Woopy dodah! Finally collected the key for our allotment on Friday and with a mixture of excitement and trepidation,
Manu and I surveyed what will soon become our home from home (especially when we get a proper shed!) Our excitement was almost uncontainable when we thought we'd found our plot - with veg patches already planted. We knew it was too good to be true when we spotted some very contented looking chickens at the far end. No, ours was predictably wilder than wild with nettles towering above me and rampant to the point of covering most of the plot. This minor (
hah!) blight aside we did discover some globe artichokes like thistles - some of them had already gone to seed, but we did cut a few heads off and will have try them for lunch today.
Yesterday, our first proper day on the allotment, we got a bit giddy at the fun of it all! First we got to meet our
neighbours (two very lovely couples called Chris and Lou + Ellen and Nathan) and then we later made a very fortuitous discovery - a
tayberry bush!!! Goes without saying that we had a good old munch to make sure they were in fact
tayberries - cross between a raspberry and a blackberry! Never expected to be eating fruits from the allotment this early on - definitely given us a taste for it!
I'm now trying to persuade
Manu to start a blog otherwise I fear I will have to change the name of this blog the the Gardener of
Gardnerville! (And yes, that is me running through the wilds!)
Managed to persuade my sister to don my 'tash and patch combo - I hardly recognise her!
I've been persuading my new handmade friend Jemima to strike poses for me! It was dead difficult getting Jemima to look as if she was actually in the painting. Nothing worse than that super imposed look unless of course there's a reason to want to create that impression - in which case it's gotta look deliberate! I'm hoping I've made the images look like they are an organic whole. Anyway, there's still one left to do with a bird in it (well of course!) ...
Yay!! We finally got some nice weather today and as we got invited to a BBQ felt like wearing one of my most exuberant dresses. I tried it on and Manu gave me his most diplomatic 'please don't wear that' look! I did agree it was a bit larey especially with the knee high green sox I wanted to wear it with!! Anyway even though I didn't wear it in the end it did come in handy as I was inspired to make the flowers you see laying on my dress above - when we got back from the Barbey! 
This is the rather kitsch breakfast set I picked up for Manu from the 'vide grenier' last weekend. I was soo excited when I found it - there's racers on it and everything!! He assures me he's pleased with it - but hasn't used it yet and didn't use it this morning. He claims the cooked breakfast was too big for the plate! Mmmm...cooked breakfast!
Met the loveliest elderly gent this morning sitting outside a charity shop while on my way to pick up some bread (was going to make some but fancied an early morning wander!). Manu was up for making a cooked breakfast and I really fancied a (fake!) bacon butty - so some chunky white bread from the co-op was in order. Really glad I bought instead of baked because I had the wonderful fortune of meeting the charming fellow in the picture above. He told me his accordian was from 'Czechoslovakia'. "Well it's an extra special accordian, seeing as the country doesn't exist anymore" I replied. I don't think he quite got but it may be because I didn't speak loudly enough - he had hearing aids on both ears. 
