Odds and Sods - April 2020

What a strange month it's been.  Because we've been in lockdown, everything has been squashed down into house and garden and I can't imagine what it would be like not to have some outside space - I realise how lucky I am.

I've been doing a LOT of knitting!   This is Rachel's birthday blanket, delivered last Sunday, a couple of days late, but glad I got to see her.   I had a tour of her lovely garden and have some new ideas - mainly involving outsize fire pits!

I've made myself a jumper.

I've bought some yarn, although I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it yet.

A friend of mine sent me this photo - I made this cardigan nearly thirty years ago for her daughter, and now it's been gifted to the daughter of another friend, it's still looking really fresh!

I should have said that quite a lot of the knitting I've done has been in the garden - so lucky to have had such beautiful weather for the past few weeks.

I've been trying out new recipes - flour shortage permitting! - including flapjacks and peanut butter houmous, which is all frozen in individual portions.

I haven't been reading so much - it's very difficult to concentrate on anything in these uncertain times.  But this made me chuckle - this was a Christmas gift from Shannon a couple of years ago and, in these days of social distancing, is rather appropriate!

One of the things that has been preoccupying me - and most other people in the country - is not being able to get a haircut.  I've improvised with scarves!

I think that everyone has suddenly become very creative with all this time on our hands.  I received my brooch from my florist friend, Karen, who stocks these pieces in her shop, which I will be visiting very soon after lockdown ends.

And my lovely friend, Mo, made me some postcards to send to my garden clients just to check in on them while I can't go and work in their gardens.  I'm getting increasingly desperate messages from some of them about the state of their gardens and saying they can't wait for me to come back to work!

Through all of this, Finn has been a joy to have around.  We are still able to go out for our daily walk, as part of the Government measures regarding exercise, and I really look forward to these each evening.  

Wildflower Walk

One of the benefits of being so late in writing blog posts, is that I can look at photos and remember that we will all get our lives back after this lockdown.  At the moment, we are confined to quarters, so basically just seeing the inside of our homes, our offices (if we're lucky enough to be able to go into work and not work from home), and our local supermarket!  I'm lucky enough that I can still walk Finn each evening and am not yet bored with the walk around the block, but, even so, looking at photos of the great outdoors and knowing that we'll be able to get out in it one day is very reassuring.

This walk took place one very warm summer evening near Holme on the north Norfolk coast - in fact, it was so warm that there were people in the sea!

I was so entranced with our group and the speaker (whose name escapes me, sadly) that I didn't actually take too many photos as I so wanted to keep up with the group and hang on their every word. I know it was organised by the Norfolk Horticultural Society and I really should get in touch with them again - their meetings were so informative and instructional.   Another thing for the to do list when life returns to normal.

Other People's Gardens - March 2020

Before we went into lockdown in March, I had only worked in a couple of gardens and, of course, none since.  Everything had already started bursting into life so there was plenty to do and I hope that all my customers have been taking advantage of having to stay at home and the good weather to carry on where I'd left off.

I had an old veg bed to clear out for someone.  We're going to reduce the size of the bed by half and plant half up with shrubs and flowers, and sow grass seed over the remaining bit.  

Although most veg are grown as annuals, they are pretty much all perennials which explains why tomatoes and spuds grow for years after they've been planted.  A lot of the plants in the veg bed had been self seeding everywhere so no doubt we'll be digging stuff out for a while yet.  

The garden owner has lots of shrubs in pots already so we're just moving stuff into the veg bed from the pots, to save some money.  In addition, plenty of other plants had self seeded themselves around the garden so we dug some of those up too to move into the empty bed.

One of the jobs I needed to do was to dig out these blocks - it's a shame I didn't think to photograph me standing beside them to give an idea of the size.  They were enormous!   And we used some of the soil in the veg bed to fill the gaps where the blocks had been, and then sprinkled with grass seed over the top.   A really good and productive half a day which cost virtually nothing as we were just moving things from one bit of the garden to another.  The best gardening!

Seeds and Stuff - March 2020

Back in March when we found out we were about to go into lockdown due to Covid-19, I dashed out to get compost - six bags! - and an incinerator, never dreaming I wouldn't be able to use it for the time being.  One of the vulnerable groups for coronavirus is those people with asthma so we've been advised not to have bonfires in our gardens due to any breathing issues of those living around us.  In addition, all fire service personnel have been redeployed and are driving ambulances, etc, so we cannot risk the possibility of garden fires.

So this little beauty is going away for the time being until I can use it.

I've finally planted up my Hibiscus syriacus and my Cotinus coggygria in the manhole rings that Andy's site were throwing out.  Underneath the Hibiscus, I've planted some Crocosmia that I dug up to make room.   I'm still debating what to underplant the Cotinus with.   I'm sure inspiration will strike before long.

We've had a very dry few weeks - although yesterday we had a day of rain so the water butt and well have filled back up again, thank goodness

Due to all the time I'm spending in the garden currently, it's looking beautiful!

Odds and Sods - March 2020

As I type this, I'm reminded that this is the fourth week in lockdown due to the coronavirus - Covid-19- it's a very strange and scary time and life is going on as much as possible, albeit with a lot less freedom.  We're all being urged to stay at home and, as a consequence, I'm spending more time knitting, gardening, reading, and sleeping.

Here we are having a sofa snooze!

The gardens are all beginning to look very lush - and we've had a beautiful Easter weekend with temperatures in the 20s so lots of sitting in the garden.

This is a birthday present that I've been making for a few weeks now.

I was making myself an asymmetrical poncho but I just couldn't concentrate and wasn't happy with it, so it's now undone and ready to knit up into something else when I can think what I want to make.  I'm rubbish at making any decisions right now.

These are the caravan seat covers, all cut out and ready to sew - although I have no idea when I might even get down to the caravan at this rate.