A Million Things.....

A million things have happened since last we chatted....

Easter holidays started almost three weeks ago and thanks to the warm weather, it has been a lovely break with the sproglets.

The Friday night they broke up, we celebrated with a cook out. We loaded up Dizzy Disco with meats and rolls and sauces, wine and cider and drove down the track, into Home Field, passed the growing bonfire pile, to the bottom of the field where our new fire pit resides: A deep pit into the earth, lined with discarded victorian firegrates. Over the top we've laid a robust iron mesh which we cook on.

Huge hunks of conifer, recently felled, are dotted about the pit as seats. They offer an excellent array of heights for the chair connoisseur, but your bottom does become glued to your seat thanks to the resin or gum which bleeds from the wound in the wood. (Maybe this is where the phrase comes from!)

Why does everything taste so good in the open air? We made popcorn in a saucepan that has a short life expectancy over the feisty fire. We used a tin foil plate as the lid and each violent rat-a-tat-tat made us laugh. The sproglets roared when I took the lid off completely and white explosions lit up the dusk. Funny really, I don't particularly like eating popcorn, I just like making it.

Since that day we've eaten at the pit plenty of times. If you sit on a log facing the house, your left hand side faces east, your right west: Last Sunday night, we watched a burned orange sun descend to our right, while a harvest moon rose on our left. It was spectacular.

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The small holding is coming along nicely. Hubby is very patient with me. He hardly groaned at all when I mentioned that I'd run out of planting space in the walled garden. Last weekend he hired a gadget, a meaty diesel powered thingy that eats turf and voila, we have an allotment in Home Field!

Bearing in mind that the grass we are removing has been there for hundreds of years, it is currently very difficult to dig through the deep black soil below. I've yet to test the pH but I can already see flecks of clay and the worms are bountiful and fat, so I'm hoping for great fruit and vegetables in future years.

So far I've planted 80 chitted potato tubers, 40 Charlotte and 40 Lady Crystal. I'll let you know how we get on with these. 80 more potatoes to go, so I guesstimate we should get 8-12 sacks this year.

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Last week I had to down my wellingtons and wash me 'ands and face so I did, in order to travel down to London. I was infiltrating the London Book Fair in search of a publisher for my children's book. Pleased to say I had several meetings and we shall wait to see the outcome... I also met a wonderful lady who has a book shop in London http://www.lionunicornbooks.co.uk/. 

She was a magical lady with sparkly eyes, totally knowledgeable about all books for children. She reminded me of a great book for 8 or 9+ readers called Dolphin Song. If you haven't read it I highly recommend it, I think it's an audio book too.

Although I haven't been to her shop, (Anthony Horowitz has!) I'm recommending you should go if you're in the area. Next time I'm in London, I'm taking the sproglets.

I also met up with my great friend who writes the blog 'Cross the Pond  She and I, along with my business partner, The Entrepreneur, had a very good gossip and fish supper (even though the restaurant claimed not to have our booking!) Technology, pah!

Anyhoo, back to editing my novel next week, aimed at adults not children this time. From next week the 8yo is at Saturday school... forever. It's a new challenge for her and for us, the taxi drivers. Hey-ho, change is as good as a rest I hear...... hmmmmmm...