Domesticali

Comments

Comments are a lovely thing. A little e-mail in box full of good cheer. But sometimes, I get a comment that is totally unjustified. And I don't mean a nasty one. On the contrary, it's usually someone paying me a compliment that I really really don't deserve. About having a tidy house, or beautifully behaved offspring, or managing to 'do it all'. And I laugh, and sigh a bit, and wish I had truly earned those accolades.

So before you pass judgement on my Amaryllis. I feel I must come clean.

It was all a big mistake. See, I bought the bulb last year, planning to force it for Christmas (like normal people do).  But in my frantic disorganized manner, I forgot to do it. And then 'lost' the bulb in the garage (because it's like a black hole out there). Then I found the bulb, but was too riddled with guilt to do anything about it because it was too late. Then I panicked that I had wasted money, so I stuck it in a pot about 4 weeks ago.

And look how it has rewarded me. Sometimes we get so much better than we deserve.

Better

Oh the joy of full speed internet connection.  All the easier to make apologies for my appalling lack of comment replying and blog commenting over the past couple of weeks. How rude of me.  It would  probably have been better to take an oh-so-self-controlled break from blogging altogether, but I couldn't do it. The mere thought of it makes my fingers go all twitchy.

So, sorry about that, but I promise to do better, right after I wade through the laundry mountain. And tackle the decimation in the garden. The veg patch has an air of the apocalypse about it. While we were gone, the snails were clearly having an Italian Special Week and totally decimated my cavolo nero. And I'm not exaggerating. Look.

A rose by any other name..

It looked like rain this afternoon, so I thought I might go and salvage a precious flower from the garden, before it was spoiled.

Having a cutting garden is a long standing fantasy of mine. To head out through the dewy grass, load up my trug, and enjoy the blooms inside the house. I even got as far as buying the book many years ago. But I find I have a guilt complex when it comes to actually harvesting the flowers. The empty spots in the borders look at me accusingly and I feel I have wasted the life of the plant for a brief moment of satisfaction.

Strange emotion, guilt. I feel the same way about ditching a product I bought but didn't like. Take this surface cleaner for example (matches my flower, dontcha think?).

I was seduced into buying it by the pretty, yet understated packaging and the unusual colour. But I'm sorry to say, that the smell reminds me of vomit. So why am I still feeling that I have to use it up? Guilt over waste has a lot to answer for.

Having mistakenly weeded out my beloved cow parsley from under the tree earlier this Spring, Johnny and I were forced to ransack the hedgerows for this bunch instead. But I have had one gardening triumph.

Look out through the window. In January the wisteria got a stern talking to. Something along the lines of "If you don't flower this year, it's the axe for you matey". Seems to have done the trick.

New seasons

Live each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each.

Henry David Thoreau

Giving in (reluctantly) to the reality that cold weather has arrived.



The car has needed de-icing on two mornings already and I'm very glad that I brought my Jade trees in from their summer holiday outdoors when I did.


They are also known as Money Plants and they are meant to attract wealth - or so the Feng Shui experts suggest. One of the few bits of Feng Shui information I ever retain is the importance of shutting your toilet lid, or else your good luck goes down the pan. Fat chance of implementing that one in this house. It would be a miracle if I could get the boys to remember to raise and lower the seat appropriately.

R is for… Routine

Blogging at the weekend - it's just not popular is it? I always feel like a bit of a billy-no-mates here at my computer on a Saturday or Sunday. Like everyone else has exciting and fun weekend plans which render them far too busy to go near a monitor. And it's worse with this being a Bank Holiday Weekend and all, but hey, I have no shame and an A to Z to complete by the end of the month.

It's also been unusually quiet at home. Mark is spending the week with his Grandparents and Johnny has been really missing his big brother. It's just not as much fun playing cars on your own - nobody to fight with. Roll on Tuesday when they can return to the normal schedule - play, fight, yell and scream, get separated, find themselves magnetically attracted, play - and on and on it goes 'till bedtime.


Just in case you are also wandering around looking for some weekend fun to be had, here are some blogs I read which begin with the letter R:
Raspberry
Red Felt Flower
Rock-Paper-Scissors
Ruby Crowned Kinglette
Red House
Red Shoes Blog
Red Fish Circle
Ragged Roses
Rose Vintage
Re:make
Robot.Jumping.Rope
Reddy Made

And a photo of my Rudbekias for Amy. She's after late summer excitement in her garden and these are fitting the bill in mine.

Sarah Raven’s Garden Cookbook

I've been a big fan of Sarah Raven ever since I began gardening - I own her book 'The Cutting Garden' which sets out to help you plan a space which provides you with plenty of cut flowers (and greenery) for your house, without your borders looking pillaged.

In my personal fantasy future, I spend a great deal of time wafting around my walled garden, collecting blooms in a suitably vintage trug and arranging them with casual elegance. Reality involves more yelling of 'Keep your truck out of my flowerbed', but hey, I can dream.

I've noticed that a lot of gardeners are foodies. It makes me trust them more. Personally, I can't see the point in growing a swede as big as a boulder if it's inedible. I feel the same about growing onions - why? When they are dirt cheap at the greengrocers and don't taste any better for being freshly harvested.

So I was very intrigued to see this offering on the bookshop shelves.



Now, I've only had a twenty second flip through this, but it's already it's on my wish list. The recipes are arranged according to a central ingredient that you've harvested from your garden (or at least bought in season from the supermarket!). That struck me as hugely sensible - 20 things to do with rhubarb, because it's coming out of your ears at the moment, but you want to make the most of it being in season.

Now all I need to do is make some space on my overloaded cookbook shelf. I find parting with cookbooks difficult. There's something about the patina of food splashes which makes them very personal. No draconian uncluttering advice for me!

Sowing and growing

Another week gone - is it really Monday tomorrow? I've been taking it easy this weekend, because I have damaged a disc in my lower back. Was it a dramatic accident? Nope - sneezing. Just one more reason to hate hayfever.

And let's face it, the weekend (with super-hubby springing into action) is the only chance I'm going to get to rest my back. Just try potty training without bending over - hmmm, I think not. All your potty envy really had me laughing, so here's a link if you need a racing potty of your very own.

Hero-of-the-moment Hubby has also been in charge of the new baby - the raised vegetable bed.

The soil in our garden is terrible - compacted clay, so I decided a raised bed, in the weird bit of garden tucked around the side of the house might be the way to go. We built it from a great set of recycled plastic link-a-bord, which is the easiest thing in the world to construct.

Much sieving of home-made compost and leaf mold later (probably assisting in the demise of my back) and we'd filled it with enough super nutritious earth to plant beans, parsley (flat and curly), spinach, oriental salad leaf mix, chives and a few sunflowers.

Now it's just a question of water and wait. Oh, and remove cat turds. Because every feline in the neighbourhood is making a bee-line for it.