Allotmenting

It's great having an allotment.  Not that I spend much time down there.  That's Mr J and P's domain.

I do, however, help water occasionally and pick the odd produce.  

I also like to prance about taking photos and marvelling at how creative and inventive our fellow allotmenteers are.

Take a look at the lion heads that adorn this frame for a hanging basket:

What I especially like is the clever re-use of stuff found in skips like these old shower screens as a cold frame:

This rusty old cooking oil can has been re- used as a herb planter:

Ingenious use of discarded wire drawers to protect lettuces and the like:

Roof tiles or some such thing used to make a path:

Blimey, some clever sod has fashioned these tree trunks into stools:

I always like a bit of scarecrow action:



 Poor ickle teddy looks a bit worse for wear doesn't he?

See how this swing doubles up as a frame for runners:

And there's always the odd aluminium watering can to drool over:

I love how this allotmenteer has painted their shed and bench:





Cute planter:





 These sweet peas look divine growing on this painted wooden ladder:

OK, that's enough prancing about, taking photos.  I've got serious work to do.  We're awash, at the moment, with Mr J and P's rather perfect plums (er hem) and I need to get harvesting.

Adios amigos.  xx

Back to Blog

It's been pet pandemonium at J and P Towers this week.  One of our guinea pigs squeaked her last on Monday and her little sister is in a deep decline - she's stopped eating and we're all on hand feeding duty.  Meanwhile, I'm secretly fearing for our ageing hamster - he's not long for this world - poor ickle thing.  Blimey, readers, I didn't realise pet care could be so exhausting.

Our holidays seem an age ago now.  I can't believe that a week ago we were in the Lake District visiting Grandpappy J and P and the week before that we were in sunny (and extremely hot) Slovenia.

Yes, dear readers, this is the bit where I bore you senseless about our holidays.  Hurrah!

In Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, we spent a lot of time taking pics of grafitti art:

and relaxing in the "library under the treetops" - yes an outdoor library in the park, under the shade of some trees (did I mention that it was darn hot) reading English mags - bliss!

 In the north west of the country, we spent a lot of time jumping into lakes and rivers to keep cool.

We even did some white water rafting!  While Mr J and P was praised by the instructor for his "strength" and Little Miss for her "very good back paddling", little old moi had to make a fool of myself when we were deliberately capsized.  I got caught in quite a strong current and in my panic forgot what you're supposed to do.  What you are supposed to do is let the current take you to where it ends, then swim at an angle from where you came.  NEVER swim against the current for you will never win.  I, like a fool, tried swimming against the current and was quickly getting nowhere.  Strangely, my feeble cries for help were roundly ignored by Mr J and P, and another fellow rafter hauled me to safety with his paddle.  What a drama!


Talking of fools, when  we left Ljubljana to go up north in the hire car, Mr J and P was very busy extolling the virtues of the spacious car boot, only to arrive at our destination some hours later to discover that little wonder the boot was so capacious, the silly twit had left my bag back in the hotel in Ljubljana!  While Little Miss and I relaxed by a lake, poor Mr J and P spent the rest of the day driving the capaciously booted car to Ljubljana and back in order to reclaim my stuff.   Awww, bless.......

Our trip to the Lakes to visit Grandpappy was wonderful as always.  The highlight, for me was visiting the Ennerdale Agricultural Show.  Now I do like a good agricultural show.  My favourite event had to be the Cumberland wrestling:

It was brilliant and they even had a team from Brittany (France) participating.

My second favourite thing was the Horticultural and Produce Marquee.  Mr J and P and myself did enjoy looking at the vegetables.  Our very favourite category was entitled "Monsters made from Vegetables and Cocktail Sticks".  Oh no, I fear a new obsession coming on.......

This won first prize a penguin made from an aubergine atop a bed of purple sprouting broccoli.  Genius.

Personally, I think Mr J and P should have won a prize - brace yourselves, dear readers, and feast your peepers on his unfeasibly large beetroot:

Crikey, it's almost as big as his head!

And on that note dear readers, I must go as it's my turn for guinea pig hand feeding duties.  Bye bye. xx