Garden Glory

This is our garden.  The veggie part of it anyway.  When we first moved in the greenhouse was overgrown with a grapevine.  We picked the grapes and Jam is in the process of making wine out of it, I think he is going to bottle it soon, I hope, although we are sure it will taste rank.  Next to the greenhouse is a little cage which holds redcurrants and raspberries.  Rowan and I picked some raspberries yesterday and they were delicious.

When we got back from a week away at Jam's Aunty's making steps in her garden, we were overjoyed to find we had loads of broad beans, a few courgette's growing, mange tout, tomatoes, self seeded potatoes from probably about three years ago when Jam's grandad was last into his gardening. Massive turnip like radishes, sprouts, kale, artichokes, all growing up big and strong! Hoorah! Finally we get green fingers and without too much effort! Well, Jam does all the weeding and tending, I water occasionally, make tea and offer advice and I found some grey larvae on a kale plant and ripped it up, to Jam's horror, my thinking being that I needed to get whatever it was out of the garden quick so that it wouldn't attack the rest of the plants.  Jam reminded me that we should try and work out what it is and cure the plant rather than rip it up and I see his point, I think I was just tired and scared!

Listography - Decisions

Kate Takes 5 has a brilliant blog and a weekly listography themed this week on decisions. So without further ado, here are my top five best decisions...

1)  Learning to play the violin - after the initial stages of sounding like a cat being strangled and having to practise in the garden shed, even in winter, it has enriched my life completely, a highlight was being able to play in a cool dance band called Loonaloop and tour Australia...

2)  Marrying my husband was a grrrrreat decision, he also plays violin and makes instruments, he's made me a guitar and a wooden puppet of me each year for my birthday - that must be love!
(He's just bought in my dinner too, so beautifully presented...)

3)  Deciding to stop trying to fix my family's problems and concentrate on building my own, family that is, not problems....

4)  Being an instinctive parent, learning to trust my heart and love my family.

5)  Moving to the country - despite missing London boat life, this country lark is lovely and calm and green and peaceful and saving us lots of money so we can hopefully get our foot on the property market ladder and do lots of other exciting things, like maybe one day get back down under.

Trains...

My Mum was visiting her sister in Birmingham so we thought it would be a great idea if I jumped on the train with Rowan and went a couple of stops with her so she could coo over him and we could exchange gifts. 

Unfortunately we didn't plan for all the traffic, well we did plan for some traffic but not quite as much as there was and we missed the train, but as I was jumping out of the car to see if it had perhaps been delayed, Jam carried on driving thinking I was out and managed to run over my ankle.

I sat in the train station, the train had not been delayed, my ankle was throbbing but thankfully not broken, Rowan was half asleep and bewildered as Mummy burst into tears.  I was destroyed. Jam was mortified - 'I've just run over my wife!'  But never mind there was the return journey a week later, and for that train we were an hour early. 

Rowan loved being on the train, he insisted on me walking up and down the aisles so he could stop and chatter to all the other customers, flirt with the girls and eat the gentleman's newspaper.  He loved my Mum's wheelchair and was very interested in the guard's funny lollipop that he used to signal to the driver.

Cars...

Our kindly donated car, the lovely golf Red, is sadly on its last legs, well, wheels and feels a bit like a death trap to drive.  To get it through its next MOT it is not worth doing the work against the value of the car. So it served us well for nearly a year and we are sadly going to have to scrap it or try and sell it for parts. 
Luckily Jam's Dad used to be in the car trade and has helped us find another.  We were going to go for a Mercedes A class, not that that meant much to me, and it was a snotty green, or rather a distinctive and unusual colour.  It would have been nice to say we drive a Mercedes but that is not the case, for it was quite old and if the electrics went on it it would have cost too much to fix. So we've now got a Vauxhall Astra, more simply, a reliable green car, we've called him Verdi, with a really good roll on the Rrrrrr. I don't know why we feel the need to name our cars.
 We found Verdi on ebay, on viewing the car the boot wouldn't open, and the owner, an old man, 92, and his grandson who was probably the real driver of it considering the sort of 'young wasters' rubbish found down between the seats, decided to sell it to us off the site for a lower rate.  Deal.  Then it failed its MOT - great.  But Jam's Dad jumped to the rescue and we are up and running on the road again, for less than the price we'd originally bid.  Hoorah!
Saw a beautiful old triumph herald the other day, now that's a car I'd love to own....

Sleeping in pink

Hit a bit of a rough patch, struggling with the nightime sleeping and therefore feeling far too exhausted during the day, having strange day-mares where the neighbours kill my little family, not very pleasant at all.  I told Jam and he was very understanding and as men usually do, he tried to fix it, but I wasn't needing fixing, just understanding and support and ended up getting very upset and he left to go to work on a bit of a downer.

Mini meltdown inevitable my father-in-law called and I was trying to keep it together when towards the end of the conversation my voice started wobbling and he asked if I was ok, and I blubbed, 'no-o-o-o-o, I'm exhausted and have just been horrible to Jam and I know he's only trying to help and... and... and I've dyed the nappies pink' cue an outburst of laughter that got me going as well.  It's funny because now he's sleeping ... and I haven't had to go running upstairs every half hour... and I've managed to dye the nappies back to white... and have a bath... and eat another chocolate egg...

Egg-static

When I eat chocolate, or cheese, my cheeks perspire and I sneeze.  Strange, but true.  So why am I sitting here scoffing an easter egg?  I noticed that it had broken earlier, so thought I'd better put it out of its misery.  It's no longer broken.  It's happy. And so am I.  I can hack a spot of cheek perspiration and a sneeze is always short lived.

My sister is to blame entirely.  She bought the eggs and placed them on the mantelpiece, reminding us about how as kids, we'd have tons of eggs each year, always placed on the mantelpiece, and I would make mine last forever whilst she would scoff hers really quickly.  So the tables have turned, and I might have to sneak the other two in, before she comes back tomorrow...

Oh, an oeuf is an oeuf, I'm not much of a yolker, but before I crack up I must go and get some eggstra sleep, my brain is scrambled!

Just popping out to get lost!

Yes, I've been lost for over two weeks now, somewhere in the garden I believe, away with the fairies...  No really I've been spending all my time with my sister Oli who's visiting from Sydney and this is the first time she's met her nephew and our new home, so lots to catch up on.  Oli's away in London now for a few days so we are left to fend for ourselves again...

Me, shouting out of the bedroom window to Jam at the bottom of the garden (in the workshop, not with the fairies...) - 'Honey, how are you getting on?'

'Fine, nearly done, shall we go for a drive to catch the sunset?'

'Great idea, meet you in the car in five.'

Off we trundled, in Red, our trusty little car, given to us by a friend now down under, (in Australia, not in the ground, that would be a bit morbid, although it was probably only me that thought of that?)  Red is really on its last legs, every corner sounds like someone is being murdered and going over bumps causes all manner of untold grievances.  So a trip to see the sunset was something I imagined to be a short ride, a few ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ and back home again in time for supper.  Oh no. Not with Jam at the wheel with a schoolboy's lust for adventure in tow.

Rattling around the lanes, up and down the hills of the Quantocks we hit a diversion that takes us through a little village that looks familiar, although by now they all look quite similar and so it is easy to be confused.  It's also dark, the sun having set behind clouds a lot earlier and I'm hungry and thirsty as I realise we have been out for a little longer than the presumed five minutes.

Jam seems to be getting a little irate as the road stretches on and on, no signposts are to be seen and someone is right up our behind, bright lights to boot that do not help induce sleep in the babe.  Suddenly we swerve and pull over to a bumpy dirt tractor track, I'm slightly bewildered (my sneaky snooze in the back disturbed!) and then almost frightened as I realise the bright lights are still on behind us and the car that had been following is right behind us still.  Jam goes to get out, 'NO!' I scream hysterically, 'don't leave us in the car alone, he could be an axe-murderer or something!'

'Give me the map then, let's see if we can see where we are, my instinct tells me that way is to Taunton...'

The chap from the other car is now by the window leaning in, asking if we were also following the diversion back there.  He's dressed in his supermarket deputy manager's uniform and seems quite annoyed that he's lost.  The relief!  Not that he's lost too, but that he's not an axe-murderer or worse ...