Tag Archives: allotment

Covid-19

LOCK-DOWN U.K. DAYS 81-82

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Day 81 Friday 12th June

Duster seems to be getting back to his old self again. Perhaps not 110% yet, but he jumped down from his basket when I went into the kitchen this morning. He then kept head-butting my legs and meowing until I fed him. We cancelled this morning’s vet appointment. We didn’t think we needed to pay £50 to be told that he looks a lot better.

A vixen and her cubs live somewhere around here, I’m not sure where exactly. They often make an appearance in our garden. We decided to try to block up some holes in the fences in the vain hope of discouraging them.

Diane was also wondering about the ethics of feeding foxes. She is worried that during lockdown, their normal source of food (dropped kebabs and discarded Big Macs) will not be available. Consequentially they may be going hungry. Looking at our visitors I don’t think this is the case. Anyway she posted on the local New Malden Facebook group asking people’s opinion. Almost everyone seemed to be in favour, one person saying that they cooked sausages for them every night. I don’t know what friends and family (most of whom are from a farming background) back in the Borders would make of it. I was sorely tempted, but resisted, posting a reply, asking anyone who thought that starting the New Malden and Rayne’s Park foxhounds was a good idea, to DM me.

Day 82 Saturday 13th June
Duster — looks harmless, doesn’t he?

Duster is feeling much better. Which is good news, unless you are a local mouse. When we came downstairs this morning, he had brought us a little present to thank us for looking after him. I don’t think that a dead mouse was what we were hoping for….

The ice cream was not allotment produced.

As we hadn’t visited the allotment for a while, we decided to take our lunch up there. The pasta was cooked on our gas ring, somehow it tastes better at the allotment. Because we have actually had rain recently, there has been no need to visit every day to water. A bit of weeding, strimming, and watering was also carried out. We also managed to pick some raspberries for tea.

Later our neighbours came round for a suitably distanced drink in the garden. This worked well, until it started raining. We may have breached the guidelines slightly trying to get everyone under the umbrella.

Covid-19, Getting Married

LOCK-DOWN U.K. DAYS 71-74

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Day 71 Tuesday 2nd June.

I am getting fed up of this weather. People from Scotland do not thrive when the day time temperature is constantly over 25°C.  Also having to visit the allotment every day to water is becoming a bit of a chore. It is now officially summer, so where is our traditional British Summer weather. I want 15°C day time temperatures, I want rain for three days solid. More to the point farmers probably need it. I know that the allotment needs it. The only downside I can see is that the grass will grow and I’ll have to cut it.

Serious point

We have just come through what is probably the hottest and driest May on record. I’m not certain, but I think that the daytime temperature has topped 20°C every day, and in London at least I don’t remember it raining. I know that the Covid-19 pandemic, and police riots in the USA are grabbing the headlines right now, but we need to seriously get on top of the causes of climate change. There was some good news on that front though. Because of the reduction in energy requirements due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the exceptionally sunny weather Britain recorded its first ever month when no electricity was generated by coal fired power stations

Day 72 Wednesday 3rd June.
Save the day

One year today Diane and I will be getting married. The venue is the Dryburgh Abbey Hotel, near St Boswells in the Scottish Borders. We will actually be getting married in the Abbey itself.

Diane has started her own blog counting down to the wedding. You can find it at silversplicer.wordpress.com.
All the information will be there. Much more comprehensive and also more accurate than is likely to be found here. Don’t get me wrong, I am looking forward to the day immensely, and I will be giving my take on how things are progressing from time to time. Diane is counting the days down.

Diane’s son Chris and his partner Charlotte came round to help us celebrate the day, actually I’m not sure they knew that it is a year today until Diane started plying them with Prosecco. We hade a Lebanese vegetarian mezze from a new restaurant that has only just opened. They picked a bad day for their official opening – about a week after lockdown. It is called Noura and it is very good. We will go along there for a proper meal when it re-opens.

Day 73 Thursday 4th June.

The weather has changed. It is now a lot cooler than it has been. It even rained (a bit), so we didn’t need to water the allotment.

We sent out our “Save the Day” fridge magnets today. So unless we have forgotten any one, possible with me, less likely with Diane, everyone who we are planning to invite should receive a little reminder through the post soon. Proper invites will follow nearer the date, assuming that the current lockdown will be over by then. If not I will ask the band to devise a set of Scottish Country Dances that allow us to dance two metres apart.

It is now eleven weeks since Diane and I decided to move in together so that we could still see each other during lockdown. Though looking back I think that her bidet was also an attraction in a time when toilet roll was rarer than 🦄💩

We have survived a ceiling collapse and the subsequent redecoration of the bedroom. We like each others cooking and taste in music. I think we’ll be OK.

Day 74 Friday 5th June.

The day began early. Diane found some Oak Processionary Moths on the oak tree in the front garden. Left to their own devices they can strip the leaves off an oak tree and they are also hazardous to human and animal health. The mature caterpillars shed very fine hairs which an be the source of extreme irritation.

The guys dealing with them need full PPE, to make sure that they do not come ito contact with the hairs.
They dealt with them satisfactorily.

We spent the day at the allotment. We hadn’t done much for a few weeks except water it. A good weeding was required. All our beds were given a thorough hand weeding. Chris and Charlotte can weed their own beds we decided. It all looks quite tidy. How long that will last I don’t know. We had some more rain this afternoon which will probably encourage the weeds to grow again.

While we have been wanting some rain for a few weeks now, the timing of todays rain was annoying. There had been a couple of short, but heavy showers which forced us to retreat to the shed, but not enough to soak into the ground. We decided to water the plants before we went home. which takes about three-quarters of an hour. While I was in Lidl looking for cheap gin to turn into rhubarb gin (there is no point in wasting Bombay Sapphire at £22 a bottle) the heavens opened. Enough to give the allotment a good watering. Also enough to give us a good watering as we rode home on our bikes. If we hadn’t spent the time watering, which in hindsight, we needn’t have, we would have been home and dry by the time the rain came.

Covid-19

LOCK-DOWN U.K. Day 56

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Day 56 Monday 18th May

With no decorating to do we are at a bit of a loose end. Obviously, we can’t hop in the van and head off to the coast for the day. Nor can we visit family, much as we would like to. So, we changed the bed linen and did the laundry. This is what an exciting morning looks like in locked-down Britain.

Garden centres are open again, so, we wandered off to one of the local ones this afternoon. We were too late, it had been stripped bare by a swarm of locusts over the weekend. We did manage to find some plants that we wanted, some flowers for the garden at home and runner beans, courgettes, and sweet potatoes for the allotment.

The trip was cut slightly short because I had to be back home by four for a conference call. Work was outlining a few changes in our working practices brought about by the changes in government guidelines. It seems like we are almost back to normal, except the 2-metre rule still applies.

We needed to go up to the allotment to water and put the plants we had bought in. It was a beautiful evening, so we decided to take our dinner up to the allotment and cook it there. There is a single burner gas hob in the shed, so as long as it could be cooked in a single pot we would be fine. A packet of tortellini and a jar of pesto fitted the bill. Some Sauvignon Blanc to wash it down, and we had a dinner fit for gardeners.

Allotment Dinner

It felt a bit more special than if we had cooked it at home and eaten in the garden. For the first time in eight weeks we were “dining out”.

Covid-19

LOCK-DOWN U.K. Days 52–55

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Day 52 Thursday 14th May

I should try to keep more regular when writing this blog. I can’t remember much about what I did on Thursday. Could be a sign of age, or just that nothing much actually happened on Thursday.

I did have difficulty finding one site that I needed to visit. It was a workshop, tucked away in the middle of a maze of streets, alleyways, and cul-de-sacs. I did find it eventually. I probably should have, like Theseus, unravelled a ball of string behind me to help me find my way back again.

That was about as exciting as it got on Thursday. At the centre of the labyrinth was an air receiver not a Minotaur.

Day 53 Friday 15th May

Today was a day for rejoicing. We have finally finished decorating the bedroom. The bunny rabbit (hares if you are being pedantic) wallpaper has been pasted on the final wall, and we are done with papering and painting.

Bunny Rabbit wallpaper

We still need to get the carpet fitted. That has been ordered. A nice grey colour. We should just about manage Fifty Shades of Grey by the time we have finished. The carpet fitters assured us that it can be fitted within the requirements of keeping two meters apart. We let them in, they will go straight upstairs with the carpet, and fit it. It should work.

We probably should have celebrated with champagne, but settled for a take-away from Chennai Dosa and a couple of beers.

Day 54 Saturday 16th May

We spoke too soon about being finished decorating. We discovered that we had forgotten to paint inside the top part of the wardrobes, where the ceiling had been plastered. Still, it didn’t take too long. The afternoon was cleaning and putting all the decorating equipment away. We had a trip up to the allotment for a cup of tea (and some watering and weeding).

We also picked the first crop of the year, radishes. They look and taste the part.

Diane’s son and his partner came round for a drink about six. We think that is allowed within the current guidelines, provided we kept two meters apart, which we did. It was enjoyable, partly because it was good to see someone other than each other for a change. Partly because it felt like normal life might return some day.

Day 55 Sunday 17th May

Our body clocks went a bit haywire this morning. We woke up at seven o’clock, which is way too early for a Sunday morning. We had a cup of tea and a chocolate biscuit, then dozed off again until a more appropriate time to get up.

The family Sunday Lunchtime Zoom had a theme of Aliens and Robots. It was originally supposed to be just Robots, but Diane’s robot ended up looking more like an alien, so she changed the theme.

The Zoom meeting ended up as a four-way WhatsApp video call. Zoom was not behaving. Still, we got to see everyone’s robots. Here are ours.

Alien vs Robot

Apparently, we were not the only people to have Zoom problems today. According to the Guardian: “UK Covid-19 briefing hit by Zoom technical issues”.

We had a quiet Sunday afternoon, apart from cleaning the pond, followed by a Way Up Zoom chat. We would normally meet at All Bar One in Wimbledon, but it’s the best we can manage at the moment. Zoom behaved itself this time — apart from throwing Diane (who was the host out of the meeting). We carried on without her, she did come up stairs and share my screen.

That brings us up to date with my life in Lock-Down London.