raspberries and salmon
The nice thing about my recurrent mastitis is that it is relatively mild. One day of feeling like I have flu, and then I'm back to normal except for having a sore boob. And it forces me to spend a day resting in bed, which presumably my body really needs. I certainly feel ten million times better just for having some rest.
Anyway. Yesterday Matt's dad took the girls away for the morning (where they apparently had fun at playgrounds, seeing their cousins, eating lots of food, to the extent that they both fell asleep in the car on the way home again). By a miracle we managed to get both girls into the house without them completely waking up -- River had to be coaxed back to sleep, and Willow latched onto the boob for a few minutes. So the afternoon was peaceful enough.
The child-free morning? Matt spent it up in the attic. Have I mentioned the grand attic work here yet? It's another big job, of course. We stripped it back to bare stone walls and rafters before we moved in. The electrician re-wired it when he did the rest of the house. Matt sent new pipework up to it when he re-plumbed the house. We both had a go at stripping and sanding the exposed beams. But otherwise there's everything left to do in there. Matt has to replace the rotten chipboard floor with pine floorboards, put up tongue-and-groove panelling on the ceiling, re-plaster one gable wall, both eaves walls and the walls in the stairwell, make and install skirting boards, plumb in and hang two radiators, assemble and fit a new handrail, make a new bottom step for the stairs, make four sets of cupboard doors and fit them, stain and wax all the woodwork, and doubtless other things that we haven't thought of. He's put all the insulation in everywhere, though. And mostly finished putting down the floorboards.
Poor Matt. This house hangs over him, an immense burden.
So, while he was up in the attic, I washed up, had a shower, made 15 little smoked salmon fishcakes (leftover mash from the weekend and some smoked salmon trimmings we had in the freezer), boiled some beetroot, and nipped round to the allotment.
It was such a disaster over there in the early spring. We just didn't have time to stay on top of the weeds last summer once Willow was born, and by April the whole plot was waist-high with docks, nettles, meadow grass, buttercups sow thistle, clover, goosegrass, and unharvested crops that we'd just forgotten about (mostly turnips and potatoes). Days off and weekends through May and most of June were spent just digging it over. It took several sessions just to find the strawberry patch! But now it's cleared of weeds and packed with productive plants, plus another pile of horse manure.
I had a happy time, picking raspberries and checking how everything's growing.
It's all looking great, actually. Last year they had a "fayre" around this time and our plot was the best on the site. This year they held the fayre back in May when ours was one of the worst. I think we'd be up with the best again if they'd held it around the same time. The raspberry harvest in particular has been phenomenal. We've already had some rhubarb, gooseberries, currants, courgettes, lettuce, chard and beetroot. Beans, peas, cabbage, kale, carrots, turnips, squash, pumpkins, cucumbers, sweetcorn, tomatoes, peppers -- all to come. It's so exciting! The only setbacks so far have been rabbits attacking the beans and brassicas (so Matt and his brother erected a fence around that part of the plot), and rabbits and slugs eating the ripe strawberries (so I covered the bed with fleece and scattered a few slug pellets in there).
And this year we've made a space on the plot for picnics when we bring the girls with us. River has a little paddling pool and her own folding chair. We have two parasols to keep the sun off (the Isle of Man is enjoying an amazing spell of hot weather -- only a few days of rain altogether in the last two months).
I love my allotment. I don't think it's saving us much money, except with the soft fruit (but even there, I think without the allotment we would simply not have bought any soft fruit from the supermarket. I prefer to think that it's making us happier in the summer months, having free access to so many delicious berries). But it's wonderful outdoor exercise. And a garden spot of our very own -- somewhere that the girls can consider their territory as they grow up.
Okay. What else happened? River and I made some little cornflake/white choc/peanut butter cakie things as a treat (which she completely forgot about eating once I'd put them in the fridge to go hard). Then off I went teaching. It was only a shortish session -- people away on holiday etc -- so I was back in time to have tea with everyone. We ate all the fishcakes with a salad of beetroot, toasted walnuts, lettuce and grilled halloumi in a balsamic dressing. Really delicious. Everyone wanted more fishcakes. I'll have to remember to make them next time we have a party. We had homemade vanilla ice-cream with fresh fruit and a raspberry sauce (it'd been hanging around in the fridge for ages -- in fact, most of the day's food was because I wanted to make some space in the fridge).
Matt took Willow up for a bath while River finished off her meal with a slice of toast (!) and I started the washing up. We played a game where I was Tom Kitten and she was inviting me and lots of other Beatrix Potter characters to a picnic at the playground in Douglas, where we were having delicious food made from leftovers of the tea we'd had last night. Except she couldn't work out how to say it -- she knew "yesterday" wasn't quite right because you have tea in the evening time, not the day, and she'd never heard us say "yesternight" (I saw her mouthing it and rejecting it). So I helped her out by suggesting that "last night" might be the phrase she needed. She immediately brightened up and used it. And then made a point of using it again a few minutes later.
Then off she trotted to join in the bath, while I finished off the dishes and laughed at I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue on iPlayer.
A happy day, on the whole.
Anyway. Yesterday Matt's dad took the girls away for the morning (where they apparently had fun at playgrounds, seeing their cousins, eating lots of food, to the extent that they both fell asleep in the car on the way home again). By a miracle we managed to get both girls into the house without them completely waking up -- River had to be coaxed back to sleep, and Willow latched onto the boob for a few minutes. So the afternoon was peaceful enough.
The child-free morning? Matt spent it up in the attic. Have I mentioned the grand attic work here yet? It's another big job, of course. We stripped it back to bare stone walls and rafters before we moved in. The electrician re-wired it when he did the rest of the house. Matt sent new pipework up to it when he re-plumbed the house. We both had a go at stripping and sanding the exposed beams. But otherwise there's everything left to do in there. Matt has to replace the rotten chipboard floor with pine floorboards, put up tongue-and-groove panelling on the ceiling, re-plaster one gable wall, both eaves walls and the walls in the stairwell, make and install skirting boards, plumb in and hang two radiators, assemble and fit a new handrail, make a new bottom step for the stairs, make four sets of cupboard doors and fit them, stain and wax all the woodwork, and doubtless other things that we haven't thought of. He's put all the insulation in everywhere, though. And mostly finished putting down the floorboards.
Poor Matt. This house hangs over him, an immense burden.
So, while he was up in the attic, I washed up, had a shower, made 15 little smoked salmon fishcakes (leftover mash from the weekend and some smoked salmon trimmings we had in the freezer), boiled some beetroot, and nipped round to the allotment.
It was such a disaster over there in the early spring. We just didn't have time to stay on top of the weeds last summer once Willow was born, and by April the whole plot was waist-high with docks, nettles, meadow grass, buttercups sow thistle, clover, goosegrass, and unharvested crops that we'd just forgotten about (mostly turnips and potatoes). Days off and weekends through May and most of June were spent just digging it over. It took several sessions just to find the strawberry patch! But now it's cleared of weeds and packed with productive plants, plus another pile of horse manure.
I had a happy time, picking raspberries and checking how everything's growing.
It's all looking great, actually. Last year they had a "fayre" around this time and our plot was the best on the site. This year they held the fayre back in May when ours was one of the worst. I think we'd be up with the best again if they'd held it around the same time. The raspberry harvest in particular has been phenomenal. We've already had some rhubarb, gooseberries, currants, courgettes, lettuce, chard and beetroot. Beans, peas, cabbage, kale, carrots, turnips, squash, pumpkins, cucumbers, sweetcorn, tomatoes, peppers -- all to come. It's so exciting! The only setbacks so far have been rabbits attacking the beans and brassicas (so Matt and his brother erected a fence around that part of the plot), and rabbits and slugs eating the ripe strawberries (so I covered the bed with fleece and scattered a few slug pellets in there).
And this year we've made a space on the plot for picnics when we bring the girls with us. River has a little paddling pool and her own folding chair. We have two parasols to keep the sun off (the Isle of Man is enjoying an amazing spell of hot weather -- only a few days of rain altogether in the last two months).
I love my allotment. I don't think it's saving us much money, except with the soft fruit (but even there, I think without the allotment we would simply not have bought any soft fruit from the supermarket. I prefer to think that it's making us happier in the summer months, having free access to so many delicious berries). But it's wonderful outdoor exercise. And a garden spot of our very own -- somewhere that the girls can consider their territory as they grow up.
Okay. What else happened? River and I made some little cornflake/white choc/peanut butter cakie things as a treat (which she completely forgot about eating once I'd put them in the fridge to go hard). Then off I went teaching. It was only a shortish session -- people away on holiday etc -- so I was back in time to have tea with everyone. We ate all the fishcakes with a salad of beetroot, toasted walnuts, lettuce and grilled halloumi in a balsamic dressing. Really delicious. Everyone wanted more fishcakes. I'll have to remember to make them next time we have a party. We had homemade vanilla ice-cream with fresh fruit and a raspberry sauce (it'd been hanging around in the fridge for ages -- in fact, most of the day's food was because I wanted to make some space in the fridge).
Matt took Willow up for a bath while River finished off her meal with a slice of toast (!) and I started the washing up. We played a game where I was Tom Kitten and she was inviting me and lots of other Beatrix Potter characters to a picnic at the playground in Douglas, where we were having delicious food made from leftovers of the tea we'd had last night. Except she couldn't work out how to say it -- she knew "yesterday" wasn't quite right because you have tea in the evening time, not the day, and she'd never heard us say "yesternight" (I saw her mouthing it and rejecting it). So I helped her out by suggesting that "last night" might be the phrase she needed. She immediately brightened up and used it. And then made a point of using it again a few minutes later.
Then off she trotted to join in the bath, while I finished off the dishes and laughed at I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue on iPlayer.
A happy day, on the whole.