It’s good to be back home

 After five weeks of back to back dog sits, it’s good to be back home. For the rest of the year, I have more sits,  but they are a week here and there, but not stacked up. As someone said, you get to look after these lovely dogs, but you give them back and get your freedom in return. Before I got home, I finally managed to give my second 700ml of plasma, it was a heart in your mouth moment when the machine tested my iron levels, I was well over. I have another donation in a weeks time. You can give it more often than blood, as I assume the body makes up the plasma loss a lot faster than the red blood cells. 

The nurse took a photo of me holding the bag of plasma, but it’s too cheesy in my view. There have been some gasworks near us, and I popped up there to see if they had any offcuts I could have. They are excellent to grow carrots in, you can make sure there are no stones in the soil, having the carrot growing off the ground, keeps carrot fly away too. It’s also easier to water them. So they had plenty of offcuts, I am planning a carrot or leek growing competition, with the TRHA. The guys doing the work said these offcuts just get melted down at the depot. They will need cutting down again before I hand them out.


We went on  a tour to the nearby Stanlake Park Estate wine place, which is a short walk away from our house. It was an excellent tour, the history, with the old Manor House being part of the nearby Windsor Estate , Charles 1st, hunted at Stanlake it’s reported. They have an over a hundred acres, I think they make 30,000 bottles of wine, and as we had the tour, we sampled some of their wines. I think the fizzy wines were a favourite and the red grown on what they call the cricket field. We had a glass in their shop/bar after the tour. As a treat, we went to the Angel on the Bridge, on a Friday which is mussels night. I had them, the other main one of their excellent beef burgers.


I have spent some time tidying the garden at the back, and also the allotment. Things are growing despite the cold weather and the weeds of course. When you take over a new plot, which was derelict you have to keep on top of the weeds. Not to do so will soon have it return to its bad state. A lot of cow parsley with its deep roots have been removed, the bindweed hasn’t appeared yet, but a few other weeds like ground elder, have shown themselves. I sowed some radish, spinach and beetroot, the onion and shallot sets are starting to put roots down, and the rhubarb that was already there is growing. My raspberry canes also have early shoots. What is pretty is some blossom on one of the fruit trees. I hope we don’t get any late frosts. The broad bean are germinating, but a couple look like mice have damaged them. Next year, I will sow them in pots. 




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