Tuesday

 Good morning, everyone.  Wasn't it cold yesterday?  It was here anyway, so much so that I turned up the heating.  The longest day of the year and the heating was on - ridiculous - or maybe I mean riddikulus!  It doesn't feel so cold this morning, thankfully.

Before driving back, I did manage to stop off at the allotment (in the rain!) to take a look.  I was in quite a low frame of mind so I felt a bit heartbroken (OK, exaggeration for effect) with what I saw but, on reflection, it wasn't so bad really.

Something (cat? badger?) has dug up some of the baby corn so there's a great big gap but there's still plenty of others left and they are growing, despite the cold.

The tomatoes are not as well grown as the garden ones but they are fine.  I pinched out plenty of side shoots and tied up the main stem.
One year, I will not pinch out the side shoots on one plant and see what difference it makes.  Anyone know??

There are plenty of broad bean pods, hooray, but they need to fill out so no picking yesterday.  Maybe by the weekend, fingers crossed.

This year the runner beans are coming up beautifully.  I honestly think that last year's must have been a faulty batch of seeds.

To the left you can see very prolific raspberry canes and to the right you can just see that the potatoes are doing great, starting to flower now.

The rhubarb is fine, the sweet peas are doing well, the strawberries are there for the picking so I've let Beth know and the fruit trees are doing the usual! 

That was all good and thinking about it, I'm not sure why I felt so unhappy yesterday - just one of those things, I guess, a reaction to what's going on, sadness that the allotment is being neglected after all the hard work earlier in the year and, maybe, just missing being there and working with the fruits and vegetables..  Never mind, things will pick up, we will get a harvest, one reason why things are going so well is all that earlier hard work, the weeds won't have it all their own way . . .

On the minus side, there's too many weeds (just look at that huge one in front of the runners in the last photo), the yellow courgettes are no more and as for the mange tout that had started growing so merrily - Beth forgot to net them and the pigeons have stripped all the shoots right down to the ground.  Ah well, it was Beth who wanted the mange tout more than I!  Poetic justice.

When I get the time, I will do what I did last year and plant some dwarf French beans - the canes are already there and I know they will do well (thank you to Diane for mentioning them last year). 
Beth has yellow courgettes in her little garden and they are fine so she can share with me.

The grass is a disaster again but it's too wet to cut right now and, again, it will get its come-uppance.

On the drive over to Dad's, I was more than a bit teary (what a snowflake!!) but I gave myself a good telling off which helped and in the afternoon a friend of Dad's came round for a chat and that made all the difference.  She's in charge of pastoral care in the local circuit and she's a very good listener.

Today I am allowed to visit Dad.  I've just done the lateral flow test (negative) and need to report it so all I have to do is show the results on my phone before they let me in.  So I'd better go and do that, before I have my bath, get dressed, go to Tescos for some vitamin stuff for the cramps - stopping them, I mean - and some needles and thread so I can sew the name labels onto things like socks.  I got some iron ons but then realised they don't stick on everything!!

A busy day but, hopefully, a lovely one too.  Take care and stay warm  xx