The end of January

So here we are in the middle of winter and it is cold, as it should be!  

Normal sort of week, just working, cleaning and shopping.  On Thursday evening I hosted our WI cake club on Zoom.  This subgroup is normally held in a back room of a pub and everyone gets to try each others cake, but in Covid times this is held on Zoom with no chance of tasting.  The theme for this month was healthy treat, two ladies made flapjack, one a fruit cake and another a banana loaf.  As I am trying to be extra healthy I did not make anything apart from a bowl of popcorn.  On Friday I met my friend and here dog and went for a walk, which was good, but we didn't go too far as she can only manage 1 hour walking due to her health, but it was good to chat with someone.

Saturday was absolutely freezing cold, it rained and sleeted all day, so apart from a quick dash to the market I stayed in all day and spent sometime watching the birds from my window.  This weekend is the Big garden Birdwatch, counting how many birds you observe in one hour and then upload to the RSPB website

 

I topped up the feeders, grabbed my binoculars and a cup of coffee and watched.  During the hour I saw loads of starlings, some long tailed tits, a blue tit, some green finches, a crow and couple of pigeons, blackbirds and two Magpies

Here is a photo taken from the RSBP webiste of some longtailed tits, they looked exactly like this from my window, but with only a phone camera I couldn't get a good photo!

 

Today started bright and sunny so headed out to the greenhouse to sow some seeds: 

Onions - Long Red Florence, Bedfordshire Champion, Isobel Rose, which I grew last year, lovely pink onions, and some from seed I saved last year, but don't know the variety.

Peppers: Sweet Banana and Corbaci, Chilli Pepper - Eureka

Leeks - Carantan 2

Aubergines- Striped Toga, tried to grow these last year, but only produced tiny fruits, trying again this year

Herbs - Greek oregano, parsley, Corriander and Chervil, all old seed, will see if they germinate

Flowers: Orlaya Grandiflora white Lace

All these seeds are now on a warm window sill in the house, until they germinate

I pricked out some flower seedlings that I had sown in the autumn - Larkspur, Veronika and Rudbekia, all into modules in the green house .

Found some more bulbs that I had forgotten to pot, so popped these into pots in the green house - dwarf daffodils and some pink tulips

I also set the potato seeds out in trays to chit, these are in the porch, the coolest part of the house.

Finished week two of Caroline Girvans Epic 2 workouts, and lost another pound, which is great.

 

New boots and potatoes

Not a singe flake of snow here, but from looking at Instagram it seems everyone else in the country had loads.  It was very cold today with a hard frost this morning, not a day for walking or allotmenting so headed into town to do some shopping.

I have only had my walking boots for around one year, thought they were fine when I got them, but soon found out they were just too small.  After about 4 miles my feet really began to hurt especially my toes, so before we walk another step I needed to get new boots.  We watched some really interesting You Tube videos last night on how to choose outdoor clothes and boots.  I checked that Go Outdoors was open, the website said for essential items only and these were essential!

 After much deliberation, walking up and down and up and down the little bridge I chose these very soft and squidgy Peter Storm boots.

Wearing them in

After watching all the videos last night, I also ordered some walking socks, a rain coat or Outer Shell jacket and a waterproof fleece jacket.  Can't wait to get all my new kit and go out for a walk..  Have a couple to local walks along the Stour and Orwell Path to do, so will spend a little time with my map and plan them out this week and hope for a dry weekend ,

While we were out we popped over to Dean's Nursery in Great Bromley to get the seed potatoes for the allotment.  We have been buying them from this nursery for a few years as they sell them by weight and you can buy as many as you need, which is great as none go to waste.

 Last year we left it too late and had to order online, so was determined to get there on time this year.  We chose Aaron Pilot - enough for one row and two rows of Maris Bard, these are both earlies.  One row of Salad potatoes - Charlottes, these always do well on our plot and are great for potato salad and having with BBQ's.  For main crop we have Sarpo Mira - great for big baking potatoes, Sentanta -  again big potatoes and blight resistant and a new one to try - Orla, the pack says good for growing organically, which we do.  I will get them out and lay them on trays to start chitting soon.   

Next job is to sort through all my seeds, see what we have over and make a plan of what is needed and then get things ordered.  Hope to do that this week as the onions, leeks, peppers, chillis and aubergines really do need sowing now