And breathe...

A relatively quiet week due to a bit of an infection and much-needed recovery time - nothing serious but once again I owe many thanks to our NHS support team who always react quickly to avoid things escalating.

 A new gizmo arrived at the end of last week which enables me to upload photos from my camera to the laptop so I look forward to playing more with the camera over the coming weeks. I've spent a short time this morning practising in the garden to get a feel for using it again. With the passing of the Equinox, the ivy now in flower and the last of the apples ripening it definitely feels like Autumn is here. 

As if to emphasise the season's change the bulb order I placed a few weeks ago arrived last week and to my delight there's not a plastic bag in sight - each set of bulbs is in its own paper bag and they all were neatly packed in a cardboard box so no waste from this order as the bags will either do for seed saving or end up in the compost bin once we've found homes for all the bulbs. I'm really looking forward to the colours these will add to our garden in the spring.

Plant shuffling weekend

The strawberry plants called to us this weekend, in fact they've been shouting quite loudly for a few weeks now and we could ignore them no longer. Some ended up in the strawberry planter - we love this ali baba shaped pot and it has been with us for many years but we never have much luck with the plants we put in it - let's hope this time the plants thrive and prove that beautiful can be practical too. The remainder of the plants are now arrayed on the little low wall and raised area that divide our patio from the grass, and I squeezed a few into the wall basket too. Each now has room to grow and should last the winter well with the added bonus that they should be so much easier for me to look after here. 

As is always the way with gardening no sooner had we finished one job then we spotted ten more that need doing so taking cuttings from the pinks and sorting the chives out for over-wintering have been added to the list for the coming weeks, along with planting up the bulbs that I hope will be arriving soon. Meanwhile the pansies are also bulking up nicely and the tatsoi sown just a little while ago is already showing well, oh and the lettuce is  at last sending up a flower spike so there will be seeds for next year's salads.

 

  

September Bookshelf

Books and stories have always been a core part of my life, so one of the hard things to deal with whilst I was having chemotherapy was the effect it had on my ability to hold a thread and keep a story in my head. For months I'd pick a book up and have to put it down again because it just wouldn't stick - "chemo brain" really is a thing folks and a very frustrating thing too. Luckily that has now changed as the treatments have changed and so I can begin again with the mountain of books that have accumulated on the "to be read" pile, just waiting patiently in the wings for me to pick them up and return to them. Some of them I have bought and some have been gifts. Some are in paper and print form - I do love the look and feel of a "real" book; others are in electronic form waiting for me on my phone or tablet - very handy for hospital waiting rooms, and others are stories on CD waiting for me to listen to them - whatever the format the waiting has at last come to end.

I have recently finished "In the midst of winter" by Isabel Allende, a Chilean author that I came across many moons ago whilst studying Spanish - her books are mix of gentle observations about life, love and the nature of humanity, fantastical myths and the cold hard realism brought about by being caught up in the politics and violence of late 20th century South America. I thoroughly recommend her!

My current read is the beautifully produced "A pocketful of crows" written by Joanne M. Harris and illustrated by Bonnie Helen Hawkins. Inspired by folk and faerie this book contains wonderful illustrations as well as magical prose. You may already be familiar with the novels "Chocolat" or "Blackberry Wine" but she has written so much more and I can't wait to get back to it later this evening. I daresay I will return to the others too as winter approaches.



Next up will be "The dark angel" by the wonderful Elly Griffiths. Dr Ruth Galloway is one of my favourite literary characters, up there with Phil Rickman's marvellous Merrily Watkins for keeping me enthralled throughout a story. This is the tenth outing for Dr. Ruth and I'm thoroughly looking forward to it.

Then I will probably dabble with one of the many intriguing and definitely new-to-me books that I have received through a gift subscription to Mr B's Emporium in Bath. My very kind colleagues bought the subscription for me when I first fell ill and each month a beautifully packaged parcel has arrived and the contents have been patiently waiting for me to begin.

And then... well that will be October's bookshelf won't it.

Early September colours

Back from the hospital and relaxing at home. The plants here are really starting to put on a show around the garden - a short stroll around our small spot really brightens the day.

peppers abound

gaillardia & delphinums glow

scabious shine

wygelia and dogwoods blush

Primroses peak

And dahlias dazzle

Stuttering

TMI warning  -
Off to be a guest of the NHS again tomorrow - should be a short stay and will hopefully come away with a stabilised spine - the cancer has weakened the lower vertebrae and as the treatment has shrunk it the bones are crumbling so all being well I'm having them cemented on Monday.
Lots of caveats as last time I went in for this I couldn't have it done because my white cells were too low and they sent me home again. Just hoping that this time it can be done as each month risks the spine weakening more and damaging the cord - not something I want to dwell on for too long. In fact I try not to dwell on the outcomes of any of this if I'm honest, have tried to become a "take each day as it comes" person, but that's not always successful so forgive this foray into trepidation and hopefully I'll return at the end of the week with pretty pictures and news of a successful treatment.

Dabbling

With the nights drawing in I'm becoming increasingly aware of the wheel's turn and of the need for me to find things that I can fill my days with now I am no longer working. At the moment I can potter in and out of the garden or in the kitchen using our weekend harvests but that won't always be an option as the season changes. It's important that whatever pastimes I find can be picked up and put down again without ruining them so we've dug my old painting stuff out of the attic for me to play with. Now I need to be clear here - I'm talking about enthusiasm over talent and high quality relaxation rather than high quality art work but so far it's been fun dabbling again and realising just how much kit I had - nothing new needed to be bought for me to start daubing again so this week I have been playing.  Sketching with pencils, mixing colours, dabbling with washes and trying to get a feel for the brushes. As it's been truly distracting and quite relaxing I think this might be something to stick with - Let's just hope my skills improve!

 

Meal planning update

Blimey two weeks fly past don't they? Well I played with the food plan idea and by and large it worked for me. I've based it on a very simple grid in a google doc with the idea of roughing out each meal to make sure I've got a decent balance of meals from a nutrition, variety and a "making the best of what I have" point of view:

w/c 17/9	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Breakfast
Lunch
Tea
Snacks

I have been using the first row to remind myself when bread needs to be made or whether something needs to be defrosted, pre-prepared or used up for the next day . Not sure i really need a breakfast line as it tends to meander between toast or cereal most days so no need to plan much.

As the last few posts show I have certainly cooked a lot more but have only used up some of the ingredients we have stockpiled over the last year or so. It being late summer a lot more ingredients are coming into the house so they are getting used up first - apples, plums, blackberries, potatoes, peppers, peas, and hazelnuts are just a few of the recent picks and these have been turned into pies, flans, omelettes and bakes - some of which have been devoured on the spot and others of which have been split into portions and frozen for "too tired/can't be bothered" days. 

I've already figured out I need more flexibility at the weekend as with J around we tend to either be out and about or busy doing jobs which means we sometimes have less time to prepare, get up late so three meal become two or with two sets of taste-buds to please we won't fancy what I originally planned so I'm going to follow the advice on the "A farmish kind of life" blog and just have a few ideas to pick from rather than a definite plan that inevitably goes awry.

It's too early to say whether it will improve the shopping planning and thereby reduce waste but I'm hopeful. I've managed to sort the veg stores and the fridge out, rescuing a few things that were on the verge of being consigned to the compost bin and have had a cursory rummage through the freezers (need to do a proper inventory this week). I still need to go through the larder though - I soon realised I need to do that when someone else is here as getting to some of the things involves reaching and twisting and bending, all of which I'm not supposed to do! Mum is visiting next week so she might be up for helping with that, if not it'll keep for the next wet weekend when J and I can get to it.

Plots and pots

Despite the Weathermen gleefully telling us that we have turned to "Meteorological Autumn" with the arrival of 1st September, this weekend has been a lovely mix of time at the allotment, time in the kitchen and time spent potting things on and tidying the garden.

On Friday we managed a couple of hours at the allotment with J and I
picking apples, hazelnuts, peas, greens and a little cucumber. We usually lose out to the local wildlife for the hazelnuts so it's great to actually manage to harvest a decent crop this year - we don't mind sharing but it will be good to be able to use some of these for a change. The cucumber may be tiny but it's tasty and as we rarely manage to get these to produce anything we're happy with it!

A small selection of this weekend's haul

We also had a chance to catch up with some of the other plot holders and exchange some of our bumper crop of cooking apples for a wonderful box of tomatoes. One of the things I miss most about working is the chance to catch up with folk and get a feel for what is going on in their lives so visits to the lotty are now doubly special - keeping me in touch with people as well as with nature and producing healthy ingredients that on good days I can turn into nutritious tasty food for us and for friends and family. Well worth the small rent which comes due this month.

Tomato tart

Apple and raspberry pie

In between the usual fair weather chores of hanging washing out, getting it in again, watering pots and shuffling them around I snuck some Tatsoi seeds into an empty pot - this Chinese cabbage is a new one for us but should give some different greens for J's winter stir-fries - whilst J edged the paths and tidied the compost bins, beds and pots. Last job of the weekend for me was potting on the pansy seedlings - J had sown these back in May when I wasn't allowed to play with compost due to the chemotherapy treatment so it was great to be able to move them on to bigger individual pots and to anticipate the beautiful flowers they will produce later in the year.