Sent to Coventry!
The journey started off with an overnight stay at Emmaus Coventry, who made us warmly welcome. They have a lovely vicarage for the Community home, and quite a vast Superstore, complete with a well set-up workshop. The arrangements prior to the journey did not, however, go quite to plan….
You are probably bored to tears with the minutae of our continuous snagging issues, but - we’ve had the plumbers in again. They arrived on Wednesday morning. Again. Meanwhile, I innocently (Vanity, thy name is Woman…) decided to dye my hair prior to departure to Coventry. Which went fine, until the moment I put the shower on to rinse my hair… to discover the water was cut off. Which caused me to invent a lexicon of words I couldn’t replicate.
30 seconds later, a scarecrow appears at the office door, asking if it had missed the announcement that the water was due to be cut off; apparently the plumbers gave zero notice of intent. Scarecrow then zips across the car park, praying for once that the shop is empty (it is), suggesting to the surprised Companion running the shop that “Don’t Ask” would be a good move, and whips to the basement, to an ancient boiler system, to rinse hair. Lady with towel around head emerges some time later and returns to finish packing, changing (still no chance of shower), and heading down for lunch before departure. Not ALL of West Norwood witnessed the sight, I am assured…. it just felt like it.
We have had stunning success with the onion crop on the allotment, and hope to be self-sufficient for at least 3-4 weeks, with potatoes following shortly. We also had masses of black- and red-currants which topped off several sponge cakes for about a month, and gooseberries are now on stream - but oh, are they a viscious crop to harvest?! The wig-wams are now nicely twizzled with beans, and Jorge did a wonderful job of planting out the tomatoes a while ago as well as leek and lettuce seedlings which are thriving.
And that just about brings things up to date.
Take care,
Elizabeth
Hi Liz, Great to read your blog again. I’m totally envious of your horticultural success: our fruit rotted in the rain and the limited amount of other veg is drowning! (July is very likely to be the wettest since (my) recoords began in 2003 and may turn out to be the fourth wettest month!) Other news is that our Iain’s got a temporary job at Emmaus Mossley for the summer which he is enjoying!! Take care. Love Iain