 The fabulous frames for growing squash over... we can only but dream! 7 August 2025 (Thursday) It’s fair to say that so far this week has been somewhat of a quieter week, so far... And when I say quieter week I mean less frenetic and less busy in the head. It’s still been a really busy week, with things having to be done every day and these things fully being done every day, though there's also been space in my head to be able to allow me to get on with other things, however small or.major they might be, and get on with them effectively. The plot, which is really looking okay and fine at the moment, has thrown up a challenge, albeit a challenge which I knew I had, and that's with the cinquefoil. I know I've said it before, though for me it is the worst weed to have on the plot. It's so invasive and pernicious, which is really horrible to say about a plant which is rather lovely. Its Latin name is Potentilla reptans, and as cinquefoil suggests it has five parts to each leaf, and it also has lovely yellow flowers. However, it has an aggressive trailing habit, akin to a strawberry because it is a relative of that plant, and this is what makes it really invasive. I found out early in the week that it had really knitted its way through our grass paths, and as I've said in segments of A Week at the Plot this week on Planet Vegetaria, I'm now mulling whether I get rid of my between bed grass paths and turn them into wood chip paths. It's really a shame that this plant takes hold quite so quickly, and voraciously, and because it's got a really large tap root I was sure, as others have said, that actually when the soil is rich rather than poor it won't like it; the tap roots suggests that it takes up nutrients from deep deep down. However, it seems to love any type of soil and, particularly grass paths where it can surreptitiously weave its way through the individual blades of grass, keeping close to the ground and keeping well camouflaged. When I took a hand fork to a section of the grass, sliding it horizontally close to the soil level and between the individual grass blades, I lifted up a whole load of its runners.  Cinquefoil... about 8kg of it... and another bag similar! So I now think the best way to deal with it is to have as little grass for it to surreptitiously grow through as possible. Yes, I can weed it out and those roots that really do go down too - where I see them I will take them out. It's happened pretty well with the beds, except at the very edges, where on the outside edges cinquefoil thrives, I've managed to weed most of the growing areas of a whole load of this invasive weed. And I guess by not managing the soil well, as the half of the plot that is invaded by it wasn't before I took it on, it allows it to propagate. By working the soil, I think the amount of propagation and thorough weeding of it reduces its spread, and therefore its propagation and negative impact. So anyway, I’m mulling whether some of our grass paths become wood chip paths, though at the moment I think the likelihood is 70% for wood chip paths and 30% to keep the status quo. Time will tell… My desk work work this week, ie For Earth's Sake and the Great Green Barn… having had a really good day physically down with Vanessa last week I was able to just crack on with a whole load of things this week; needing very few answers from Vanessa which meant that I could just push forward. One of the important jobs was designing a new advert using Canva for one edition of the local Round & About magazine, to highlight all we have in the autumn season so far (and I’m working on more to book in) and also show how the Great Green Barn’s space can be used in various different ways… hopefully, the ad does this!  Great Green Barn's autumn ad for Round & About, September Also, For Earth's Sake's closing for a summer break; a fortnight of repairs and maintenance… and a few alterations! It may be that we end the two weeks with having more space in the side barn that currently houses all of the dispensable liquids and all of the fruit and veg. There's an area at the back where the fruit and veg could move to which would allow much more space for the liquids down one side, rather than them being a bit bunched up together as they are at the moment. It would also allow for another chiller cabinet to go in which would be hugely beneficial. And so to other things…  A temporary bike rack at Kew Gardens - put in place to accomodate Thursday evening's session of cycling through Kew Gardens. This morning, Richard and I went to Kew Gardens which of course is always a fabulous place to visit. We took advantage of early opening for members only, where they open two of their gates at 8am rather than 10am. Again, it felt as though we had the whole of Kew Gardens to ourselves, apart from Kew’s staff and craftsmen who do a good bulk of their work before the gates open to the public.
When we'd arrived at Brentford Gate (Fenella was parked up and would wait patiently for our return - most probably hob-nobbing with other cars as they arrived, passing glances between each other) and had our tickets scanned, we were told the gates close at 4pm today as this evening they have the special event of allowing people to come and cycle through the gardens - and as we walked around we saw various adaptions in place to accomodate this, including green barriers at the entrance of places which I think cyclists will be allowed to put their bikes against, and at the big lake there was a temporary cycle rack (above), which I thought a great idea! We also visited the Kew Kitchen Garden, not to be confused with Kew Palace's Kitchen Garden... I did a segment in here for this week's A Week at the Plot (which will be uploaded next Monday), and was truly amazed at this fabulous squash frame at the top of this post - currently, we can only dream of such a structure, and of course admire Kew's own! We had a great two and a half hours there, and if you're a member of Ko-fi I did a little piece at the side of one of the less traversed ponds at Kew Gardens. So if you're a Ko-fi member, go over and have a watch. And if you're not a Ko-fi member, and have six pound coins spare, why not have a think about joining for a month and seeing if we're worth it… just like L’Oreal… I'm at the plot, dictating this into my phone and later on I'll be sitting at my desk correcting the grammar and also making sure spell check has worked, because sometimes when I say ‘weed’ it comes up as ‘read’ or occasionally ‘reed’ if it's feeling in the horticultural mood. Richard's at home at the moment doing some recording of rhubarb recipes; I think a Rhubarb Fool with Greek yogurt, and also hopefully making a crumble. I've got no idea what supper is going to be yet; it may just be some salad with cheese as we've got lots of lettuce and tomatoes and cucumber, or maybe it will be something like a farinata which I've been wanting to make for absolutely ages but never got round to. I think it needs time to sit after the batter’s been made, so maybe that's something for another day. Anyway, much of this will become clear by bedtime! Happy Days indeed! Weather: It’s overcast much of the day, around 22°… the sun tries its hardest to break through, though never quite makes it… Breakfast: All Bran, Yogurt and a little oat milk Snack: Lidl Corncakes with some buttery spready, yeast extract and thin slivers of cheese Lunch: Lidl Lentil Soup bulked out with softened red lentils, cottage cheese, yeast extract, cucumber, tomato, radish and crackers Supper: I’ll let you know!
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 Enviromesh and Mushroom Crates to discourage Brush from rummaging! 3 August 2025 (Sunday) It's Sunday afternoon, and I finally feel as though I've got a little bit of time to myself to sit down and put some words to paper or combat as I've said before, fingers to keys... though in reality much of what I write I actually dictate into my phone first, and then sit down at my keyboard at my desk and check through and amend, and hopefully make better. Some of you have said in your responses and comments to my writing that it feels as if we’re sitting in a room together and chatting away, and maybe this is why it feels that way because much of what I do right is either dictated or comes from my head in terms of how I usually talk. Anyway… The week has been another busy one, though it's also being productive in very many ways; when editing A Week at the Plot I was really surprised by just how much had gotten done at the plot, on top of all that happened elsewhere... Towards the end of the week, and particularly on Friday morning I was really feeling that my mojo for the plot was beginning to escape from me. I think it's down to the fact that our lives are actually rather busy, and also that a good chunk of my head space is elsewhere; 40 miles away in Surrey at For Earth’s Sake and the Great Green Barn. I might only visit once a week or once a fortnight, though my job is to ensure that things always go smoothly for both organisations, and there's an awful lot that falls on my shoulders which is absolutely fine because that is what I’m paid by Vanessa to do.
This week, having had a day on Monday of doing stuff at the plot, and particularly in harvesting Anya first early potatoes (albeit I was harvesting them rather late!), which I couldn't remember the name of, and Tuesday being very very much a desk day as Monday morning was for me, I was down at For Earth’s Sake and the Great Green Barn on Wednesday to do what I normally do. Any day down there is always full on, as there’s always a lot to get through, and this week, despite the rather relentless and never ending roadworks of the A3 and M25, turned out to be a pretty positive and productive day. A person who used to volunteer in the shop quite a few years ago has recently moved, with his wife, to the house next door to For Earth’s Sake and they’ve decided that they’d like to both volunteer time in the shop. It's been mutually agreed that they’ll do Wednesday, which is a particularly busy day in the shop, not necessarily because of customers but because it's the first day of the week the shop is open, and much stock arrives on Tuesday and Wednesday and that all needs to be checked and put out into the shop on Wednesday morning. Also, the organic fruit and veg, usually ordered on a Monday or Tuesday, will also arrive on Wednesday morning so that all needs to be checked, sorted and then put on display. With dispensable items, if stock’s been low and we have a delivery of 20Kg of this or 12.67Kg of that, then the big dispensers need to be checked, and topped up - and some of these bags can be quite heavy and not easily manhandled! Now the stock is basically controlled both visually and online, with me doing the online bit. We’ve only been keep stock levels electronically for the past six months… which I know sounds a bit odd, but time did not allow previously. As we get deliveries, I check online to ensure that what’s arrived is what we’ve ordered, doing so from the supplier’s online docket for the delivery, and I add to the stock level accordingly. When we started doing this many dispensers already had the produce in them, so we had to guess the weight - as time’s gone by the online stock check is getting more and more accurate as if we run out of an item completely, and then by 20 kilos of it, we know that we have 20 kilos of stock. As things get scanned through the till, the weight of dispensable items is taken off the amount of stock that we have, so basically our online stock is pretty accurate now… which is a boon! Anyway, we now have two additional volunteers on a Wednesday, and that will help an awful lot. It was also lovely to meet the two of them, one of whom I had met once before… and I have to say that both were excellent and by the end of the day the shop was in an even better condition than it was at the beginning of sales at 9:30! In the afternoon, with the shop and its customers being taken care of, Vanessa and I were able to sit down and plan things for events happening at the Great Green Barn, particularly the theatre and shows and crafting that we are presenting ourselves, and we also talked to Nik about the work that’s planned to be done during the two-week break that For Earth’s Sake has coming up. The three of us then went over to look at the parking area outside of the shop - it acts as parking for both the shop and the barn, and it can often look rather untidy. Plans and timelines have now been set to determine better use of the space and more ‘hidden’ storage options, as we have a hope that by next year we’ll have a dedicated area next to the shop that will be a really lovely area to sit down and have coffee, tea and cake and possibly some hot snacks as well. The thing with For Earth’s Sake and the Great Green Barn is that there's always new ideas coming along, and that's fine and dandy by me. I do find that a day down at Vanessa is very tiring - early morning start, longish drive down, full on long day of working, longish drive back - and the following day I'm usually feeling a little exhausted and lacklustre. However, this week it also fed into me being a little down about the work that was needed at the plot… and when I went down on Thursday afternoon to do things, the humidity was so high that I just felt exhausted and came back home, determined to go down on Friday and really get my act together. However, on Friday morning I just didn't feel like doing anything, and when I say I didn't feel like doing anything I don't mean that there was nothing to do and I didn't do anything, what I mean is I didn't feel like doing the extra things that I needed to do at the plot… but down I went, and with a good bit of seed sowing and a few harvests under my belt, by the end of two or three hours down there I felt that I’d draw my mojo back in… Yay!! Saturday saw me down at the plot again, having recorded Sunday Chat in the morning. I was determined to sow two types of carrot in a raised bed where I’d harvested the potatoes earlier in the week. The bed had been well forked over in the proceeding days, and raked level, though Brush, our resident fox who I've only actually seen once this year, always likes a fresh made bed and he’d obviously decided to give it a little bit of a grubbing up - divots in two areas and paw prints all over - maybe he had been dancing with a lady friend under the moonlit sky?  Cinquefoil - or Potentilla reptans, though my common name 'Pain in the Arse' is more apt! So, this meant that my first job Saturday afternoon was to use my rake to level things off again before I could put in the drills and sow the seeds of the Amsterdam Forcing and Autumn King carrots. I knew that I'd have to tackle the Cinquefoil, the bain of my life on the plot, though with a storm on the way, Storm Floris, I thought I'd get on with this job next week rather than this weekend… though when I got down this morning, Sunday, I started on the Cinquefoil. It really is such a pernicious weed, and I would MUCH rather have bindweed or couch grass any day. It's a relation to the strawberry, being a Potentilla, and it sends out a significant number of runners which can root at every single node. Its botanical name is Potentilla reptans, and despite having a lovely flower the common name I have for it is ‘Pain in the Arse’. On my kneeler, with fork in hand and obviously gloves on, over a two-hour period I pulled out 16 kilograms of this pernicious weed; plant, deep roots and runners. All came home with me in a black sack and was emptied into our green waste bin which will be collected tomorrow morning by the council - and good riddance to that lot… only about another tonne to go! Back home and Richard was making lunch - our first home-grown (well, allotment grown!) Cheese & Tomato on toast… OMG… it was delicious!!! It will be a little segment in Richard’s vlog so please look out for that as the lusciouness was eaten rather swiftly, with no photo by me or Richard taken - though Richard did do a little video! It’s now mid-afternoon on Sunday, and I'm looking over the books that I've read over the past few weeks and the one that I've just started yesterday. I've just finished Felicity Cloake’s One More Croissant for the Road which the fabulous Vivi gave me well over a year ago. It's a book that is broken up into chapters of the different legs of Felicity’s cycling journey through France, tasting the gastronomy as she went village by village, town by town and city by city. Because of this, it's been a book which has been on my bedside for quite a while, and when I finish one of my thriller or murder mystery books, I then pick it up and read a few chapters before diving into a new book of my usual genre… and then picking it up again once I finish that book, and on and on… Now, with Felicity Cloake over the line and back in Paris, the book is finished. I have to say I’ve rather enjoyed reading it. I'm not a great fan of all travelogues, though I do like ones that grab me. Having read further investigations by The Observer I remember that The Salt Path did so when I started reading it, though after maybe 20, or 30, or 40 pages, maybe even 50 pages I began to feel that it was a bit too victim-based for me. In my life, when times have been tough, I've often found that people have been extremely helpful and welcoming and happy to give advice and assistance where needed or asked for… with Raynor and Moth, they seemed to have a very different journey… Anyway, I do highly recommend Felicity Cloake’s One More Croissant for the Road as it's informative, fun, and talks a lot about food, AND has recipes - what’s not to like!!! My new book’s by Lucy Foley, of which I've read three of her other books. This one’s called The Midnight Feast, and so far I'm only a few chapters in… and absolutely loving it!!
Weather: It feels as though summer’s come to an end… Today there are a few sunny spells though it’s largely overcast, a few light rainshowers, and quite a breeze. Storm Floris is on its way!! Breakfast: All Bran, Yogurt and a little oat milk Lunch: Cheese & Allotment Grown Tomatoes on Toast - YUM!!! Supper: Microwave Tomato Sauce with Penne & Salad - recipe to come!!!
13 - 16 July 2025 (Sunday to Wednesday) CAUTION, the later part of this blog may be distressing. The thing is, when you go away there’s an awful lot of catching up to do, and that’s even before the kettle AND the washing machine decide to go on the blink, or do nothing as with the kettle! The first part of the week was all about catching up at the plot, getting back in the saddle for For Earth’s Sake, and confirming all that is planned for a celebratory wake at the Great Green Barn on Thursday afternoon… and all FES and GGB stuff has been with the added complexity of Vanessa being on call for Jury Service both this week and next… some days needing to be in, half a day not being needed at all… Busy Days!! On Sunday I did a final segment for my upload of A Week at the Plot, and I have to say the heatwave we’ve just had has fared all plants at the plot better than the one a few weeks back, again when we were away - I think this is because the nighttime temperatures have been dipping nicely below 20°, where a few weeks back the temps stayed uncomfortably above 20°. This means the watering that has been done has kept all, well mostly all, healthy and growing. The one thing that had suffered, both in the greenhouse and outside in a raised bed are our cucumbers; on reflection planting most outside in a raised bed may not have been the best idea, as there was just no way in a very well drained bed to keep on top of the watering. So, on Tuesday I took them out, and had planned on Wednesday to remove the ones from the greenhouse too - all would go into the compost to help make growing medium for happy plants next year… fingers crossed! With the Cheeky Prince bed now clear of poppies, and with beautiful gifted cosmos, I put about seven or eight plants in amongst the squash - I’m sure they won’t interfere with the growth of the Cheeky Prince, and I know they will bring me moments of joy through their growing season, so a win win situation! Oh, and did I say that the late La Diva cucumber seeds I sowed last week, the ones that were really out of date, have decided to show their worth… fingers crossed quite a few will germinate and give us late cucumbers in the greenhouse.  La Diva cucumbers germinating The weather’s been quite mixed since we returned from Swanage - overcast, with some very bright spells of sunshine, though overall lots of grey, and then quite a bit of rain spread out on Tuesday doing little for the ground, though maybe refreshing leaves which will help growth. Then… LOADS of rain overnight Tuesday / Wednesday, so watering at the plot would be reduced, though of course, the poly needed watering and all else outside needed to be checked too… and tomato cares done… and courgette cares… and… Wednesday morning saw Richard editing his vlogs; he did not have time to do a recipe video on Tuesday, though that’s how things go when you’re catching up. Finally, after a morning of work work at my desk, finalising arrangements for Thursday’s big event at the Great Green Barn, I popped to the plot to see how it was faring, and water the polytunnel, check things outside… do tomato cares… and courgette cares… and… As I was getting to the site I bumped into one of the trustees of the charity that owns the allotment site, and we had a chat and a catch-up… and then I made my way into the site, and to my plot… and when I was almost there I heard a distinct cry of help… and my day went sideways. Big Ginge was on my plot, collapsed and clearly in great distress. He was panting and panting, and seemed unable to move, certainly no movement in his back legs. Immediately, I grabbed a plastic container and some fresh water from the tap and offered it up, thinking the heat may have gotten to him. He didn’t seem to want to drink so using my fingers I dropped droplets onto his mouth… several drops went in, though clearly Big Ginge needed help. More droplets followed, not being lapped voraciously though seemingly much welcomed. I noticed a wound, scabbed over though raw to the touch, for Big Ginge at least. The thing is with these allotment cats that take our hearts, we often don’t know where they live, or even if they do have a home. They take charge of our chairs, pathways, drinking stations and as I say, our hearts, and we just accept them as being part of allotment life. With Big Ginge I’ve always thought him too well groomed to be a stray, despite his slim build, so I was sure he had a home nearby, and therefore an ‘owner’, though with any cat who’s the owner and the owned is always a matter of change. Another plotter was about to pass me and I asked her for help… and she did, without any question. I then phoned another plotter, who has rescued cats herself, and she was busy so could not help… then texted immediately to say “I am on my way!”. Whilst my fellow on-hand plotter comforted Big Ginge, who by this time I had moved to the shade of our red umbrella, I left the allotment and knocked doors close by, going up the main road from the allotments seeing if anyone knew who had a ginger cat… One door I knocked did have a ginger cat, though they thought he was around, though he turned out not to be so she came back to the allotment with me, though Big Ginge was not hers… I could feel her relief, and then her compassion as she immediately gave loving strokes and tender words to Big Ginge, soon then going back to her home, borrowing my allotment key to get some catfood, coming back five or so minutes later. By this time another plotter was also concerned and giving soothing encouragement, I think to both Big Ginge and myself. More door knocking by two others, though no luck.
The fellow plotter and cat rescuer then turned up, and with a call had a local cat charity, Hounslow Animal Welfare (please donate if you can) sponsoring initial vets bills, IF we could get Big Ginge to a specific vet about twenty minutes away, though a little more as by this time it was rush-hour. We had no idea if Big Ginge was chipped, so on arriving we were told what would happen and were asked to complete a Stray Animal Form, which we did.
As soon as we’d walked in one of the receptionist’s too Big Ginge for triage - they had been told we were coming so were all prepared. Soon after we were told Big Ginge was an oxygen tent, and had been given medication for the pain… at least he was no longer in pain and having major issues breathing. We stayed, and sat, and waited, and waited, to be told after an hour or so that Big Ginge was chipped, and the owner had been called and should be there soon, and virtually as this happened we heard the vets door open and chatter at the front desk; he had arrived. A brief chat with us as he passed, and grateful thanks for doing helping as we had, a shake of hands, and he was ushered into the vet’s room where his cat was, our Big Ginge; there were facts for him to hear, and I’m sure decisions for him to make, though all was now was out of our hands. With Big Ginge’s owner there, and with client confidentiality understandably paramount, we could not be told more, though we were clear that whatever was wrong with poor little Big Ginge was pretty major. Tears flowed as we got back in my fellow plotters car, to make our way home, and in her case back to the allotment to water. We comforted ourselves in knowing we had done the best we could for our little Big Ginge, and all we could do now was hope for the very best of outcomes, whatever that might be. Home, and supper… Richard had made Courgette & Potato Patties, welcome as sustenance and very tasty, though my mind was elsewhere. Some distraction TV, and then to be… and not even a page read of my book. It has been an emotionally wrought day, and my body and mind gave way to sleep without a second thought. First thing Thursday morning, awake before the alarm, my first thought was of Big Ginge, how he was, and whether his precious soul was still on this plane… I’m sure we will find out one day soon. With an emotionally heavy heart, I left home around 7am and went off in Fenella to the Great Green Barn, where it proved to be a long, tiring busy day, though that was fine as it kept my mind occupied. The celebratory wake went really well, with Vanessa arriving back from court just as the guests were arriving… suffice to say all went extremely well, which was a delight and a relief to all. On my way back home, I thought about Big Ginge. I now know where his owner lives, and I think I’ll drop a card though his postbox in a day or so… keeping my fingers crossed and hoping for the best. Arriving home, Richard had made THE most delicious Courgette Layer Bake… which I recommend you make as soon as possible as it was unctuous and tasty and fabulous. Some TV, and then to bed… falling asleep with my open book on my chest, though not a word read. Weather: Generally bright but grey, with less sun, and temperatures well below the highs of last week. Thursday saw the temperature climbing again, with much brighter skies, and a high of 30° to come on Friday. Wednesday Breakfast: All Bran, oat milk Lunch: Yellow Courgette & Lentil Soup, Cottage Cheese, Ryvita, radish and cucumbers Supper: Richard’s Courgette & Potato Patties, Plain Omelet and tinned Baked Beans Thursday Breakfast: All Bran, oat milk Late, Late Lunch: Cheese & Tomato sandwiches, thin slices of Spanakopita Supper: Richard’s Courgette Layer Bake  Bulgur Salad with crisp Quinoa topping, hummus, and tomatoes. 4 July 2025 (Friday)
No walk this morning, so it was straight to my desk to do some work and some work work. The morning went swiftly, and soon it was time for lunch which I decided, with leftover bulgur wheat in the fridge, would be another Bulgur Salad; doing exactly the same as I did the other day though this time I left out the pesto and added in some liquid aminos and a little bit of lemon juice instead. As I said yes today, with the butterbean smash, this type of recipe is really all about what you have in the fridge and I could have added in some chopped celery, greater carrot, little leaves of baby spinach or even chopped up rubbed kale. Just think about how the flavours go together, obviously you wouldn't put in a tablespoon of honey, or a few handfuls of strawberries because neither really fit in this type of dish. This evening Richard's doing his usual live, and I'm waiting to hear from Vanessa as I'm going to the theatre with her again. I'm waiting to hear what time we're going to meet and while I waited I went to the plot and took out the brassicas I spoke of yesterday. Tomorrow, hopefully I'll be able to get our module trays of beetroot in. Getting back home, I have a wash reader chapter of my book and then see the message from Vanessa that we're going to have supper before the show, which is what she wanted to do on Wednesday though he was so late arriving that it made that impossible. We agreed to meet at six at a restaurant around the corner from the Jermyn Street Theatre. A walk to our local station and on to the Elizabeth Line then onto the Bakerloo Line and up at Piccadilly Circus and then along Piccadilly to the restaurant. I'm about 10 minutes early, which is fine as I think it's really good practice to be a little early rather than a little late. I waited for Vanessa, and at 6pm I joined Richard's Live briefly; I was hoping it would be brief because Vanessa would arrive pretty soon, though actually somebody that I knew from many years back was walking down the road and she and I had a little chat. At about 6.20, I got a message from Vanessa that traffic was terrible… again. It had been on Wednesday when we met and she was an hour late then. Today's message was that she wouldn't arrive until 6.50, almost an hour later than planned… and with the doors of the theatre opening at 7.10 and the show going up at 7:30 I messaged back to say I’d decided to go for a walk and see her at the theatre at 7.25. I felt a walk would be better than waiting on the pavement like a numpty. So, I put my phone in my pocket and walked… along Jermyn Street, up onto Piccadilly, in front of the Ritz, left into St James's Park and right at the fountain, passing behind the rows of green-and-white striped deckchairs and over towards Hyde Park, which I’d decided would be the extent of my walk so that I could get back in time to meet Vanessa for the show. When I got to the extent of my walk, and needed to turn around and wend my way back, I saw that Vanessa had messaged me about ordering her a pasta dish at the restaurant... “any pasta”. The thing is, if I’m meeting somebody for supper at a restaurant and they don't turn up or are going to be hugely late, I don't go into the restaurant myself. I'll wait to eat a snack when I get home. I’d also messaged to say I was going for a walk and would meet Vanessa at the theatre, so obviously I wasn't at the restaurant to order any pasta for Vanessa, so that wasn’t going to happen. Anyway, I turned around and walked back to meet Vanessa who was now waiting outside the restaurant; she was hungry and wanted to have something to eat, though because we literally had 15 minutes the last thing I wanted to do was throw a bowl of spaghetti down me as it would just completely mess with my digestion. So whilst Vanessa had a bowl of pasta and a glass of wine, I sipped on some tap water, we chatted, she ate, and then she paid up and we went to the theatre. Not a great start to the evening… Now the show that we went to see wasn't a show that I’d have chosen to see, though I could see how it might be a show for our audience at the Great Green Barn, or for the audience that we're building at the Great Green Barn. However, despite the musical side of the evening being really top-notch, with a brilliant pianist and fabulous tenor, the whole thing just didn't gel for either myself or Vanessa, and I doubt it’s something that we’ll have at the Great Green Barn in its current format. At the end of the show, after much rapturous applause from the audience, which I think was made up of many family members and friends, we were up the steps, and out of the theatre. Vanessa was driving on to Stratford-upon-Avon, so following a quick goodbye where I said to Vanessa to drive safely, I was on my way home… retracing my steps. Along Piccadilly, down at Piccadilly Circus, into the Bakerloo Line, then the Elizabeth Line, changing trains at Ealing Broadway as the first train did not stop at Hanwell, off at my home station and then ten or twelve minutes of walking, crossing the Uxbridge Road. I got home by 10.25 and then had a small bowl of All Bran and oat milk for a rather late supper, as I know this won't upset my Barrett's. Going to bed after about 45 minutes, I read my book for about 20 minutes and then it was time for lights out, Weather: Breezy, though a little bit warmer as the day went on. Around 26°. Breakfast: All Bran and oat milk Lunch: Bulgur Salad with crisp Quinoa topping, hummus, tomatoes and Ryvita rye crackers Supper: All Bran and oat milk  Heather Alexander as Miss Havisham. Photo courtesy of Peter Mould. 2 July 2025 (Wednesday) Up early, and it was definitely feeling cooler… and what was that? The pitter patter of rain dripping from the unconnected roof guttering! Well, at least it was raining! Up early and our walk will have to wait… as it's too wet, so after a cuppa it's to my desk for a work work morning, and then lunch… Richard’s Quick Roasted Courgettes with a herb crumble… delish!! We had the rest of my Bulgur Pesto Salad too. Off to the plot, and I checked on whether anything needed watering, despite the rain this morning. It was regular and medium-weight rain for a good few hours and most things looked fine, though I gave the squash extra water… and the courgettes. Back home, and I was waiting to hear from Vanessa as we were due to see a show at Jermyn Street Theatre this evening, and I didn’t know whether she wanted to meet before, or just at the start of the show… eventually I found out, and thankfully had had a bath earlier as I needed to leave virtually immediately to meet her around 6.30pm… though in the end the traffic was terrible for her getting in, so we met outside the theatre at about 7.20pm, 10 mins before curtain up! Now, the show… It’s called Havisham, and is a show I’ve wanted to see for some years. The show's director, Dominique Garrard, I know from my Bush Theatre days of two decades ago, and on Facebook I’ve been following (not stalking!) Dominique for ages. Havisham’s about…. Miss Havisham of Great Expectations… It’s a truly fabulous imagining of how she got to be the woman we know… sitting at a dusky, dark dust-ridden wedding feast table in an old house right out on the edge of the marshes. Still dressed in her wedding finery, now all soiled and grimy and stained, having been jilted at the altar many years ago to never recover. But who was she, and how did she get her, and why is that bitter hate so sharp and dangerous? Well, this imaging is truly excellent, and fully engaged me throughout.
The writing is so well crafted, with a totally believable back story that made me want to reread Great Expectations, now ‘knowing’ so more of a pivotal character that we ‘knew’ so little about before. The copy (blurb) reads “This is the story that Dickens left out…” and I have to say, old Charlie boy should have put it in! Next time I see Gerald Dickens, which won’t be too long, I’ll have to ask him if he’s seen Havisham - as if not, he must! Heather Alexander was just superb in the part, taking us through the early years of a lonesome girl, through her challenges with men, and life, and abandonment, into happier times… and then betrayal… though not one of us expected how such a betrayal would come about! Utterly gripping throughout. And what I haven’t said is that Heather wrote the piece too, so beautifully multi-talented. I now want to see her other show ROOM. Havisham’s whole production was superb, and Dominique’s direction, of course fabulous. Both Vanessa and I could see how the show would work at the Great Green Barn, and are both sure it’s one for next year, if Heather and Dominique can fit us in! After a quick meet with Heather post-show (I’m sure she and I have met before - yet I’m not sure how… I don’t think at Kenwrights, though Ray Cooney springs to mind), and it was time for us to all wend our ways back home. If you see the show near you, or within travelling distance, do go and see it, as it is so worth it!!! A quick sideline - I see Heather is doing the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this year with Becoming Maverick, inspired by the character of Mrs Danvers from Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca - another of my favourite books! This will definitely be worth a ticket!!.. Of course I also LOVED seeing the lovely, fabulous and talented Dominique after so long, and we had a brief catch-up. She’s still doing work at Questors Theatre in Ealing Broadway, so we WILL have a coffee and a further catch-up soon!! My journey in and back was adventurously unadventurous… the Elizabeth Line makes much of journeying into London pretty easy now, and swift, despite this journey time being the same as it would have been without this regal line. As I stepped off the train at Hanwell station, with a darkened summer sky and a cool breeze, the heatwave of just a few days ago seemed miles away. A home, a cup of TV, a catch-up with Richard, and then it was time to get to bed and read a chapter of my new book. Happy Days! Weather: Rain first thing for several hours, then warming, though definitely cooler. Around 25°. Breakfast: All Bran and oat milk Lunch: Richard’s Quick Roasted Courgettes and leftover Bulgur Pasta Salad Supper: Rice crackers, yeast extract and peanut butter  1 July 2025 (Tuesday) A new month, and as Buster Poindexter (aka David Johansen) would sing, “It’s feeling HOT, HOT, HOT!” The high of 34° yesterday dissipated little overnight, and I think we started with about 27°, and it was forecast to get hotter. Richard had opened the windows to let the cooler air of the day in, though they were never going to be open that long. It was All Bran for breakfast, which felt a delight. Despite all the good or excellent food we had over the weekend, it was good to get back to normal, and get back in to our usual routine… one of which is All Bran or Bran Sticks for breakfast. They, and the rest of our diet, keep us regular, in more ways than one! It was a necessary desk morning with work work. catching up a little and also getting on with the usual routines - checking delivery notes, trade prices, our retail price, does anything need to go up, or down… and this week, sadly, it is organic apricots that needed to go up. The wholesale price for For Earth’s Sake has risen by about 80% since we last bought them, which was not a long time ago, and of course if the price we buy at goes up, the price we sell at needs to go up too! We’ve seen huge rises in various nuts over the past month or six weeks; organic Brazil nuts have doubled in price, and we’re only buying broken ones at present, as we just don’t think customers will buy whole Brazil nuts at the price that we’d now need to charge. Chocolate buttons, a high-end and high-provenance favourite have also gone up again… poor harvests and therefore higher costs of the raw product, and also maybe additional labour costs too with the rise in the side of National Insurance employees now pay since the beginning of April, following Labour’s budget changes. Small cost rises are often swallowed by SMEs (small and medium sized enterprises, i.e. companies), reducing their margins, but often now the price just needs to rise… With much done at my desk for both For Earth’s Sake and the Great Green Barn, it was time for a cooling lunch, an hour or so more work work, then time to get to the plot… with the heat now touching 34° again. There was a breeze, which I was grateful for, though much watering was needed; some of the taller tomatoes looked as though they were suffering. Of course, with heat comes evaporation of ponds so I also needed to top up various of our ponds on the plot. Hopefully happy frogs etc will munch on more snails etc. I also finished off Monday’s segment of A Week at the Plot, as when I was filming yesterday, my phone decided it was overheating and switched itself off for safety reasons… so it was hot! With today being no different, even possibly hotter, I kept my phone, which I use to film the segments of A Week at the Plot, very much in the shade when not being used… though even in the shade it was 34°. Back home, and supper needed to be made - a ‘no cook’ meal, though maybe ‘little cook’ would be more truthful as I had to soak the coarse bulgur wheat in boiling water from the kettle, and then give it five minutes in the microwave. Richard opened the back doors as the temperature lessened, and cooling air came in, mainly due to the number of heat sheltering trees and shrubs we have in our garden - I hate to be any of our ‘plastic grass’ neighbours on days like this… or maybe any day! We read things on our phones in the evening, and I started a new book; Peter James I Follow You. I’ve read his books for decades and have usually really liked or loved them, though this one just didn’t do it for me; in fact I gave up on it after only twenty or thirty pages, I just didn’t care what happened to any of the characters. Fortunately, our subscriber Nettie had sent me a book by an author I had not read - Steve Cavanagh and the book is called Twisted. Within the first page I was engaged… I don’t think it’s the last book I’ll read by this new-to-me writer!  Bulgur Pesto Salad I soaked a cup of coarse bulgur wheat in boiling water from the kettle for an hour - ratio one bulgur to 1.5 boiling water. I covered the heat-proof bowl with a dinner plate. I then stirred it and microwaved it for 5 minutes, carefully with oven gloves, took it from the microwave, stirred it, added the plate back on and then left it to rest for ten minutes. I had made enough for two salads so after about 20 minutes of resting time I put half in a plastic container for another day, and the other half I left covered with a tea towel to cool a bit more, pushing the grains up the edge of the bowl to increase surface area (as it will cool quicker this way). After about thirty minutes I then stirred all again and popped in the fridge to chill down. After about half-an-hour, I added a chunkily chopped yellow courgette (use whatever colour you wish - or something else you like!), a few handfuls of frozen peas and one of broad beans that I’d defrosted by soaking in boiling water from the kettle for ten minutes, draining and then drying in a clean tea towel to ensure they had as little liquid as possible in them. I then popped into the bowl a few rounded dessert spoons of bought green pesto, shredded basil leaves (about twenty medium sized ones), a few teaspoons of bought mayonnaise (or use thick yogurt), and about two dessert spoons of lemon juice. I stirred it all together and then chilled again in the fridge for about half an hour. As with many of our recipes, if we don’t have something we add what we do have. A red pepper would have been nice, or even a green or yellow one. Mushrooms finely sliced would be great, and sliced radish… just be mindful of how flavours fit with each other, and don't be afraid to try something out, if it doesn't work out you won't do it again, though I'm sure what you've made is still edible, and you've learned. Weather: Hot from the off, and got hotter through the day. 34° or even a degree more. Overnight was to be just shy of 30°. Breakfast: All Bran, Yogurt and a little oat milk Lunch: Egg Mayonnaise, Ryvita Dark Rye, radish, cucumber and a few olives Supper: Hummus, ‘no cook’ Bulgur Salad, lettuce and olives  26 June 2025 (Thursday)
Another early start and a walk, though not as early as previous days… but we got up, had a cuppa, did our walk, and then the day continued… Trying to get ahead of the game as we have a busy weekend, plus there was quite a lot to do for the Great Green Barn in getting fitness class socials out to hopefully sell for the week after next… rather too late to put an event on sale in my opinion, though Vanessa is keen to get some fitness going, so… fingers crossed! For lunch I did Butterbean Smash, all wrapped up in a wholewheat wrap from Lidl. Delish!! The afternoon was a chat with Vanessa, as we need to do Monday’s ordering today as she wants a few days off - so she goes through what we need and I make a note and do the ordering. Then I’m down to the plot, and doing watering, and adding cordial bottles to the Cheeky Prince squash I planted out a few days ago from their modules - they needed to go in, so in they went. I also took down two watering cans that I’d bought to replace my favourite one; it is near the end of its life and the plastic is cracking all over. As I’m keen not to add plastic and particularly microplastics to the soil it was time to ditch it and replace it. Now, I've bought various watering cans over the years, both metal and plastic, though this Ebert one was my favourite BY FAR! In the end, with a Google I found one VERY similar, and bought two! The rose, the spraying bit on the end looked similar, and in use is similar, which I am really glad about as the drenching ability of my favourite really needed to be replicated, and now it is - more on this and watering cans in next week’s A Week at the Plot! Happy Watering Can Days!! Butterbean Smash Drained can of butter beans, half a red onion diced finely, two sticks of celery diced quiet small though still to give a good bite, a teaspoon or two of miso paste, two teaspoons of dijon mustard, one tablespoon mayo, one tablespoon of yeast flakes, about ten torn up basil leaves, and some halved olives. You can have this to put on crackers, or with a big salad, on toast would be delish, though we had wrapped up in a wholewheat wrap from Lidl. Weather: Overcast though warming; around 28°. Breakfast: Bran Flakes, oat milk and a banana Lunch: Butterbean Smash wraps Supper: Broad Bean & Basil Pesto with wholewheat spaghetti and grated cheddar  Lettuce seedlings of Lollo Bionda and our own saved-seed replacing bolted salad rocket 25 June 2025 (Wednesday) Up early again, and another early morning walk up the canal, though this time it was not raining so we remained dry, if a tad sweaty! A normal Wednesday morning of work work, this time creating a page on the Great Green Barn website for two fitness taster sessions we have in two weeks time - a Yoga session and a High-Intensity Interval Training session. These are part of a new programme we are calling Head, Heart & Health at the Great Green Barn. When new events get added, we always need full information from those involved, and any imagery they have - sometimes the imagery is poor so we have to create what we can ourselves. In this instance the yoga imagery was not of a high enough resolution to use, so I had to create an image for this. Most of the imagery we create, if more than one image is created using Canva, which is an online design package, which I find works better for me than the Adobe version. One of the most annoying issues with Adobe is you can call a new project something, and if it has been a version of something before it will download it as a generic version of that rather than downloading the file with the name you have given that project - very annoying! How a company so huge can have such a glaring error is beyond me! Anyway, webpages were created, including the one for people to buy tickets which is on a separate system, as we use TicketTailor for the majority of our bookings - for non-profits it has really good deals! With all signed off by the yoga teacher and fitness instructor, I could put all live - and tomorrow I will do the socials as I needed to get to the plot to film another segment of A Week at the Plot. It’s a busy week this week with a full weekend, so best get things done as soon as possible. I planted out various rather large seedlings of lettuce we had - Lollo Bionda and our own saved-seed variety; some went in the poly, replacing bolting lettuce I removed to the compost bin, and others went into the bed where we have lettuce, coriander, parsley and some salad rocket, replacing the salad rocket which also was bolting. With the module trays empty I was then able to reuse them, fill them with compost and prick out our seedlings of Morton’s Magic Mix lettuce from Real Seeds. I had sown these on 6 June, they had germinated and grown on well outside, and now were ready for individual pots. They were actually a bit bigger than usual, and could have been planted out, though I am finding it’s better to plant out stronger plants with the slugs that are about, despite the hot and dry weather!
Back at home Richard had made a salad for support, and I had taken a Lidl quiche out of the freezer; it was discounted when I went shopping, so I bought two and froze them both. I find, like batch-cooking, having something in the freezer you can take out and cook swiftly is an absolute boon! We watched a film - Out of Time, a lower budget film than the Denzel Washington one of two decades ago, and a very different story, as is about time travel, one of our favourite topics!. It held us both, so worth a watch - it’s on Prime. Weather: Overcast initially, and a cooling breeze, though still warm. Breakfast: Two Ryvita, ProActiv spread, and yeast extract Lunch: Cottage Cheese, a little cream cheese, tomatoes, olives, radish, cucumber and Ryvita Supper: Lidl Red Onion & Balsamic Vinegar Quiche and Richard’s Grated Carrot, Apple & Walnut Summer Salad  The Dell area of the land of the Great Green Barn 17 June 2025 (Tuesday) I had a pretty decent night's sleep, and was up before the alarm went off at 6 o'clock this morning. It was going to be a Vanessa day so I generally set an alarm for these days, otherwise we only ever set the alarm if we’ve something that we NEED to be up really early for. The day is already warm, and on the way to hot, and by the time I've had a cup of tea, a little wash, and had my bowl of cereal, it was time to get in the car and get down to Shamley Green. Richard waved me off at the front door, as he normally does. My first stop was at the local garage. We had more than a sixth of a tank but less than a third of a tank. Now, Richard never likes to get too low on fuel, and much prefers to keep the tank full… “Just in case”. In this rather bizarre world that we seem to be now living in, “Just in case” seems to be a good reason for doing things, so I filled up Fenella, and then went on my way. Now the journey to Vanessa, particularly on a weekday, can take anything from an hour and a half to two and a half hours, and I had no idea that today was going to be one of those longer journeys. Oddly, for once, it wasn't actually the M25 that took up most of my time, though there were quite a few speed restrictions along it, but thankfully everyone seemed to be driving pretty sensibly and the flow kept on moving so I wasn't really delayed on the M25. The M3 and the A3 also were both pretty OK, so neither caused any time issues either. The issues this morning were leaving my area to get to the M3, then getting off the A3 and going my usual routhew through Guildford; satnav was redirecting me as there’d been an accident, so further down the A3 I went, and found myself going down towards Farnham and then round to Godalming to actually get to Shamley Green. So yes, it turned out to be one of those two and a half hour drives, well, almost two and a half hours… And the sunwas beating down on Fenella, so it was sticky and hot... When I got to my destination, I parked up, and then went to find Vanessa. She's moved from one barn that she used to live in into another barn, and also often goes for a walk with her cat around her property first thing. Or she’s at her desk in her office, which has also moved barns recently, or might be over at the shop doing things, or speaking to the various carpenters or workmen that might be on site. Today it took me a good 10 to 12 minutes to actually find her; she was at the shop sorting out cardboard. The thing is, with our main suppliers, we have an arrangement that at delivery they take back any of our packaging from previous deliveries that they can recycle. However, any cardboard needs to be flattened, any containers need to be stacked and contained, and any plastics need to be in a box and clearly shown to be just plastics. Also, what we can't do is put the packaging of one supplier to be taken away by another supplier. This means that as we have three main suppliers, each supplier’s packaging needs to be contained within a separate pile or area . With Suma delivering today, we had to ensure that there was only Suma packaging to be collected at the point of delivery. Additionally, Vanessa had also agreed to meet Debbie of Debbie's Jams to get our latest order, and the meeting point was about 20 or 30 minutes away from where the shop is. She was also keen for me to go with her, though someone would have to wait for the Suma delivery. Fortunately, Suma turned up really pretty swiftly within the time it had specified, and we were able to take in the delivery, give back the packaging and then get on our way for the Debbie's Jams collection. The rest of the day was very much as is normal, and there was also an Afternoon Tea in the Great Green Barn which I helped Vanessa set the tables for and get ready for. She and another helper did the main serving of the afternoon teas, which allowed me time to get to her desk and to the For Earth’s Sake shop to do some additional work that I needed to do. I did take a few minutes out to have some quiet time in the Dell, which was delightfully sun-drenched with lovely cooling dapled shade too; I decided to take some footage of the Dell and environs in which I work, as several people have asked in comments on A Week at the Plot. Vanessa was going off to see Derren Brown in Woking, so with her picnic packed and Vanessa ready to go, I left around 5:15 and it took me until 7 o'clock to get home. I really had to take a round about route too as again I was being diverted by my Google navigation system; quite a bit due to congestion, roadworks, and an accident.
I got home knowing Richard had made some Sun-dried Tomato Pesto as I’d seen a post about it on Facebook. He'd also done a video of him making it, so I will link to it. He cooked some wholewheat spaghetti and was soon spooning some into my bowl with some salad, and some grated cheese; we sat down and watched some TV whilst eating our supper. I have to say, the pesto had a really fabulous umami taste to it, in fact it was quite a taste sensation and there's definitely some left that can be frozen and then defrosted at short notice to bring about a really swift and tasty meal again. We watched the last episode of the current series 6 of Canal Boat Diaries, and as when a series that I've enjoyed comes to an end there's a little bit of sadness, in some ways almost a tiny bit of bereavement that that show is over. Hopefully, it will be recommissioned and Robbie Cumming will be able to show us his future journeys as he’s done for the last six series. We started watching something else, I can't actually remember what it was, and then with Richard dosing on the sofa I decided to finish an episode of Endeavour that I was halfway through. It was then time for bed, and a few pages of Louise Penny’s How the Light Gets In before lights out. Weather: Hot, reaching about 28° Breakfast: Bran Sticks, yogurt, and banana Lunch: Veggie Breakfast from a garden centre Supper: Richard’s Sun-dried Tomato Pesto with wholewheat spaghetti, cucumber and tomato - plus some grated cheese  I woke at 3am and just couldn’t get back to sleep - having heard five bongs I didn’t then hear a single bong so I must have been back to sleep sometime between 5am and 5.29am…
Awoke again just before 7am, with Richard bringing me a cup of tea soon after, and then getting to my desk to upload the last four days worth of my bleatings to this blog. We’ve Gerald Dickens this evening at the Great Green Barn, and I’m surprisingly anxious, and just don’t know why… I guess it's been a busy few weeks and there's been an awful lot going on. My morning is spent at the allotment, and then back at home for a bath and lunch. I put the hot tap of the bath on and get some meat-free sausage rolls from the freezer and into our pre-heated combi-oven they go; they’ll be cooked by the time I’ve had my bath. Richard's already had a bath and his ablutions are all done and dusted, so once we've had lunch and got some water for the journey and Richard had got all his camera stuff, it was off down to the Great Green Barn. There was a big diversion on the way, though we were only diverted to a way that I've been before, and we arrived shortly after 4:30 to set up the bar and get the venue ready for opening doors just before 7pm. Gerald was doing two of his shows, the first being called Mr Dickens is Coming! and is really a celebration of various of the characters and books that Charles Dickens created. After an interval the second show was Doctor Marigold, a Charles Dickens piece which is a really touching and lovely story of a traveling salesman and the relationships that he has through his life. To say I shed a tear at the end would be completely true. The appreciative audience left, many chatting with Gerald and thanking us all on their way out, and after putting various things away and getting the venue ready to close up, and with Gerald now having gone to a B&B nearby, Richard and I said goodbye to Vanessa and wended our way home; with a different diversion on the way we came in through our front door just before midnight, and just before Sunday Chat went live. Weather: Sunny from the start, and warm at around 16°. Breakfast: Bran Sticks, yogurt, and banana Lunch: Lidl Sausage Rolls (vegan) and tinned baked beans Supper: A packet of Two Farmers Garlic and Mushroom Crisps! |
Paul SavidentFollowing on from A Guernsey Gardener in London, I've decided to try and write a regular blog, and we'll see how it AND 2025 go! Archives
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