Today we went and signed for and paid for a plot of ground to grown things on - it is not an allotment as such but is on a farm - I would still like an allotment round the corner but have gotten hacked off with messages being ignored etc...
In the photo Jean is marking on corner and Al and Mary the other - I'm taking the photo from the apex.
Anyway - it is a large plot if an odd shape and comes with raspberry canes already in situ. They have of course died back now but there was shrivelled blackened fruit which I rubbed to get the smell and yep - raspberries.
Of course everything is water logged around here at the moment - Jean wasn't complaining though. She even got Daddy and Mary to join her 🙂
We've been busy building paths to the chicken run though Al keeps miss judging how much concrete we need so it has spanned out several weekends now! He's found an easier way of mixing the concrete though and that is by using a tarp 🙂
As you can probably see from the photograph the garden is a mess with the old rabbit run and soil that's been dug out to make the run area and the old oil drum that the people who lived here before left and which is full of stuff and bin bags of stuff that got damaged by leaking ceilings and so on. So I cheered myself up by putting up the nice teacup garden ornaments my friend Ulrike gave me and envisioning what it will look like after a few more weekends of hard graft.
I really love these and they will be the main feature of our garden food area. I may assess how easy the cats can get to them and put some bird food in or maybe a little pot plant - at the moment it is far too rainy for either option!
Thursday I headed off to Bristol with the lovely Nick Short, the aim - to read poetry at the Art House. We had a little bit of trouble finding it, the Art House is a lovely little cafe with a cellar/entertainment area. There are arty pictures on the walls and yummy foods to be had.
There were some wonderful musicians playing, I especially liked the Vampire guy though I failed to get a photo of him 🙂
We bumped into an old friend from Cheltenham who had also come up and ended up in a conversation with a woman at the end who wondered why we'd come all the way to Bristol to perform. It is a weekly event at the Arts House and Bristol simply is bigger and has more to offer was the answer. Cheltenham has a great poetry scene but it is not weekly or even every night like it is in Bristol. We spoke of the poetry society and the Festival and then moved on to art in general.
I read an arch of poetry starting with a Fist Full of Nitro and ending with Star Stuff. From the individual and depressing to the optimistic future of all was the way I saw it.
It was a lovely night.
The painting is called Lonely Christmas and is part of the painted advent I am doing, I like the concept and the colours but... I don't think it quiet works - nor unfortunately do my plans for The Little Book of Festive Poetry amongst other things. Basically there are new VAT laws coming in and they seem stupid complicated and so for now like many many authors I am having to currently put a hold on selling ebooks 🙁
But you can still listen too it here.
We headed up to see our Northern friends, going on a little tour on route to see our friend Andy which was far too brief but lots of fun. Though I don't think Alaric is going to forgive him for introducing us to the 'What does the Fox Say' song!
Jean loves this song as it is the style of music she likes but not about love or money or things she's not interested in - it's about foxes and she loves animals - her comments where high pitched and consisted of 'CUUUUUUTE!!!!' Also the old guy reading reminds her of Ferfer when he's reading her and Mary stories and doing the silly sounds. I personally think the guys are cute and I love silly songs 😉
Alaric lives in horror as I have started singing it but merging it with leek spin and the gummy bear songs etc al 😀
Anyway it was great seeing Andy again and the kids loved him 🙂 One of the things it has highlighted for me is how long it has been since I saw a lot of my friends - something I wish to rectify this year.
Then we went on to Yorkshire to see our friends Ulrike and Mike and their ginea pigs 🙂
Ulrike had decorated the house fantastically for Christmas! Jean and Mary are still talking about it 🙂 There were lots of pocket dragons and a golden dragon in a santa hat with bells on it for Jean. Mary is so happy with her 'babies' - survallian family rabbits - baby and toddler 🙂
The girls loved opening their presents and we played board games 🙂
We went to see some horses (photos on Alaric's phone still!) and watched the Grinch and Brave and played Mario Carts which I am even worse at than 2 years ago, when I played it at my Bro's house - Jean says this is because I was using a steering wheel last time and this time it was controllers. I was pretty bad with the steering wheel!
Ulrike is a Harry Potter nut just like us and has the MOST amazing potion bottle collection 🙂
We also had an amazing breakfast with bread rolls in a lovely wicker basket:)
It was lovely and we really enjoyed ourselves and wish we could have stayed longer with both Andry and Ulrike and Mike. Here are more photos of the girlies and piggies 🙂
As you can see Jeany still really loves the bundles of fluff 🙂
Alaric, Gardening, Jean, Mary, The Family | sarah | 
Sun 26th Jan 2014 7:54 pm | 
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