Before the tummy bug

For the last half of May I was super ill with a terrible doubt of gastroenteritis. Really the realities of it are too gross to talk about but needless to say I was sofa bound for just over a week and it took 3 days before I could eat more than a cracker. I'm better now, that's what matters.

Before that mess we had a lovely, sunny afternoon at both plots for the last time. We've now officially said goodbye to 14b and even got a little refund as we'd recently paid for another year, we had 2 weeks to clear out what we wanted...

Plum poppy looking great bar all the weeds and dead daffodil stems :)

But the first thing I saw on arrival at 14b were the poppies, god I love poppies and my Patty Plum had one in bloom and many to come. The oriental poppy is always a little behind but so many buds 😊. The roses never did well and looked quite dead, bar one that was struggling to produce 2 blooms.

Saved from the plot before the new owners come (wonder when that will be?):

• Posts, fencing, wooden edging boards,  
• hardcore gravel and paving slabs, 
• comfrey plant, my wee red geum (Mrs Bradshaw) and 2 huge box balls, 
• our sanity!

But we had to say goodbye to our:

• blackberries, new happy blackthorn hedge
• cherry tree, damson tree and pear tree?, 
• rhubarb (maybe we could save some?) 
• poppies and rudbeckia (Goldsturm) , two of my favourite plants ever. 

Not to mention all the other bits and pieces. We couldn't lift them or a lot of other plants as we simply had no where to put them and silly emotional me had a wee cry. Though I have been promised a wee flower area on the back patio.

Blackberries alive with bees, rhubarb past it's best and some lovely weeds

One more thing - some damned brute had broken part of our cool artisan 14b sign. Andrew had made it with glass test tubes and they were super sturdy and we liked it...and ggrrr. Well we won't be needing it now anyway, I guess but it's the principal.

grrr

It's all about 24a from now on.

My mosaic number, beautiful bought tiles and an 'A' etched by Andrew on slate

I spent my time weeding 24a whilst Andrew did all the heavy lifting and moving from 14b. The poor plot had been a little neglected in the choking weed department and it's what I'm comfortable with at the moment. For a goodly while now I simply haven't had the confidence to plant things - my anxiety disorder is winning these days - boo hiss.

Blueberries, gooseberries and apples

Weeding in and around the blueberries and gooseberries I was amazed to find so many well developed berries - we need to get them netted as the birds are pesky pilferers and can strip all the bushes in a day! The apples either side of the fruit arch are also doing really good.

I do wish we had of got rid of the gooseberries over the redcurrant bush (as I actually like redcurrants) but Andrew has plans for a raspberry bed, though maybe it ought to be a rhubarb bed... I'm just thinking out loud.

oh yes, don't mind if I do

All this work was making us hungry and Andrew went up to the community centre and got two of these, yum! Dark chocolate chip shortbread squares, oh my, they were delicious.

More next time, hugs,
Carrie