bloomin' bloomin'

The flowers at the allotment are looking many times better than those in the garden, probably due to being just left to get on with it instead of constant fussing and watching for those in the garden (well that and a lack of foraging poultry which the garden is now filled with).

This is a very good thing as I imagine that passers by will find their eyes drawn to the glorious blooms rather than the very spiky weeds that I'm too scared to tackle (this is probably wishful thinking as most seasoned vegetable growers have weed detecting radar and several of my allotment neighbours spend all day, everyday mooching about on their plots...)

We've also been making good use of our 'Cobb' oven now that the days are warmer and lighter and having a hot, filling lunch/dinner after a day of thistle menacing is proving vital.  You are meant to be able to roast a whole chicken in one, although we haven't tried that yet, but we did cook some of our christmas dinner in it last year...

things for folksy, but...

I've got a big pile of prints which I'm going to list on Folksy (let's be realistic and say 'in the next two weeks') but there is just one thing stopping me - the ironing.  I know I can crop the pictures, but if I just did some ironing (ever) then the photos would be a whole lot better, especially when it comes to tea towels and canvas bags.  Maybe this post will encourage a friend or relative to rush round, exasperated at the feebleness of a non-ironer, in-order to sort out the sorry state of my tablecloths, tea towels and bags.  I don't iron anything, ever - just imagine how scruffy my family are...

My excuses this week include chicks, quails, shallots needed harvesting, glorious sunshine and really glorious sunshine...

weekend plans...

We're having an 'at home' day today - there's so much going on at school that we can't take the pace today and are delighting in doing nothing and watching films before lunch!!  What decadence!! 

...and after all, we need to get our strength up for a busy weekend - the school chickens are coming to our house this weekend (including Naughty Nigel) so we are going to be spending a lot of time in the garden watching their every move - and someone has a trip to Horseworld in mind too...

my bottom drawer...

Would you post a picture of your bottom drawer on a blog??  If it was any other drawer in the house I would ensure that no one even peeked inside for a second - years have passed without a single spring clean or a good clearout...

But this is my favourite drawer, filled with random bits of printing stuff, in a muddle, but a working muddle where I can put my hands on whatever I want in seconds and with a lovely inky smell...

jam

Wet day hobbies this week included jam making (strawberries and blackcurrants) and jam label making...what a happy coincidence that they both happened on the same day, otherwise jam with no labels or labels with no jam.

We eat a lot more jam than is good for us in this house, but if you make it yourself it suddenly becomes that little bit healthier...

showers and sunshine...

We're having such 'April' weather here and it's good because we need the rain and it's making me stay in to do some work instead of being enticed outside by lovely sunshine.  

Us easily distracted types need all things in exactly the right place to actually get to work and stick at it for a whole day - I'm doing a logo for a green building store at the moment and have really been promising it will be ready for far too long!

guess where I've been today...

...not too hard to guess on a sunny day in the middle of the growing season...

Today was a good picking day - lots of raspberries, although none made it home, radishes, salad, one giant onion, some herbs and the very first broad bean pod (although I probably should have waited a few days as they really were baby beans).

I also gave the gooseberries a good squeeze.

Maybe by Wednesday...

stop everything - the berries are ripe...

I've got a thing about berries...I'm only really happy when there's a line of jam jars filled with different coloured jams in the cupboard and several bags filled with frozen berries at the bottom of the freezer.

We all love jam and puddings and sauces and fruity drinks in this house and really could not have too many.  

Today it was decreed that the black currants and white currants were ready (not all are such glossy black but the wind was picking them for us so the desicion was made and we acted fast!).  That meant that dinner was late and slightly random but THE BERRIES ARE SAFE.

 

...not everyone helped, but the den in the lounge is especially comfy at the moment...

tea towels ready to deliver

My new dockside tea towels are going to be in the museum shop at Bristol's nearly open museum 'MShed' - it opens on the 17th June so they are busy putting all the stock in ready and it looks really exciting because they are going to have lots of local Bristol artists, makers, crafts people and other local goodies (even some Bristol made chocolates - yum)...and quite right too for a museum about and for the people of Bristol!

Meanwhile it is quite exciting seeing all the tea towels piled up together ready to deliver...

terrible photos!

I'm not a photographer and surely some of the hardest things to take photos of are 'products'!!

At the moment my house is full with cards and prints and so on, but taking proper photos and putting them onto Folksy is turning out to be an impossible task...

Getting things framed and taking them to galleries?  Yes, I can do that.
Wrapping prints in cellophane and packaging up for the post?  No problem.
Coming up with ideas and designing new prints?  Trickier, but great fun.

Photos of things I want to sell?  Well, today's a bit cloudy, so they won't come out quite right and first I need a couple of panel pins the right distance apart, and some nice bull dog clips and maybe some fancy twine and some clean wooden clothes pegs and something pretty to decorate around them - maybe some bunting - and it's not clear yet how to arrange groups of cards together, but some kind of nice cover or tablecloth may be needed...maybe I should wait until I've redecorated the lounge so that the background colour is just right too...

lovely evenings

I can't think of any better way to start a Friday evening than playing at the allotment as the day cools down (a little...).  Birds singing their bed time songs and frogs on the move, ants nests in the compost bin to disturb, apple pips to water just in case a tree will grow, water boatmen to try to catch and some really thirsty soil sucking up the moisture as we water - I love the smell - and then really filthy, tired, sunned children who have pushed it a bit too late to have a bath and have to go to bed as they are, promising to have a shower in the morning (I bet they don't...)

mangle prints

Have you come acrosss Mangle Prints before?  Fantastic prints, cards and decorations (take a look at the bunting, I love it).  Well last week I was really lucky because Amanda from from Mangle Prints featured me on her blog and it was such an exciting suprise to be asked!  Once I got going on those questions I really couldn't stop...