After the celebrations for MOH’s birthday last week, this week was slightly less sociable, but no less busy. It started by cramming with a week’s worth of work into just three days, and trying to make a plan for some time off at home. Even though we’ve not long come back from Portugal our heads have been quite quickly filled up with work stuff and deadlines, which despite our good intentions post-holiday happened much more quickly than it should have done.
So the plan was to take a few days off here and there between now and the middle of August, and this was the first of these. However, we did such a good job of emptying our heads of deadlines and generally pootling around trying to tick things off our house list, that we forgot other things that we really shouldn’t have, which wasn’t so good.
The house list had way more than we could achieve - that sounds familiar doesn’t it? - but we did achieve some, including finally buying my long-lusted after and never quite finding exactly what I wanted pots. At the Garden Press Event in February I’d identified a maker, and a potential stockist, but not the actual pots. I was confident that I wouldn’t need to backtrack on the calamitous online order and non-delivery from last summer.
One short visit to a bit further away than normal garden centre later and we were the proud owner of four new pots. Ideally I wanted more, but I settled for this, for now. If you remember when we gave up the allotment my plan was to grow some edibles in pots which would hug the edge of the greenhouse.
I’d measured and measured and knew what I needed, but just couldn’t find it. But now I have. Though of course I wasn’t really expecting too and left my tape measure at home. Which meant at the garden centre I needed to find one on the shelves, or as it turned out, borrow one. Thankfully the latter was much easier than I expected, and the pots were cheaper than my online foray too.
I think they were meant to be, and so to celebrate, we also left with some yellow dahlias which I plan to pot up and add a pop of colour to our patio.
I’m not much of a morning person, and so, it was nice to have a slower start to the day. There was breakfast in the garden, which is a really good way to start the day. And the day after we spent way too long in the garden centre discussing the pros (him) and cons (me) of having a gas burner on the barbecue, he almost made a point by cooking an egg, as well as bacon and black pudding, on the barbecue.
He used a tray - which was my argument - rather than a gas burner (as we don’t currently have one) and I think we could now be in agreement that the additional price tag didn’t quite justify its inclusion. So now to identify which make of barbecue, and where we’ll buy it from, and when. All minor questions now we’ve worked out the what!
This isn’t unusual for us, we know we want or need something, but nailing it can take a little time. But when we do, we get exactly what we want, and like everyone are impatient for it to actually arrive!
THE BEST BBQ-ED BREAKFAST
Over the winter our conservatory has attracted a lot of dirt, and MOH was almost itching to clean it. Partly I think, despite what he says, because it’s a chance to walk on the roof and partly so he could use the new hose-brush which we bought at Grand Designs.
It actually worked well, and was much less fraught for me. Usually my job is to pass things up as requested from the ground, and to dodge the water which he tells me isn’t directed at me. This time though I was almost redundant, and dry!
So I made the best use of my time and set about getting the stones out of the cherries. Sadly not the ones from our garden, they had far too many wiggly things in, which I wasn’t keen on eating. And it was pretty much cherry carnage…
The resulting trifle was pretty good - and fairly easy to make with shop bought swiss roll and custard. I’m not that much of a purist, or that keen a baker if I’m honest. It tastes good too, it’s a bit of a retro dessert, and I just want to add that it was MOH that wanted the sprinkles. Deep down, he’s got a pink streak too!
How’s your week been?