It's been another glorious day! I made it down the allotment feeling pretty hungover last thing this afternoon, I was at a wedding in Harlow last night.

I've almost finished digging over the plot now, I've just been slowed down by some serious stinging nettle roots down the boundary fence with the allotment next door. She's got carpet on her path and doesn't pull the weeds that come out from under it, so they encroach on our plot with their roots coming through the chicken wire fence. I've ended up just reaching over and pulling both the plants and roots up from her side of the fence as well.


I should get some spuds and parsnips soon, I just need to start thinking about where I'm going to put everything first though!

Mine's a Carling...

After years of just having a bird table, my old man has gone all out lately to find the ultimate squirrel proof bird feeder. He's tried all kind of different hanging contraptions and poles but the pesky grey critters always seem top find a way around things. Dad's got quite close to the squirrels during all this and named the two young ones Boris and Ken.

He has eventually settled on a pair of cage balls and something that looks a bit like a spaceship which stops them from getting up the pole. It's quite fun watching the Boris and Ken trying to climb up and just sliding straight down again. I'll try and get some video footage to post!

Up the creek

After both getting stuck with poor Sunday train services, Henry and I attempted to get some manure on Sunday. The first load went OK. We went back to the farm we got it from last year, forked the well rotted cow manure into the trailer and dumped it down the end of our plot.

It was on the way back with the second load that it all went wrong. A tyre on the trailer burst and we didn't have a spare. We had to wait around for an hour to get it picked up by the breakdown recovery truck. Then, rather than get it to the plot, it had to be taken to Henry's house. This meant that we had to shovel it all out into wheel-barrows and take it down the end of the garden, and we still need to find some way of getting it to the allotment!