sort of successive planting plan, where I’ll be able to continually harvest. That’s the plan anyway. It really depends on the weather this year - I’m relying on another run of very mild weather to get everything going. And I’m also relying on Lilla, one of my cats, to NOT go under my fleece tunnels and dig up the onion sets. Or roll in my carrot seedlings and crush and/or displace them. I say rely - unfortunately Lilla is a law unto herself and despite my protests, she does as she pleases.

I still haven’t planted any sweetcorn, and let’s face it - I could be setting myself up for a big failure if I tried to do it now. Bunnies are chomping their way through sweetcorn like it’s going out of fashion, so I may have to resort to (shock! horror!) buying in some plugs to get a bit of a head start. I’m a bit funny about buying in plants from supermarkets or garden centres. I just feel like I haven’t had enough control over them, I can’t really say “look what I grew!” because I wasn’t responsible for the whole process. But then again, I bought my ‘leeklings’ from a WI stall last year, and leeched off someone else’s handywork and claimed those leeks as my own. It feels a bit different though, taking something from another gardener rather than a commercial outlet. Maybe I’m just far too puritan about these things.

My aubergines are going very well and need repotting now. Once the weather has improved a bit I’ll put a few of them outside the door to sell, along with my tomatoes. My tomatoes are gaining height as each day passes, quite spectacularly. I still can’t get over the fact that not long ago, they were tiny dormant seeds, and now look at them! This year I’ve been so much more regimented with my watering. I am a bad earth mother sometimes, but this year I am willing to face up to my failures and try to improve. My tomatoes suffered as a result of my haphazard watering schedule last year. We ended up with black rot under a lot of the fruit. And I had too many plants to contend with, so we ended up chucking lots of overripe tomatoes to the hens. I suppose that’s not such a bad thing, they gobbled the toms up with glee. Free food, and all that.

Oh, and the asparagus that are going to seed are looking glorious.

Firstly, I just want to say thank you everybody for your kind comments about Cynthia. I am starting to get used to the fact that she’s not around anymore. I’ve had a few teary moments and blubbed a bit over the past couple of days, but I know that it was the best thing for her. She had a good life here and that’s what is the most important thing for me to remember.

Pattie doesn’t seem to be getting any better, nor does she seem much worse, save for the fact that she’s not drinking so much water and she’s gone off her food a little. She’s quite a bit quieter now and we suspect she has an impacted crop, or there is some sort of blockage further down the track that could be causing problems. So we’re massaging her crop, tried to get her to eat live maggots (the white ones from the fishing shop, foreign territory for me the anti-hunting anti-fishing vegetarian softie that I am), but she ended up squishing most of the ones she did eat in her beak before swallowing them down. The idea is that these particular maggots have an insinct to wriggle and bore downwards, which can help to dislodge and break up any impacted material in the crop.

Long grass and vegetation can sometimes curl into a ball, simply because it’s long and tangled or because there’s a problem in the crop, such as canker or mycosis. Then again it could be a digestive tract problem. We’re still waiting on Pattie’s fecal results (she was squitting water and little bits of poo earlier on this week when she was drinking like a fish) to see if there’s anything going on there. She may have to have x-rays to see if there’s a blockage, or bloods taken if it’s a kidney problem. She doesn’t seem to be drinking so much anymore, but her crop is impacted - like hard dough - in the mornings, so not everything is getting through. This can affect the amount of nutrition she’s getting, obviously the less she’s getting through, the weaker and more lethargic she feels. So I can’t see the vet bills stopping any time soon unfortunately.

Big sigh.

Rich has been steadily working on the new wooden compost bins. Hens shouldn’t have access to compost really, and ours regularly infiltrate the barriers and merrily spend half an afternoon scrabbling all over it before they’re discovered. So Rich has designed some very nice large wooden compost bins with lots of breathing space. There are basically two types of organism that thrive in compost heaps - those that thrive in aerobic (access to air, water etc) conditions and those that are perfectly happy in anaerobic (no air) conditions. We’ve decided to leave the compost bins with gaps inbetween the wood planks. Not because aerobic organisms are any better at breaking down compost, purely because it’s cheaper to use less wood. Rich has also designed a sloping lid with hinges to keep the hens off the top, as well as a gated front so empyting, turning and generally getting to the compost is much easier. They’ll also smarten that corner of the Smallest Smallholding up no end.

I’ve also got some seeds that suddenly germinated in the conservatory, but I have no idea what they are. I stupidly stuck the torn packet labels in as makeshift temporary plant labels, but in all the wind they blew away. What an idiot. So now I’m not exactly sure what is what. I only know what’s in the pots and which tray has aubergines in, and which tray is full of tabasco chilli seeds. The others are anybody’s guess. I think some of the cabbages might be coming through. I’ll try and post a picture of the seeds to see if anyone can help me identify them. It’s nothing to do with the picture attached to this post, that’s merely for aesthetic purposes.

One last request - I am cleaning and disinfecting my greenhouse (and henhouse) with special disinfectant from the farm shop (it’s fine for use alongside the hens). I was clearing up the greenhouse a bit today and noticed that my chives that have been growing in there all winter are infested with greenfly. I don’t like those sticky pad things, and again being a softie vegetarian I’m more into preventative actio or deterrents rather than chemicals that KILL!KILL!KILL!!!! Anybody know how I can discourage the greenfly from coming back? I was hoping to grow my tomatoes in there this year…

I don’t really understand what’s going on. Everything seems to be going in slow motion. Plodding along. Sleeping.

Maybe I’m just thrown off because Easter was so early this year (got another 150 years before it comes around this early again, I think it’s safe to assume that I won’t be around), but I can’t help feeling that everything is growing at a snail’s pace this year. No, scrub that, nothing is growing. Nothing is even *germinating* yet.

I’m hideously behind schedule with all my planting and sowing - good grief, I still haven’t got the broadbeans in yet! But I just figured that with all the wind, rain and snow we’ve had recently there was no point. As I’ve said before, I’m propagator-less and the greenhouse is not heated (and currently a dayroom to 4 little brown hens) and without staging (next week though… mark my words!). So I’ve only done a tiny amount of sowing. I’ve either left the seed trays outside with the hardy stuff in them, or just got them out in our (unheated) conservatory. I keep willing the little seedling heads to pop up through the soil, but alas, nothing as yet.

Got loads of work to finish for Fri, then I’ll be down at the allotment, around the Smallest Smallholding, and tackling my other website projects for a while. Perhaps then I’ll have something actually interesting to blog about, rather than filling my posts with my plans, instead of documenting actions.

So in the meantime, I’ve provided you all with a fab pic that Rich, my other half, took recently of some lichen. Amazing when you actually look at it - no camera or photoshop trickery here!

Urgh, well - the kitchen is almost done thank goodness. For the past three days I have been able to actually see what I’m cooking, the dust is all but gone, I’m not hopping and skirting around containers and pots, and all in all, it looks pretty good. I have my kitchen back. YESsss!

I have a little bit of work to finish, and then I’ve got a very long list of things to do at the allotment and Smallest Smallholding, some of which include:

1. Putting the Early Potatoes in the ground

2. Putting in more of my Hercules, Stuttgarter Giant and Red Baron onion sets

3. Putting my tent cloche up and sowing my Gladiator parsnip seeds

4. Getting the rest of the Aquadulce Broadbeans in (better late than never)

5. Sowing my Mussleburgh and Porvite Leeks and Snowball Turnips

6. Collecting up some more loo rolls (last lot got put in the recycling by accident) to sow my Heirloom sweet pea seeds that I collected from the plants last year

7. Sow my Nantes Carrots and Golden Bell Peppers

8. Buy some wood and get Rich to build my greenhouse staging (I’ve done a very scientific diagram for him to follow)

9. Buy some wood and get the compost compartments built

10. Do a big ‘poo run’ and stick on compost.

11. More digging (and back pain, and general boredom)

12. Getting the borders sorted on one side for the flower bed.

13. Buy another passion flower to trail up the trellis to disguise the chicken wire.

14. Some general landscaping in the ‘eating area’.

15. Find pots and sow my millions of herb seeds!

I could go on but I imagine you’re starting to get bored now.

In other news - we took Yoko and Cyn to the vets. Yoko had a check up and it was decided that she’s doing fine as she is, so no need to drain her thus far. I really hope she can make it through the summer, because when she stopped laying over the Winter she shrunk back down to a ‘normal’ size.

Cynthia on the other hand, is still unwell. She tends to go in cycles of being ok for about 3 weeks, then gets a problem with her crop, as well as the lack of egg laying and swelling underneath. So we took her in, and it turns out she has a ‘mass’ inside her, just where the eggs pass down. She did a funny egg a few months ago, and we think it may be another one that’s lodged itself there and it may be ‘walled off’ like an abscess. The vet thought that she was a bit young to have a tumour, but didn’t discount it. She said that problems elsewhere can cause problems with the crop too, which is perhaps why Cyn keeps having this reoccuring sour crop problem. It always seems to clear up with the Nystatin though. So at the moment, she’s having 1ml oral baytril a day (baytril works on contact, so getting it to pass through her system is the best way to attack this ‘mass), and we’re waiting a month to see whether the mass has grown or shrunk. If it’s grown, then there’s the option of an exploratory op, and depending on what that finds, surgery. All of which carry risks of course. But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

In the meantime, I’m trying to keep her well fed and comfortable. She’s not lethargic as such, just a little bit withdrawn and not gobbling her food. I think the sour crop is returning, so today I’m zipping up to the vet (10 miles away) to get some Avipro and see whether we should start another course of Nystatin or not. Apparently if a hen has a fungal infection, baytril can actually compound the problem so we really need to keep a close eye on her. She’s up and about, she seems happy enough outside so I’m hoping and praying that in a month we’ll not be facing a really difficult decision.

Aside from our hen troubles, we got through Easter fine, had a lovely visit from Rich’s parents, and we’re both now on a healthy eating kick. We have a wedding and my school reunion that I’m organising (am I mad?) in May, and I don’t want to look like a spotty beached whale for either event. Plus, there’s the summer, and being plump during the hot summer is not fun. I’ve got loads of gardening, smallest smallholding and allotmenteering to do, as well as swimming, so hopefully that should get me back in shape. And of course, with my kitchen back (not that it went away as such), I am looking forward to a heck of a lot of baking and cooking, especially with my own home-grown produce.

I woke up just an hour or so ago to a fine dusting of snow. It’s still coming down in a steady flurry, tiny criss crossing flakes that are settling everywhere. I’m sitting here on top of the world (or so it feels) on the second floor looking out across the Smallest Smallholding. My cat Mindu is curled up with me, headbutting me at every opportunity and quietly purring. The other cats are all dotted about the house curled up fast asleep. Rich is tucked up in bed quietly snoozing away. Now that I’ve come in, the birds are coming in to land in the fruit frees where the bird seed is. Like a squadron of spitfires, they circle and dive down with sweeping yet precise movements. I topped the feeders up this morning, well aware that after such a cold night and with the prospect of snow they’d need extras today. I must have counted at least 50 finches (greenfinches, chaffinches, goldfinches and some bramblings), as well as a collection of collared doves and woodpigeons. Our resident blackbirds tend to skirt around the edges in the hedges and trees, darting in and out of the pyracantha or coming down onto the lawned area to hoover up the sunflower hearts.

The hens are totally non-plussed with the snow. I let their ladder down this morning, only for them to come down, one by one and gather underneath the house, not wanting to venture out. With some coaxing, they formed an orderly line and marched quickly into the relative warmth and dry of the greenhouse where I’d put down extra straw yesterday evening. There are currently two summer chairs acting as makeshift covers, and they huddle underneath in the straw bedding and settle down. The greenhouse door is only just open enough so that they can get in and out, to try and keep as much warmth in as possible. They’ve got their drinking water and food in there too, so they’ll only come out to get to the nestbox in the henhouse to lay.

I left what little seeds I’ve sown outside - my Kilaxy cabbages, tendersnax carrots in pots, some broadbeans and a mystery seed tray (can’t remember what I sowed - could be tomatoes? In which case, they’re probably going to be buggered now) under the henhouse extension run, away from the mice, birds and Cynthia who likes to tip everything up in order to get a good look. My new plot is still just a third dug so far, I have not been tempted to venture outside for at least a week, as I’m rubbish with cold weather and I don’t like getting cold and damp (who does?!). The allotment has been neglected for about 2 weeks, owing in part to strong winds - it’s like a wind tunnel down there - Nannie’s return from the rehabilitation unit at the hospital, work, and redecorating the kitchen. Mum and I are resolute in our pledge to get down there ASAP and start getting things ready for planting.

I did manage to get some Hercules onion sets in - goodness knows how they’re doing to fare with this snow as I took the fleece tunnels down during the windy weather. I have 150 more sets so if they turn out to be a disappointment, it’s not a complete disaster if they don’t ‘work’ properly. My super early Radar onions are slowly making progress though, which is encouraging. I’m going to get the rest of my broadbeans in, now it seems the windy weather has all but passed I’ll get some canes up and put them straight in the ground.

I think the wee wee chitting potatoes are actually ok - which is really surprising. It seems the tubers are tougher than I first anticipated. Whether or not they’ll grow mutant potatoes as a result of their exposure to the near-radioactive quality of cat wee remains to be seen. I’m regarding it as an accidental yet quite interesting little Smallest Smallholding experiment. I’ve also got a plethora of herbs to sow - probably about 8 or 10 different types, but not sure where they’re going to go yet. I think I might have to buy some pots and then grab some of the pot holding trays from the garden centre. They pile them up at the exit and you can take as many as you need - really handy for keeping everything together and makes moving things around much easier. And of course, a great recycling initiative.

Intermission: - the snow flakes are gathering pace, and getting larger. A squadron of starlings has just arrived too. There are a few slightly resigned-looking doves and pigeons sitting in the tall tree. Hens are not venturing outside, they’re staying snuggled in the straw in the greenhouse. Bramblings are going potty around the feeders.

End of Intermission.

Yup, still got loads of sowing to do. The thing is, from my very limited experience I’ve decided that it’s best not to rush these things. On the one hand, you have the opportunity to sow, and as with my onion sets, if they fail, you can sow again. However, I think if you try and push things too early then you end up with leggy, weak seedlings that don’t do as well. I don’t use propagators, but then I can pop to the shops if I need something to eat at the mo, so I can afford to take my time. The plan is to not rely on shops (especially supermarkets), to master the art of storing veg, achieve successive planting for continuous crops etc, but at the moment I’m just concentrating on growing good sized quality vegetables. I think propagators are an exact science and I’m a) not tempted and not impressed by other family member’s attempts to use them and b) can’t afford one anyway.

Rich’s parents came to visit yesterday, and they said they’re trying to grow vegetables from the plug trays this year. Apparently Suttons are doing a special offer whereby for around £25 you receive about 175 plugs, with 20 of a different vegetable. I may have got the particulars completely wrong, but the figures I’m giving are being served up by my memory which believes itself to be accurate at this present time. I think plugs are a great way to get growing if you have limited space, facilities or have difficulty raising seeds, either because your soil is poor (Rich’s parents’ soil is chalky and stony, although they’re trying raised beds too to try and improve it) or you don’t have enough window space or a greenhouse to start everything off in. I think anything that gets and keeps people growing veggies is good, I think the more people that learn about the way things grow and the nurturing of their plants and veg will have a greater appreciation for food, its taste and where it comes from. I would love to see Primary Schools (or if you’re Bedfordshire folk, Lower and Middle Schools) investing more time in teaching children these skills, and perhaps starting them off with plug vegetables would be great. Then they could progress to growing from seed. I remember as a child at school we would have egg shells with drawn on faces, stuffed with damp tissue paper and cress seeds. That was my first experience of growing something.

Speaking of eggs, I’m not sure how all the Easter Egg hunts are going to go down today in the snow. I expect there will be a lot of excited children waking up to the snow. I’m not sure there’s going to be enough to sledge on here, but it’ll still be nice for them to wake up to it. Even better is that a lot of adults will be able to enjoy it too, being a Sunday and a bank holiday weekend. And then of course there’ll be those that will have a nice walk to Church for the Easter service. Mum is coming around a little later to deliver a little Easter present for us - she says it’s not an egg but it’s baked, so can’t wait for that. I have a lot of work to catch up on, but I’ll be snuggled up on the sofa with my cats and duvet. And next week when the snow has melted, I’m going to do another sowing session.

Happy Easter all x

Pics coming soon!

Inbetween working and getting half of the kitchen into a functioning state again (and acheiving, SO happy I have my kitchen back to a workable space), I’ve been a bit lacking in my blog posting. Just wanted to say I shall be posting v. soon when I have a spare moment (hopefully tomorrow!).

Also got a reply back from the council re: the development of the allotments,

“Thank you for taking the time to submit such comprehensive comments.

I have logged these and will submit them to MBDC as part of my
consultation report in May.

If you would like to discuss your concerns in more detail then please
do not hesitate to call me on ….”

I’m not holding my breath.

I met with my aunt, mother and grandmother today for a spot of afternoon tea. As you can imagine, all the recent planning proposals were just about the only topic of conversation (we like a good rant). My aunt brought to my attention a proposed change to the Planning Bill that basically gives us - as in local communities - less say in what gets built around us. You can imagine the torrent of ‘bad’ (I think it’s rather appropriate) language tumbled out of my mouth - imagine a future where we have next to no say about big businesses and governments building what they want, where they want?

She said Friends of the Earth are pushing to reject the proposed changes, and so I had a look on their website dedicated to the issue:

http://www.yourplanningrights.co.uk

and more specifically this page, which outlines the problems with the proposed bill:

from http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/local/planning/news/planning_bill.html

“What’s wrong with the Planning Bill

The Planning Bill contains the Government’s proposals for reform of the planning system. These proposals will mean:

• Less say
  No meaningful right to be heard in person at inquiries.
• Less democracy
  No ministerial accountability for decisions.
• More dangerous climate change
  Major new developments like power stations don’t have to consider climate change.

Government wants to push through nuclear power stations and airports, by stripping you of your rights to a say in what gets built in your neighbourhood.

You can still improve the Bill by writing to your MP, the Secretary of State and a relevant member of the House of Lords, asking them to support amendments to ensure the Bill considers climate change and includes a right to have a say in public inquiries on major projects.”

I’m a bit behind with this, but if you’re like me and interested in quashing the changes involving local communities, then you can get more information from Friends of the Earth’s Planning Bill - Campaigner’s Briefing and their Community Rights Resource Pack

Let me know what you think.

Oh, and just as a little update - my arm that was involved in the cat brawl is now a lovely yellow colour, underneath the big red marks!

WELL!

***Disclaimer! These are my opinions only and are written in place of fact. You can contact me to get hold of the planning proposals and decide for yourself*** 

Apparently there was an ‘in depth’ consultation down at our local town council offices for ONE DAY ONLY  that I managed to miss, because I didn’t see the ad in the paper. I’m sure the same thing happened with many other people. Sometimes I really think this is a strategy by MBDC to claim that they offered us, the public, a chance to air our views and opinions, but they’re always rubbish at advertising when an exhibition or public consultation will be on.

There are several planning applications put through, a considerable sum of which have been put in on greenbelt land. Apparently they can’t guarantee that greenbelt won’t ever be built on. So my question to them in an email was this - what is the point of earmarking land as greenbelt if there’s no guarantee of protection from the sweaty, money-grabbing (ok I didn’t word it quite like that) hands of land developers?

As far as the allotments are concerned, it’s the very developer that I thought it would be who wants to build a sprawling estate of no-doubt shambolicly built cardboard-thin houses that are squished together to squeeze every penny’s worth of money out of the worth of the land. I can see it now, nasty little boxes with no character and no garden space.

I told them they shouldn’t be building here. They say we’re a ‘major service centre’. 30-40 years ago we were a village. Then came the 70s,80s and 90s housing estates. Not many local facilities to support the increasing population. We have a train station and a supermarket, which has squeezed the life out of any retail venture that dares darken its doorstep. We have a load of hairdressers, banks, too many estate agencies to count and not much more. Our library and ‘village’ hall needs investment, we don’t need more housing. We need places of cultural interest, somewhere for the kids to go. With Center Parcs opening down the road in a few years, we’ll be congested with traffic (another shambolic proposal that got through thanks to Ms. Blears, despite the advice NOT to go ahead), so what we really need is a bloody big bypass. I like the countryside, I like living on the outskirts. I like the fact that I can walk out of my door and 5 minutes I’ll be roaming around in the woodland and fields. If the developers get their way, I’ll be swallowed up.

They want to develop our town, so it’ll basically meet the next (nicer) town. Then they want to develop Milton Keynes all the way out to the picturesque and stunningly beautiful town of Woburn. In 30 years if I don’t move I’ll be living in some horrible Conurb (as in the book The Guardians).

It also transpires that the same developer has put in planning permission to build houses on the tennis club. Then he wants to concrete over our allotments so he can build a couple of indoor tennis courts. Now tell me where the logic in that is.

He owns so much land around here, and I fear has a lot of influence in what goes on. I know that in the next town, he got planning permission for something was rejected by the town council, the district council and the local residents. So he keeps pushing. And what happens? It goes to a man in Bristol who doesn’t live here, has never visited, will probably never visit, who gives it the rubber stamp of approval. Result is land developer gets his own way AGAIN, builds houses on otherwise nice patch of green land that FLOODS every time it rains. I reckon he has his buddies on the planning committee. That’s just my opinion, but I can’t see how half the things he puts in for get approved. And the more money his company makes, the more land he buys up.

So I wrote a big long email, saying exactly what I thought. I tried to be eloquent but to the point, I wasn’t rude, I just told it as I saw it. What sort of reply I get, I don’t know but I very much doubt they’ll take my opinions into consideration. As far as MBDC are concerned, the government has given them a housing and employment target, and they’ve got to fill it. Fuck everybody else.

So for now, I’m going to put up a big sign on my allotment that reads something like “NO TO TENNIS COURTS, YES TO ALLOTMENTS”. I’ll talk to other allotment holders and see if there’s anyone on the town council who agrees with me. I know my grandmother’s next door neighbour used to be town mayor and is on the planning committee (a level-headed voice in the wildnerness) so I will talk to him too.

IT’S MADNESS!

Ok, so I’ve been really busy (lazy) and haven’t actually got around to sowing ANYTHING. I’ve managed to get the potatoes chitting, but despite my carefully drawn-up plans, timetables and schedules, the seed trays are still vacant.

I was planning on starting earlier this week - honest guv - but work and cold weather put a stop to my plans thus far. I thought spring was on it’s way (see pic, a Clematis currently starting to flower at the Smallest Smallholding) but it appears not to be the case quite yet. A bitter stiff northerly breeze soon reminded me otherwise. However, a cursory glance over at Metcheck reveals that it’s going to warm up from Thursday, so I reckon that’ll be a good time to break open the seed packets here at the Smallest Smallholding.

I think I’ll start by making some biodegradable seed pots out of loo rolls, which will house my broadbean seeds (yes, I really am THAT late in sowing, so not many successive crops for me this year) and sweet peas. Then there’s the Tendersnax carrots that I’ll probably whack into some spare large terracotta pots. The aubergines and peppers will be sown too, and I’ll leave them germinating in the conservatory, which heats up nicely in the mornings if the sun is out. I’ll stick my tent cloche up tomorrow (Weds) and sow the parsnips straight into what ground I’ve managed to excavate in the new big veg plot.

I’ve also got a tonne of herb seed packets stowed away somewhere that I haven’t even looked at yet. Sometimes it’s all talk and action with me. Blargh!

We’re close to starting the seed sowing at the allotment, the plan being to get at least half dug and ready for sowing, before concentrating on the more intensive tricky end, where the twitch-infested mountain range lies.

But that’s all to be tackled in a couple of days. At the moment I’m feeling grotty. I managed to spend half the day swathed in my purple fluffy dressing gown, armed with a mug of hot chocolate and a couple of lazy cats. I have given up chocolate for Lent (all part of my effort to try and live without certain luxuries and remind myself that they ARE actually luxuries), and when Easter arrives I am willing an army of Easter Eggs (organic ones, of course) to appear. However, in the meantime, my sweet tooth is threatening to turn me stir crazy, so in an effort to subdue it I will do a bit of baking. My last chickpea lemon cake was a bit of a disaster as I didn’t read the ACTUAL drained weight of chickpeas in the tin, and ended up using only half of the chickpeas in the recipe that I was supposed to (utterly stupid, as I’ve done the recipe so many times before). So the hens enjoyed the Disaster Cake (as I christened it) instead.

I am REALLY missing having a properly functioning, clean kitchen to make my food in. It’s surprising how much having a crap hole for a kitchen has put me off preparing proper meals with fresh ingredients. I love my cooking, and I can’t remember the last time I did some baking. We seem to be living with a constant thin coating of dust everywhere, and each room has either bits of car piled up in the corner, or a scattering of tools and implements cluttered about the place.

(Saying all this, Rich actually undertook a massive cleaning session, having FINALLLLLLYYY finished doing all the filling on the new kitchen ceiling. But then he announced that he still had some sanding to do. Which means more dust. I shouldn’t complain, living with a perfectionist of sorts (after all, he’s in relationship with me so he can’t be THAT much of a perfectionist) does have lots of bonuses - he may take close to forever to complete a task, but he always does a good job. )

For this reason, my house has slowly but surely declined into a pless than favourable place to spend the majority of my time. I hate it - I hate living like this. I get up in the morning and hover in the doorway of the kitchen or living room and cast my eye over the mess. Then I turn on my heel and think about all the things I can do outside or away from the house - unashamedly procrastinating and putting off the inevitable. Yes. I think it’s time I did a proper spring clean. I need to, otherwise I’m going to be swallowed up into a pit of despair, cat fluff and dust.

Working from home is great - generally I can get up when I want to, I can structure my day in a way that suits me. I can take breaks at will (and at leisure), and being flexible makes life so much easier in many ways. But despite being a complete and utter homebody, being at home for prolonged periods of time, *especially* when I’m living in (relative) squalor, is actually quite dispiriting. So it’s time I bit the bullet, pull my finger out, pull my socks up and got to it. Just going to watch some Neighbours and have lunch first. And maybe get some work done. Then I might go down to the allotment. Oh, and then I really want to do some seed sowing. Then I’ll do it.