Hens and Beans Dancing

Wow.. what a storm rolled into the area last night.  Watched in awe as wave after wave of sheet and forked lightening cascaded through the heavens.  Unplugged everything even remotely electric and waited for the inevitable darkness.  Slightly miffed as I had promised myself an evening of watching absolute rubbish on the TV as I hadn’t legally lobotomized myself for over a week.  As the first raindrops fell I felt smug at my weather reading ability earlier in the day of bright sunshine, not to roll out the hose and water the veggie patch.  As a crack in the sky opened and dumped a small ocean onto the house I felt less smug and more concerned for the stability of the roof.  It crossed my mind, briefly, to check on the vegetables,  but my wellies have a hole in and I used my carrier bags to store some windfall apples.

Louis wasn’t too happy with the thunder and while Pen and I took it in turns to read to him I could hear nasty little drips splodging onto the ceiling above.  Now, there ensued a conundrum: was it better to read about mice who dress up and live in hedges for the umpteenth time. (I wonder if anyone elses stomach rolls when asking their child which book they want? knowing full well it will be the one that you can insert your own “ping” to turn the page, with your eyes closed!!) OR go up into the dusty, hot and leaky attic, home of everything crawly and try and discern which out of the rotten beams looks most damp.  I only have 5 buckets up there, which normally is enough.  The trouble is, it really depends which way the wind is blowing as to where the roof leaks.  So making the mistake of staying attic bound too long, results in a game of spin the bucket, with no useful conclusion.  I chose the dampest looking patches and moved the baby bath under the worst, only to discover that the chimney breast was wet and dripping.. there goes the flashing then!! Trying not to panic, I decided it was best to go downstairs and shut the door.  Luckily enough, I cant check the other attic as the floor is too rotten to walk on.. so that saved me a job!

The morning started like any other, waking up with a squatter in my bed demanding milk.  Tried to stay asleep until I reached the back door, and peaked at the vegetable patches.  Always best to do with one eye shut, that way the shock is halved.  Everything looked a bit flat, but the bean poles hadn’t moved so all is well.  Hoping for a day of calm so that it can regain some appearance of normality, but the sky is the colour of a battleship and the horses are standing in the middle of the field looking morose, so its not looking good.

Have dragged myself around the vegetable patches for most of the day, trying desperately to tame the wilderness.  Thought it was way past due to pick the boat sized courgettes, but now have very little idea what to do with them, may try hollowing them out and use them as shoes. Have decided its best not to look at them straight on, as I have a sneaky suspicion they may attack if provoked.   Harvested over 5 kilos of runner beans, so no surprises what we all had for dinner.

wishing I had room in the freezer!

The tomato bushes are straining under the weight of fruit, but most of it still green! wondered whether I may have inadvertently covered them in factor 50 when trying to cover Louis in a flyby visit.  But have managed to spot a couple ripening and have taken photographic evidence in case this is the first and last success.

Everything else, is ticking along, including the mole.  Have flattened all his hills and buried some rose thorns in the holes to hopefully send out a firm message that its time to visit the neighbours.

Starting a blog for the first time, unsure of where to begin.  Have had a day off from the garden today as the Triffid size weeds are winking at me in a most disconcerting fashion.  So decided it was best to go and socialise in the city.  This consisted of sitting in an over-sized climbing frame with Louis my son, while watching my niece Penelope, do impressions of bees on a windowpane, crashing obviously into the safety netting.  All the girls were there, managing to look cool, calm and collected, while I felt frazzled and suffered greatly from friction burns on the slide while trying to pretend, not convincingly to Louis that it was great fun.

Managed a stroll around the plot in the twilight, and if I half close my eyes everything looks  abundant and perky.  The horses watched on with quizzical interest as I talked to the tomatoes and encouraged them to ripen and stop falling off the plants prematurely.  The lake looks fresh after the recent rainfall and Mr Mole is getting dangerously close to plot number 3.  I’ve only just managed to coax my carrots into survival, so perhaps that is why he is headed in their direction.  Will try my utmost to weed tomorrow, but I have a rather horrendous date with a swimming pool, and as yet have not found suitable apparel.  May have to resort to Gaffa tape and a rather moth eaten swimsuit..  still on the bright side, public humiliation is better than weeding.