Morning World

Just in case you missed it, yesterday was the Solstice - the point where the day length is at it's longest and here in the Midlands it opened and closed with beautiful and very welcome sunshine. No getting up before dawn to head to the nearest stone circle for us this year though but rather a more gentle kind of day for me at least - a bit of pottering in the kitchen and garden but nothing too strenuous.

Solstice skies

J,  on the other hand, went to help with a work party at our allotment site. These are held a few times a year to lay road-stone, tidy up plots if someone is struggling, maintain boundaries, lay or repair water pipes or anything that requires many hands. Yesterday the committee had arranged to have a load of scalpings delivered - these are chopped up bits of old tarmac that have been scraped off a normal road somewhere during improvement works but are perfectly good to reinforce a track like ours which has a lower level of use than a normal road but needs a reasonable level of support to stop it ending up a muddy, rutted cart track. It's also a really eco-friendly way of reinforcing the site as it means that at least one lorry load of old road hasn't ended up in a landfill somewhere and we aren't wasting newly quarried stone chippings. About 20 folk from the site all pitched in to help spread the chippings once the lorry had delivered them and by lunchtime the track was winter-ready again. A brilliant way to reinforce the allotment community as well as getting a much-needed job completed. 

By the time I went to pick J up in mid-afternoon he'd also mown our paths, weeded some beds and started to prep the area that the sweetcorn will go in. I arrived in time to pick armfuls of cornflowers, take some photos and ferry a very muddy and tired man home.

Apples a plenty

Abundant cornflowers

Salmon flowered peas

Second sowing peas