I went to the allotment and I . . .

Weeded a lot (but still not enough)

Harvested carrots,

some potatoes (the rest of the first earlies),

some courgettes,

and a head of lettuce.

I then went home and made this,

which weirdly reminded me a bit of the sort of food I used to eat at my gran’s. Now I eat salad and jacket potato all the time but don’t usually get flashbacks to eating at my gran’s table, I think this time the taste, as it was home grown, was ever so subtly different and that’s what brought back the memories. My grandad gardened but I can’t remember if he grew his own or not but he might of done and I guess even if he didn’t, chances are 30 years ago (eek yes, 30 years) even food my gran would have bought from the shops (probably a greengrocers) would have been grown far closer to where she lived than food bought in a supermarket these days.

(For the record, the first earlies continue to be delicious, although I think they’re nicer boiled, not baked, but the carrots, although smelling amazingly carroty when I dug them up, failed to deliver quite the strong carroty taste they were promising and instead were a little bland, it may have been the variety I was growing, which unfortunately I can’t remember right now. Oh and the red lettuce (which I think, if I remember correctly, is lollo rosso) is the last of the lettuces not to bolt and has the benefit of not being liked by the rabbits, I will be growing this one next year.)

The Adjustment Bureau

I’ve just watched The Adjustment Bureau and absolutely loved it, a sci-fi / fantasy-ish romance starring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt and based on a short story from Phillip K Dick.

Matt Damon’s character is running for Senate when by chance (in a beautifully shot hotel) he meets Emily Blunt’s character wearing a stunning evening skirt and top combo (photo below doesn’t really do the outfit justice).

The whole movie is beautifully shot and styled, with wonderful colouring. Thankfully it’s not all style and no substance, as the plot is interesting, thought provoking and gently quirky, as The Adjustment Bureau do their best to stop Damon and Blunt from getting together. I haven’t seen a movie I’ve liked so much in ages.

Some photos from this week

Time normally flies for me but this week has felt very long, not in a bad way but it has been tiring. I spent Monday to Wednesday training for my new job in Central London.

Taken one day on my way home, I did a double take and had to do a small U-turn to take a photo. (For any non-Brit readers who may not be familiar with the signs they put on trees in danger of getting hit by buses etc, the sign should read 'Low Trees' but it's been altered slightly with a sticker).

The training went well and was quite interesting and part of me did enjoy the quite long winded commute (nearly two hours in the morning, anywhere else in this country and that would be going from one major town to another, but in London, that’s just going from the suburbs to north of the river) but I was glad when me and Mr. Lacer ‘swopped’ roles back again on Thursday. I start work properly next Friday and thankfully, it’s from home.

On Monday, as well as being at work, it was also mine and Mr. Lacer’s wedding anniversary, rather embarrassingly, we only remembered this year when some relatives with far better memories than us (or probably far more organised diaries) started to send us anniversary cards on the Friday. Mr. Lacer came home from work on the Monday with flowers, which ended up joining a bunch I had bought myself (well, those ones were a buy one, get one free and I had bought a bunch to thank my sister for looking after the kids that day).

flowers I bought

flowers Mr. Lacer bought, I like getting flowers

Girl Lacer was at a summer dance school all week (which culminated in an excellent musical performance of Shrek, where Girl Lacer was a guard). Boy Lacer was at a holiday club which he had been awarded funding from to help him achieve more, I’m not totally sure where watching a DVD a day and playing with Lego counts with that, but there you go. I suppose any excuse to get him to mix more and it did help with me working for three days.

On the Friday I finally had a chance to start on the weeding at the allotment (me being out of action for a month with my knee and then being busy with end of term stuff and getting a job has meant my allotment is now looking pretty bad). I was weeding for over an hour but only just about managed the squash bed and half the onion / carrot / pea bed. However most of my vegetable plants are still busy doing what they’re meant to be doing, including growing my first full sized courgette.

and a new flower appearing in my flower bed.

Today Girl Lacer wanted to go to the park, so we went after lunch. I didn’t take many photos, as we were walking a well trod path to one of the playgrounds, but I did take this.

I like how the lighting on this looks a bit weird, as if I’ve somehow taken it at night but the flowers, bee and butterfly have been well lit from the front. I guess it ended up like that because although it was a bright day today, I was shooting into shadow.

Fighting the to-do list

I am going to be very busy for the next three days, so I’ve been fighting the to-do list in preparation, oh and doing sooo much laundry. One of the things I needed to finish off was a book review for Feeling Stitchy. Over at Feeling Stitchy we like to make something from any books we review (if they’re craft books), so I spent quite a bit of today finishing off a closet monster from the book Closet Monsters.

You can read my full review here.

I also popped over to the allotment, last thing, to give it a quick water and to check nothing needed harvesting (no) and to despair and wonder whenever am I going to find the time to tackle the weeds over there at the moment.

Now to continue with the to do list.

Graveminder

Graveminder by Melissa Marr was my latest audiobook listen, an adult supernatural fantasy set in a small American town. I don’t want to give too much away about this book because part of the thing about reading (or listening) to the book is discovering what is going on alongside the main character, but I will say if you like Stacia Kane’s Downside series, you’ll also probably like this, as it has similar aspects, although Graveminder is less gritty and the romance element also isn’t quite as good, as I like how Stacia Kane’s characters have an on – off again aspect, whilst Marr’s characters are pretty much stuck on one setting, which can get annoying at times and made me want to yell at the characters to get over it as it was getting boring. However, the romance aside (and a few moments where the scene jumped leaving me feel disorientated as to what scene exactly I was listening to now, as Marr had leapt straight into the scene, without any setting up, I know it’s ok to do that occasionally, but it felt like it happened to often in this book), there are some good scenes, particularly the book opening, which was subtly very chilling. Overall though, the story, although not one of my favourite stories I’ve read or listened to this year by far, it was still perfectly entertaining.

A day of traipsing around after Girl Lacer

You can pretty much mark out the year by a calendar of Girl Lacer’s friends birthdays, the last one of the year (as in academic year, which, sorry does mean year to me, I’m so institutionalised) is Scarlett’s, which is normally held in a small walled off garden in Richmond Park. But first up, the birthday present, or should I say the birthday present bag, as the birthday present was some soft toy from Club Penguin, which I totally don’t get.

The embroidery is ahem, a bit subtle, as the colour of the (yes again) variegated floss that I used for the lollipops was quite close to the colour of the bag (a really nice effect though, the choice of variegated thread I mean, not the colour of the bag, as it really reminded me of those swirly raspberry lollipops, which made me so crave one when I was stitching this). Anyway, so here’s a close up.

(I dream of living in a flat with nice light for photos)

The pattern is adapted from a pattern by The Split Stitch, which is a cute set of bunting themed days of the week (but which can be easily adapted, as you can see for things like names or anything else you can think of).

So, anyway, Girl Lacer had a party to go to in Richmond Park, she also had a tap exam today, so I needed to pick her up early, so instead of going home again after I dropped her of, me and my camera went for a walk. Now you may have noticed a distinct lack of Richmond Park photos in my blog for a while, I do think I have a tendency just to go there in the spring, specially early spring, when I’m desperately seeking out any signs of green I can. I am lucky that for most of the year, as I live in a very ‘green’ town, that normally I don’t have to go far to get some grass underfoot and some trees in my line of sight (in fact, since they’ve opened an extra gate in the playing field next to us, me and the kids have been able to walk across it to get to and from school and to walk to school, on grass (specially as they’re often not particularly brilliant at cutting it) has been wonderful). So, due to being generally busy and not having to actively seek out green, I go to Richmond Park far less, if at all. So today was the first day in quite a while and I realised how much I’m fixed into going to the different parts of the park at certain times of year, so that when I go to that part of the park at a different time of year, it feels a bit odd. Like why wasn’t there snow on the best* hill to go sledging.

And where did all these leaves come from on the hill where normally the only sign of green (in early spring) is lichen.

But as well as seeing some familiar sights, I had more time (and the freedom, as I didn’t have the kids with me) to follow paths I’d never been on before (I so love that, I’ve lived near Richmond Park for 7 years now and I still know hardly any of it). If you come through Kingston Gate there’s a ridge almost directly facing it, so today I decided to follow the line of the ridge, following the maze of paths, up and down, then up (you get the drift) the hill again, letting my instinct tell me which paths to take (and with the comforting knowledge that I had set an alarm on my phone to tell me when I had to turn back to pick up Girl Lacer and that I could get as lost as I want and still find my way back, also thanks to my phone).

Then it was back to pick up Girl Lacer, then home to change into her tap kit, then out again for her tap exam, whilst I had to pop into town to find some shorts for her in a sea of autumn clothes, which was tricky. I had luck, eventually, with that but I also needed to buy a new kettle and had less luck with that. Then it was time to pick up Girl Lacer again, this time with her hair snazzily done up in french pleat style pigtails and then finally home again.

* Best as in the best hill for slightly timid sledgers, there is another hill in the park where you could easily go and break your neck if you wanted.

So, it’s the first day of the holidays

Finally, it’s the holidays, although it doesn’t really feel like the holidays yet as to me holidays should be relaxed with not that much to do, well not that much scheduled anyway, but we’re all pretty busy from now till next Friday, so maybe the holidays will start properly after that, although with my new job now, I’ll still be working a bit.

Anyway, today was Girl Lacer’s primary ballet exam, she seemed to do quite well, well, she didn’t say it was awful at least and I know (thanks to weeks of practicing) that she knows her stuff. We won’t know if she passed or at what level for, I don’t know how long, I hope it’s soon. But anyway, she came out of the exam with the most beautiful hair, I’m glad the dance teachers do that, as I am not a mummy who is good with little girls’ hair (in my defence though Girl Lacer’s hair is incredibly fine and refuses to stay in any position for too long, like it’s owner). You could smell the hairspray before you even walked into the dressing room today.
<- There's Girl Lacer for the last time in her primary uniform, she'll be in Grade 1 from September, which switches to a blue uniform and is minus the little girl skirt, instead going into the whole realm of character skirts and character shoes, completely alien to me!

Girl Lacer has a birthday party and another dance exam to go to tomorrow, Sunday is quite quiet (I really must do some weeding), then both me, Boy Lacer and Girl Lacer have our own things to do next week. After that week Mr. Lacer is on holiday for a week, I’m not sure if we’ll be doing anything specific though. Then after that, with four weeks left of the holiday, we’re going to try and tick off some things me and the kids have wanted to do; see Buckingham Palace and the Changing of the Guards and to go and paddle in the V&A again are definites, the V&A museum of childhood and the London Eye are good possibilities and we’re almost certainly will be going to Kew and oh lots of picnics have definitely been requested as well (as well as McDonalds) and lots of swimming (Boy Lacer won’t like that bit) and throwing themselves round the kids’ media zone at the gym whilst I try not to get grey hairs. I would also like to fit in the zoo because we haven’t been for years and maybe the cinema or even a trip to Brighton on the train. Much as I don’t particularly like the relentless march of time, it is nice to start to think about things to do in London that we haven’t done before because the kids were too small, I know we won’t be able to do everything though.