Monday and the inevitable garden update.

 Good morning!  The day has started lovely and sunny but it did so yesterday and finished off wet and nasty!  Today looks like being the same, sadly, so if I want to allotmentate (and I ought to, see below for the reason), it's going to have to be before midday.

Things are moving on in the garden.

There are loads of buds on the clematis.  It's going to be beautiful this year.

There were lots of flowers on the blueberry but, sadly, very few seem to be producing fruit.  I think the problem is the same as the apple, lack of a companion plant for pollination/fertilisation and I need to get another that flowers at the same time.

The strawberries are doing OK, despite the cold and the rain.  Not as far on as usual but they will be good.

All the blossom - er - helping along seems to have worked with the little apple tree.  It looks as if apples are beginning to develop, doesn't it?  Only a few but, for a first year, I'll be happy with any.

The raspberries are also doing really well - the established canes are growing fast, the one Elaine next door gave me last year has survived its severe pruning and is coming on and the new cane, left over from the allotment, is starting to send out growth.  Excellent.

Yesterday morning was quite busy.

First of all, one of my mums came round to bring me some resources (many thanks) and we had a chat about the way we see the tuition going.  That was nice.

Then I drove out to a little village about twenty minutes or so away to pick up some magazines from someone in a local SW group who is moving and is handing them on.  Loads and loads of them so I have a great source of recipe ideas now.
I decoded to go the way the sat nav told me to go rather than the way I know (I had it on for just the last little bit of the journey with which I was not familiar) and my goodness, didn't it take me all round the houses - all round the country lanes, anyway!  It was an unnecessarily complicated route along delightful country lanes which I don't think I have ever been along despite living here for over thirty years ago and through hamlets I'd never heard of.  Quite a nice drive really.
I came home the easy way, the way I know, on the main road, nice and fast.

While I was there, our conversation was cut short by some huge rain drops so we hastily said goodbye and I drove back through a short but very sharp shower, remembering that I'd left the washing on the line.  Oh, well.  However, back in Chelmsford,. there hadn't been a drop - not then anyway!

And then it did start and it rained on and off most of the afternoon which put the clappers on my allotment plans.  Drat!  Instead, I printed out lots of resources for tuition sessions which resume this week.

So the priority this morning is allotmenting.  It has to be.  It'll be awful muddy, I expect.

This afternoon, tuition starts so I must make sure my tuition bag is in good order and get the resources organised and in folders.  That won't take long.
I'm really looking forward to starting again.  Here's hoping there won't be any more lockdowns to disrupt things again.
And the other thing is that the lateral flow test kit thingy arrived so I must work out how to do it.  I've watched the video clip but it's not the same as doing it myself, is it?

Have a good day and stay dry, be safe and keep smiling.  xx