We are slowly emerging, both from winter and from lockdown. Things are starting to open up a little, and while I am still cautious, we are spreading our wings a little, in the form of some small local adventures. We've not done anything dramatic. We walked around our local town one evening, and discovered a new (to us) bit of woodland, that we've been back to a couple of times. We've also been exploring other local towns. We often head up to Whaley Bridge for a cup of tea and a wander along the canal, but we'd never made it up to the reservoir before. Part of the damn collapsed a couple of years ago, leading to the evacuation of the town (but fortunately no flooding), so it was interesting to see in person what we'd seen on the news so many times. Quite often our adventures involve cafes. Our favourite one is now open again, and we are making up for lost time by visiting as often as we can, always with a blanket in the car, just in case. We're trying out other local-ish places that we've not been to before, and finding some hidden gems (some complete with furry friends). Today is my birthday, and while I don't have any definite plans, I imagine it will involve at least one cafe. I hope the sun comes out, although I'm not holding my breath - we've had a run of lovely, sunny days, and are forecast rain for this afternoon. I've bought myself a book, and might sneak off for a daytime bath - a rare treat.
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Oops, I almost forgot to write about March in my flurry of holiday posting. March on our little homestead was much better than February, and spring has definitely been in the air. Let's see what's been going on. Seedlings! After sorting out the greenhouse in February, I finally sowed some seeds in March, and our first seedlings emerged quickly afterwards. They haven't all survived the frosts... but that's a story for April's homestead post. Still, March in the garden was a time of new life and growth, most exciting. Mixed chicken fortunes March was a month of trips to the vets. First Bessie, who had her hormonal implant replaced, and who gained a new lease of life. And then poor old Chippy, who sadly didn't make it. The remaining five chickens stayed shut in under the avian flu housing order right through March. Visitors! The end of March saw the lifting of some covid restrictions, and we've been allowed to have up to six people in our garden. Not that we've had that many, but it was SO nice to start seeing people again. Sadly, our garden shelter blew down at the start of March, but as the weather was so glorious by the end of the month, it didn't matter. The clocks changed, of course, and there was a definite lightening of spirits around here. It's been so nice to see things grow, and to see other people. I made some more progress on the kitchen ceiling (although it seems I didn't take any pictures of that).
So what will April bring? Well, we're already a third of the way through, so I know that so far it's brought more visitors, and more snow. I'll sow the rest of my seeds, and hopefully get that ceiling as finished as it's going to be before the builders arrive. I'm hoping there will be a bit of wall-building progress, and perhaps even scything too. We'll see. Brrr, it's been chilly this week. Still, things have been done, adventures have been had, and people have been seen. All good. On Wednesday, we met a friend at a local cafe, and bought tea and cake to have in her garden. It was lovely to see her, and I am so much enjoying the feeling of doing 'normal' things. We had to wrap up in blankets of course, but actually I'm finding one of the benefits of enforced outdoor socialising at the minute is being outdoors. We would definitely have been inside if the rules had allowed, and would have missed out on the crisp spring day, the neighbours walking past, and the birds singing (and the smell of muck spreading, but the less said about that, the better). I spent the rest of the day pottering about, some of it in the garden. Some of the beans have fallen prey to the frost this week, and I've now replaced the several layers of plastic with fleece in an attempt to stop the rest going the same way. Miraculously, a tomato seedling has appeared! I hope the rest quickly follow, and that they'll be cosy enough under their fleece blanket. I harvested the last of the leeks and kale from the garden, and made a start on processing them. Yesterday (Thursday) I decided I was going to have a productive day, and wrote an ambitious list, starting with a new morning routine that involved preparing lunch before I had breakfast. Miraculously, that got done, as did most of the other things on the list, including a five mile, extremely cold and windy, bike ride. I spent a lot of time on Thursday processing kale. There's quite a bit of it, and it was a bit of a nuisance in our tiny temporary kitchen. Some of it I rubbed with a bit of oil, salt and smoked paprika and put in the dehydrator for a few hours to make kale chips. Some I blanched and froze in little blocks, ready to pull out and throw in soup or curry or whatever. I'll do another batch of those this morning (I could only find one baking tin). There's still quite a lot left - more in the freezer, more kale chips, and I might experiment with dehydrating and powdering some, to add a nutritional boost to soups and smoothies (this has the advantage of not taking up much space...).
I thought a lot about productivity yesterday. Yes, I was productive in terms of 'doing lots of things' (although most of those things were small, pottering tasks, not big, achieve-y ones), but I was also productive in terms of producing - in this case mostly veg in the garden, and future meals. There's something satisfying about that. So there are three days left of my holiday now. I've got a list of things I want to do, of course. Today and tomorrow we have visitors - it's been raining overnight but the sun is peeking out now and I hope things dry out a little. I want to finish the kitchen ceiling (four more pieces of plasterboard to go!), and finish processing all this kale, but other than that I have no big plans. I would like to go back to work with the house reasonably tidy though, so there's a bit of a sorting and decluttering mission going on there too. Right this second, though, I'm going to put the kettle on for another cup of tea, turn the heating on to defrost my fingers, let the chickens out of their run (they've been out of their house for a couple of hours, but left in the run to avoid early morning predators, and to encourage them to eat a proper breakfast), and do a bit of crocheting. My plan to post every day for the rest of my holidays didn't last long, did it? Oh well, good job nobody's counting. Sunday was energetic. I cycled eight miles in the morning, we went for a walk in some local woodlands in the afternoon, and the evening was spent pottering in the garden, making a start on fixing one of the many walls that's fallen down. This wall separates our garden from the cows (who aren't out in the fields yet, fortunately). We propped an old gate over the gap last year, but I do want to get it fixed sooner rather than later. And it's close to the house, so handy for spending a few minutes here and there getting my eye back in with walling. On Monday we pottered off to a local town where we had pastries in the sunshine and a walk around the streets. We had a little walk around the local village in the evening too, as the light was just to nice to miss. I finally got round to a bit more DIY too - one more piece of plasterboard into the kitchen ceiling, and I sealed around the edges of another couple. Getting there (very slowly). There are four pieces left to put up before the builders arrive - I'd like to have them done and sealed before I go back to work on Monday, and preferably painted too. We'll see. Today has been all over the place. I had a very unsatisfying dentist appointment, followed by an extremely cheerful lunch in our friends' garden. Most jolly, even if we did have to wrap up in old sleeping bags against the occasional flurries of snow. The seedlings seem to have survived last night's chilly weather, although some of them are looking a little worse for wear, and they've now got an extra layer of plastic - they'd probably be happier with a heat lamp, but they won't be getting one. It seems like we've had several seasons today. The rest of the week is looking sociable. We're meeting friends for a takeaway cuppa tomorrow, and have visitors coming here on both Friday and Saturday (we've got hot water bottles and blankets ready). I'd like to finish the ceiling, and go for at least one more bike ride, and do a signposted walk around our local town that I discovered the other day.
There's that wall to finish fixing of course - I don't know whether any more will get done on that. And I've started decluttering - a project will probably last the rest of my life, so I'm not setting any goals for this week. I'm back at work on Monday, but that's also the day our favourite cafe re-opens. You can bet we'll be waiting outside when it does, hopefully first in line. After complaining that I felt I was drifting yesterday, I tried to be a bit more mindful of what I was doing for the rest of the day, and give myself a bit of purpose. At lunchtime we went into town for a couple of errands, and had a little walk around an area we've not been to before. It was good, and I'm going to see if there are any town trails or something that we might be able to follow in the future to discover new areas. It was nice to see people out enjoying the park in the sunshine - I'd forgotten we had boats on the lake, and will make an effort to hire one this summer. I made myself a healthy lunch, and had a cup of tea in the garden with the chickens. I spent much of the rest of the afternoon in the garden. The seedlings that have appeared are doing well, especially the beans and peas. No sign of the tomatoes yet though - I suspect I may have sowed them a little early. I won't be planting anything outside for a few weeks yet, but I've done a bit of preliminary weeding of the beds and paths in the veg garden. I don't dig, but I do try to remove the grass and dandelions at least. They've had home made compost on over the winter, and I'll have some more ready soon to put down before the seedlings get planted out. Bunty and Bonnie helped me with the weeding, and it was lovely to see them getting so close to me - last summer they were still very easily startled and wouldn't help with the digging at all, whereas now they'll happily stand right next to me if it means easy access to a worm. I've started cutting the hay field again, as I didn't finish it in the autumn, and to my surprise, the two rows I cut last week had dried out, so I raked up the hay to spread around the willow dome. This is willow I brought with me from our previous house, and it's taken a while to settle in, especially with so much grass competition. I'm hoping this will the year it grows properly, and I can lie in this little willow dome in the summer and look out at the view. As the evening wore on, I attempted to jump start our older car, which has had a flat battery for weeks, but after much searching, we couldn't find the jump leads, so that's a job for another day. Instead, I repaired the flat tyre on my bigger bike, and gave both of them a bit of a clean. So Saturday turned out alright after all, although I was tired and grouchy by bedtime, and I didn't sleep that well. Miraculously, the sun is still shining today, and I'm up and about early, so I think I'm going to take my newly fixed bike, and my newly acquired parking permit, and head to the old railway trails for a bit of cycling in the sunshine.
After that? More garden pottering I think. The weather is meant to get colder for the rest of the week, so it would be good to take advantage while it's nice to be outside. I've been off work for a week now, and I feel like the days have been drifting lazily by. This is good, but I do want to pin down what I've been doing, because I know from experience that if I don't, I'll go back to work feeling like I've done 'nothing', when in fact the days have been full of extraordinary everyday moments. We've had some glorious sunshine, and had our first visitors since September, and I can't tell you how lovely it was to sit outside in the sunshine. The world seems such a brighter place when the sun shines, doesn't it? Full of possibilities. I even did some cleaning. We took some of our visitors round the fields - there are some signs of life in the woodland, and yet another dry stone wall collapse. We've been elsewhere to visit family and friends as well, and the weather has treated us very well indeed. I managed to get out on my bike, down one of the old railway trails - I'd forgotten just how much fun cycling is, and have now ordered a parking permit so I can go whenever I like without having to find change for the parking meter. I've pottered about in the garden - an activity that is far more fun now the chickens have finally been released from almost 16 weeks under their 'flockdown' housing order. It's so nice to have them roaming around in the garden with me. So there has been lots of rest and lazing around and visiting so far, but I've started to feel a vague sense of drifting, and like I 'should' be doing something. I get this often, and I do try to fight it - rest is important, and I don't want to fill my entire holidays with 'shoulds'.
Nonetheless, there are things that need doing, and I know a sense of achievement makes me feel good. And all the days are starting to feel like they're merging into one, and I don't want to lose any more of my holiday to internet scrolling and supermarket trips. So, as I often do when I start to feel a little like this, I'm going to post in here more often, trying to pin down the cheerful moments in what I've done each day, creating a record to look back on at the end of the holidays. I'm not sure where today is going yet. We have to collect a prescription, and we'll probably combine that with a walk and a couple of errands. I might try to jump start the second car, which has had a flat battery for weeks. But I feel like there needs to be something fun in there too - even if it's just some light garden pottering with the chickens. We'll see. |
Hello!Sit down and make yourself comfortable. I'm Jenni, and I write here about our new foray into country living, which includes growing food, knitting, baking, wandering around the fields, and seeing which local cafe serves the best cake. Categories
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