What A Lot of Allotment…. (by sarah)

This week we made it too the allotment twice during the evenings and Saturday we were there from lunch time until the night was closing in and as I think that was the longest day that is saying something!

During the week I also used up the produce we had harvested last weekend - namely the raspberries and the broad beans - the raspberries are the main reason we are going during the evenings as there are more ripe ones every few days. We have already gotten to the point of making smoothies and stuff 🙂

We also got to try out are roof rack for the first - I told my Dad that we needed a chair for the allotment or a bench or something and that I had been trying on Freecycle to get one for ages - we talked about making one from the spare decking and old table that is lurking around our garden. But what happened is when he went home he restored a chair frame he'd been given for fire wood and made a seat for it and painted it so it would last outside and sent it down with my brother. I kind of didn't believe it was for the allotment but it was! So it got tied on the roof rack.

We picked up some coloured sharpies on route so the girls could decorate it.

Jeany did get a bit frustrated with her sister as she kept scribbling over bits Jean was trying to do nicely but it all worked out well including decorations from Alaric such as a castle and rocket and snake that he and Jean did together.

There is still more to be done on it but that is fine as we can just keep taking the sharpies with us 🙂 Jean also made sure we all knew what the seat was for 🙂

Whilst there I did so much weeding I lost count - I know I did at least 7 buckets full and filled up the new composter we had to buy on Friday (or rather Al bought whilst I was walking Jeany to her drama group). To be fair the first of the buckets only was weeds and all - the others were damage limitation (ie cutting the tops of the thistles that wouldn't pull nicely) but the last two buckets where veg bed weeding and I even managed to do some hoeing and raking whilst Al was off getting shopping.

Jean collected a bag of lemon grass, a bag of hay and a bag of dandelions as well as harvesting the raspberries 🙂 She was most excited about dandelion stalks that were as tall as she was 🙂

I have crowned her Jean Bean the Allotment Queen 😀

We were also gifted some french bean plants by one of the other allotment holders which we planted along with the spare tomato plants and the runner beans I got fro Prinknash Abby last weekend. These are in were the sweetcorn has failed to come up. Radishes and spring onions are doing well and we are quiet happy with it though there is still a lot of work to do to get the site maintainable. Alaric brought dinner back to the allotment which was great 😀

We were also given a load of peas and half our fridge was full of home produce - this is the way we like it 😀

Sunday morning I cleaned the chickens out and made pancakes with home grown eggs, I picked the strawberries in the garden - unfortunately breaking our bench chest that the neighbours gave us. And I made a coolie from some of the raspberries 🙂 We also used the neighbours home made cherry syrup and it was fab 😀

Lilly - Jean's chicken is sadly still ill and sadly producing soft shells again - she is the only one of the four rescue hens not to have grown all her feathers back. I found the rabbit eating the soft shells so we decided he had to come back out of the run which is unfortunate as they provide him with company, but with Lilly sick as well we just thought it was best.

Of course the hutch which was origonally Blacky's now has no doors so we've bought him a little run thing for now whilst we build him a run that is big enough for him and a friend and he is being let out for supervised time to hope around the whole garden.

(it's just as well we are growing lots of food as it cost our weekly food/domestic shop budget!)

ALso we have discovered that we have corn and wheat and stuff growing in the garden where we used to feed the chickens and rabbit before their new run was built!

Apart from that we didn't get the tip run done though we did build a mount for the festival trolly to go on the roof of the car (on the roof rack) and we found Elmo and a funky car.

Of course I also cried because a) the pedometer and stuff shows I am active even though it hurts and long walks are with a stick and the calorie counting shows I am eating 2/3 what I am supposed to as a woman and I am still expanding round the waist :/ and b) Jean wanted a hamster and I am so broody that though I said no I really wanted it so when I didn't get my coffee I cried but it wasn't really about coffee - sigh. But mostly all fab at the moment.

Musical Mary (by sarah)

Mary has been gifted Jeany's old Uke that my aunt gave us - mainly due to the colour thing 😉 Mary loving pink and Jean detesting it these days. At two events we have been involved with recently there has been miniature music which is something my friend Zaphire is involved with. They give out ukes to the kids and sing songs - that is were the ooo ooo eee bit comes from that Mary is singing.

Mary has always been really musical - I know she isn't really playing this and it's out of tune and stuff but I'm still impressed! I need to dig out some other vids we have of her including air guitar when she was tiny and recorder tutting when she could sit up and stuff.

Growing the Good Stuff (by sarah)

Yesterday saw the first ripe strawberry from the plants Alaric bought for £12 a few weeks back - he had it as part of his FathersDay Brekki.

I have been making salads out of the various leaves I am growing inside and out at the moment and tonight we went to the allotment. We haven't been able to do a proper stint there for 2 weeks so there was a lot to do. I quickly filled my giant blue bucket three times with weeds - the first bucket load as always was roots and all!

We've found the broad beans have a bit of an infestation and that nature has started to rally the troupes in the form of ladybirds (ladybugs if you are from the US).

One the plus side we still got a good crop of beans and there will be more, I have a second crop already in and some runners waiting (bought from Prinknash Abby on Sunday).

The radishes are doing well though no where near as epic as the giant ones my bro bought me from his back garden. They were a mix of white, black and pink and in round and suasage shape. Alaric is very pleased about this - I only took enough for the next few days as am hoping to be back on Thursday to do more.

Jeany worked hard picking the broad beans and the raspberries 🙂

There where epic numbers of the soft fruit - easily £10 of supermarket peak season money. Of course I think Jeany may have been eating as she was picking too 😉

There was a spiders nest in the lemon-balm so I decided not to harvest any of that today!

I finally got around to putting the rainbow chard seeds in as well! The girls both ate their dinner on site and I think it is starting to come together - especially as this year we consider to be the hard graft for little reward year due to just getting the ground prepared and stuff.

Camp Nano (by sarah)

I am going to be taking part in Camp Nano next month - a sort of more informal version of the National Novel Writing Month - I am going to use it to try and finish some more of the Punk stuff off - I have simply labelled it as The Punk's Universe - here is the round up of it:

The Punk's Universe is the over all title to all my previous nanos and script frenzys which are based in the same worlds and timelines. Currently it sits at about 9 novels, a couple of hundred pages of comic book scripts, one film script (not complete) and dozens of short stories. A lot of it is 70-90% complete (of first phase and some is even on 2nd phase ie the getting ready for publishing bit) so I thought I'd work on them collectively and hopefully bump a few more into phase 2.

The premiss is that there is a group of long lived Aquatic Apes who where the first people and they run human society in the back ground. There are three waring factions and humans where genetic slave stock made from the defeated other first humans who lives in the forests and deserts. Due to a eugenics war the Aquatic Apes or Masters are almost extinct and can not bred but rely on tech to clone themselves. Punku and a few others are hybrids of the slaves and aquatic apes and have been given life extention tech and other adaptions - they can pass for humans but have been alive for 1000's of years.

The timeline for the world currently spans from the pre-history of the Aquatic Apes where they evolved and created their own civilizations (Alantis, Heva and Pacifica) to a 1000 odd years in our future set in space with upload and where the singularity may finally be possible.

p.s. my user name is 5affy and I will attempt to put updates on here and Purple Monster.

Concept Sketches (by sarah)

I've been working on concept sketches - don't worry I know there are huge problems with the proportions and stuff - the drawings are just for design and figuring stuff out in my own head and of course drawing practice! They are all based in the universe of The Punk.

Starting with Punku herself in her Babel outfit.

And Jesu her brother with his sacred fish spear.

An Aquatic Ape fishing with their manta ray plans.

The Lady also known as Chaos and the moralistic bad guy.

I also now have emblems for all the main characters of the first part of the story - today also saw me write a short story that is based in the Punk's World - not bad as I have post festival workshop running fatigue and possible mild food poisoning so lots of ouchy and I did a four hour stint of weeding at the allotment today.