May Madness.

We had one nice May afternoon so we decided
to burn some food.

I don't know why they call them "solids"

BJ's first drawing. She tells me it is an illustration
from The Man from Snowy River. My
birthday card.

Our new hibachi. A tenner delivered on eBay.
The coals are great - you just light the whole bag.

Mother's Day. My first.

Julian's potmaker made these pots. Well,
we made these pots. Of these maybe
50% of these seedlings will make it.

We have so many creatures on our garden.
We have cutesie little birds and bumble bees
and ladybugs and a frog that eats Julian's seedlings.

Our garden furniture from Park Royal
Salvage. It didn't fit through our rabbit
warren house, so we had to get Old Ken and
Old Langley to knock down our neighbours fence
and sneakily put it back up when we were done.

Julian hard at work in the rain. Rain? In
England? You gotta be kidding! We just
bought a water butt. Everyone should have
one - it should be law.

We have been taking advantage of the local
car boot sale. We bought this picture for a song.

Getting super domestic. This is Lucie's
never-fail omlet recipe. Speaking of Omlets,
I want an outrageously priced henhouse. Have
a look at these Eglu's

Our back room has turned into a shed.
We have seedlings, dirt, a P22 scrim, coal.
You don't want to know.

This kind of summarises May. It's been a busy month on the home front. There have been some glorious days spent drinking wine at Queen's Park and Hampstead Heath. I think the daytime alcohol is a sign that I need some more adult company and interests. I am trying to negotiate a baby swap with the Yoga mums so I can go to Bikram. I have started shooting too. Very commercial. Lifestyle. Might have a meeting with a stylist next week to talk about doing some stuff together. Who would have thought that having a baby would have brought that kind of opportunity? Not me!
Julian is becoming Peter Cundall. He keeps saying "marvelous" and doddering around the garden. I have to keep a close eye on him as a couple of times I have caught him digging up the lawn to make way for another veggie bed.
BJ is eating mush now which is great for me. She has been yelling less. We went to ELC and bought the whole store - now she has toy overload. We are buying her gifts to make up for not having telly. She got an inordinate amount of pleasure from watching Rocky 4 with Micah and Lea last weekend. Poor deprived thing.

Gratuitous Baby Blog

Pictures from Totnes and Riverford

Where does food come from?

We decided to find out. Julian and BJ and I took a trip to see where our fortnightly veg and fruit boxes come from. Riverford Farm is in Devon. They have a field kitchen with menus designed by the River Cafe chef, where you get to sample all the yummy stuff they grow on the farm. They have the biggest poo pile I have ever seen - much better than at Film Horses, though Film Horses allowed us to take as much crap as we wanted - payment for the lovely prints Julian took them of Madge, Amy and Snowy (more on those girls soon).
We learned about mass companion planting. Well I only really learned one thing, but retaining one piece of info is better than half retaining 10. There is a plant called Bee's Friend which, can you guess, attracts bees, and helps pollinate the strawberries if planted close by. Julian's strawberries are suffering in other ways though. We have tried drowning the slugs in beer, but it is actually getting expensive keeping them liquored up! Might be time to buy a home brew kit!