Monday

Phlox candy stripe, looking very lovely at the moment.

Holiday Monday!  Normally we don't 'get' bank holidays, this is the only one really.  The others are incorporated into the usual breaks from school (not complaining, just saying) and therefore today feels more joyous, more festive and more special than it has any right to feel!

I'm up stupidly early and am sure that I will crash in a little while, go back to bed and complete my sleep but for now I'm wide awake and enjoying my first cup of hot . . . water, thankful that there's none of the caffeine withdrawal symptoms that made last year's five days on LBTL harder than it ought to have been.

Wasn't the weather lovely yesterday?  Bright and sunny and with a gentle breeze.  Beth came round in the morning, bringing with her a tray of sweetcorn seedlings to pot on.  I speedily folded and twisted up some newspaper pots and the job was done.  They're staying here now until ready for the allotment because there's nothing her cat, Theo, likes better than a good nibble of sweetcorn seedlings as she discovered in previous years.  He isn't being given the chance this year!

She then helped me to put together the tomato growhouse.  These have really caught on and now you can see them all over the place costing an awful lot less than I paid for mine just last year.  They're also better designed with a roof that won't allow the rain to puddle on it and shelves either side that can be taken off if not needed.  I keep thinking I might get one to complement the big one that's now up.

Once it was up, I put into it the runner beans that are growing far too fast for my liking.  It's not really safe to plant them out yet, to which the frost of the last two nights can testify, but they should be OK in the closed growhouse overnight and it might check their growth just a little bit.

Today is going to be shared between kitchen and garden (weather permitting, of course).  I need to move a heuchera that is being crowded, I have some bedding plants to get out and some seeds to sow.  I am also going to pot on the tomatoes because they're getting huge, ought to be out but won't be, and must be so overcrowded in their little pots.  One of them even has a mini tomato, for goodness sakes!!

In the kitchen I will be making as much as I can for the rest of the week which means making the ricey mixture for this evening, a Jack-burger for tomorrow night and the vegetable and bean casserole for the pie on  Wednesday evening.  Apart from the fact that it will save me time once back at work, it also allows the flavours to develop, even in the freezer.

And I might, just might, take a trip to Wyvale to look at those growhouses again!  I know the bank balance can stand it!  If I get there at ten it won't be too crowded!
Now, where could it go?