Hot and prickly

Well, like most of the country I believe, we opened our curtains to see another beautifully sunny day dawning this morning. I resisted the cries of 'beach' in favour of a day in the garden. I sensed that we were all on the point of sun overdose and decided that any heated situations were probably best had at home.So glad we did stay home as by mid morning Hermione had a nasty outbreak of prickly heat - and a prickly mood to match. A dose of Sol Britannica improved the mood very quickly but her skin is calming much more slowly.

The rest of the day was spent in and out of the house - but by and large I would say indoors. I was very keen to potter in the veg patch but acutely aware that another day in the sun, even with cream and hats, was probably not best for the little ones.

My veg patch is a cause for concern right now. If gardening really is the new sex then I think I'm having an anticlimax. I could put it another way but I won't be crude. Basically lots of things that I have brought on from seed have not transplanted well into the ground. They are week straggly plants. Nana no doubt felt she was helping today when she trundled off to the garden centre to buy some veg plants - and she was helping - but I couldn't help but feel a bit deflated.

I think various things have gone wrong. Pots have been too small for some things, the conservatory was too warm, possibly planted too early in the hope of extending growing season...... It is all very disheartening but hopefully it won't put me off trying to do a lot from scratch again next year.

Sitting eating lunch today I opened yet another of our jars of chutney from last years gluts and remembered why I do it. This chutney is delicious. Sad thing is I don't have a recipe to be able to do it again as I just used whatever was in the spice cupboard at the time.



Craig spent a few hours at the weekend trying to fine tune my rain harvesting system so I'm hopeful that it will be fully functioning soon.



My third lot of runner beans have gone in this week. The first were killed by frost and the second by slugs. I've now decided to grow them in the border of the garden which means they have had to be netted in for thier own protection from hens and the rabbit. Wish them luck!



Things are still trundling along on the education front. I know I rarely mention it in my blog these days but that's because Hermione is still quite focused on improving her reading, writing, grammar and maths. She's using her Horizon books on an almost daily basis. There still is activity on the education front but it just isn't that exciting to post about *grin*. I am very pleased that she's developed enthusiasm in these areas though - even if it is to the exclusion of other project type stuff we have done in the past. That will all come again I'm sure.

I was presented with a little posy of flowers the other day, and later a picture of the posy too.