Swathes of bells

25 April 2025  (Friday)

Richard was up VERY early, opening window slats by 5.30am, making me awake enough I knew I’d not get back to sleep!  Then he had a shave… with his electric razor… which buzzed me wide awake from the dressing room, ensuring I was well ready to get up and start the day… though I’ll pay for such an early rise later!

At my desk VERY early, going through For Earth’s Sake deliveries from two suppliers, adding the quantity of each to stock and checking on what had and what had not been delivered… no organic brazil nuts, which have really rocketed in price since we last bought them, six months ago - maybe up 40%!!!

Once this was done I got on with updating this blog… it seems ages that I’ve not updated it.  I generally write it daily, dictating or typing it up into a Google document on my phone, and then when at my desk I read, make changes, spell check, then copy it from the document to my website savident.com.  I guess it’s been a busy week one way and another, and of course the beginning of the week was Easter Monday, which seems SO long ago now…  Anyway, as I type this Friday section of my blog, which will likely be up tomorrow, I’ve just done the above and uploaded Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday… so plenty to read!

A quick chat with Vanessa post breakfast; she called as I was editing yesterday's segment of A Week at the Plot.  It couldn't be a long call as we’d decided that we’d get off to Aston Rowant Nature Reserve again today, as we did two weeks ago.  We were hoping that the bluebells would be out, as last time we felt they were about two weeks away from opening.

To be honest, I wasn't really in the mood to drive out of London and I'd have been quite happy to have curled myself up for the day with my book, though sometimes we need to push through what we feel we don't want to do to actually experience all the benefits of a day.  This was one of those days.

It was really worth the drive out there. Unfortunately, as we got on to the A40 it clouded over a little bit, so by the time we got to Aston Rowant the sun wasn't as bright as it had been when we left home.  We parked at the entrance to the wood, rather than in the usual car park and did our walk through the wood, with the skies clouded over and the secretive sun peeping out every now and again, teasing us at various points.  Sitting on our bench eating our snack and tea, a big bumblebee buzzed around us for about five minutes. It was buzzing over the leaf litter, either to find a den, shelter or something else… it was certainly rather tenacious in whatever it was doing.

As I ate the last finger of my dark Kit-Kat, Rchard got up to take some photos, and at that point the sun came out… so we decided to retrace our steps right back along the top path so that Richard could take the swathes of fresh, bright bluebells in the sunlight. It was well worth it.

The drive home was uneventful, and when we got home as I’d driven back Richard said that he’d make lunch. He suggested baked beans on pitta with the leftover hot dogs from last night, which I was fine with; it made a lot of sense in many ways as I was already wearing an orange T-shirt.

After lunch, and a little bit of time at my desk, I was down at the plot just pottering. A few things needed watering in the poly and the greenhouse, and outside I decided it was time to sort out the blueberries.

There's one that we inherited when we took over the lower half of the plot that had died over the winter. I don't know why.  I guess it just either got too cold or it got to the age that it was time for it to stop doing anything. I'm sure it didn't get too cold, as our winter was much milder than previous winters where it’s survived really well. The sad thing is, it's always been the first to bloom and the first to bear fruit, and also it’s been the most prolific fruiter of the blueberries that we have. Another one, which sits in the tub with its pairing of the same variety, has also died so I decided with two large tubs it was mostly best to reuse them. I turned out the compost, weeded it, and planted spare seed potatoes that have been hanging around for some weeks.  Another job done, and another one I've been putting off for another day.

Sitting down, I looked at my phone and saw that it was three minutes past five. I was sort of just having a rest and thinking about going home when I looked to my left at the rather unkempt flower border bed, overgrown with weeds of which most are grasses.

Into the shed I went, picking up a kneeling pad, and I set to work on pulling the grasses and weeds that are in that bed. I've spent the time over the last few months making sure that all the growing areas are up to scratch.  Then, over the last few weeks I've spent quite some time working on general areas, tidying them to make it easier for me to move around the plot or weeding them to reduce the amount of weeds that grow in certain areas; embedded bindweed growing in the path behind the shed and another patch invading the space beneath the ceanothus bring two examples.

After half an hour, I was done in and  though the bed didn't look spectacular by any stretch of my imagination, it looked a lot better than it did with all the grass blades shooting towards the sky and covering flowering plants.  I didn't finish the bed, though I’ll likely have another go tomorrow. Over the coming months I'll go in with my hand fork and weed out as much of the grass weed root as I possibly can, and there's also Cinque Foil in there and some Bindweed so that will have to come out too.  

And on Cinquefoil, I know I shared the top left photo yesterday, though here's a montage of photos of that deep tap-rooted one I took out yesterday, with a close up of the stone that it grew through; it must have found a hole or a fissure of some kind and just grown right through it, and then carried on growing, developing its long taproot for another fourteen or more inches deep into that front bed… an extraordinary plant in many ways!!

Anyway, I got home in time for making a cordial before Richard's Live, and then after that we had a quick pasta dish, one I often do on this day when Richard's done a live. It's wholewheat pasta (tonight it was Fusilli), with cooked frozen broad beans, jar pesto, garlic and grated cheese. We had radish with it too. Quick, easy and tasty.

A bit of TV, and a film on Prime called Dark Encounter which turned out to be a completely different film than I’d expected it to be; though also the film that I sort of expected it to be as within half an hour I thought that a certain thing had happened, and it turned out that it had, though they needed external help to work it out.  Richard fell asleep halfway through, so when we got to bed I explained to him what the premise of the whole story was… I think he was asleep by the time I finished.

Finishing off a half-read chapter of The Beautiful Mystery and reading another, it was soon time to put off the light and go to sleep.


Weather:  Bright start to the day, though certainly chilly overnight.  Feeling warmer for sure.

Breakfast:  Bran sticks, yogurt and banana
Snack: Rice cakes, Flora ProActiv (keeps them crisp), yeast extract and thinly sliced cheese… and a dark Kit-Kat
Lunch:  Bake Beans (tinned) on toasted pitta with leftover Fry’s vegan hot dogs
Supper:  Wholewheat Fusilli with broad beans, garlic, olive oil, pesto and grated cheese, and radish​