Tag: allotment
It’s been a busy week, which is why things have been quiet round here. Here’s what’s been going down.
Allotment
Karen and I have spent a lot of time on the allotment. Whereas it did look like this, it now looks like this:
We’ve cleared a lot of brambles, dismantled the rotted cold frame, had a big bonfire, and put some carpet down to suppress weeds. We also found some rhubarb of the variety *Hey, Free Rhubarb!* and planted it in an appropriate location. It’s progress, definitely.
My first MP3 player
On Wednesday I got my first ever MP3 player. As you can see, I’m right on the cutting edge here.
It’s not even a state-of-the-art device. It’s a Creative Zen Stone, a little thing with 2 GB of storage and no LCD display. For £30, you can’t go far wrong. I also got a little FM transmitter so that I can play it through my car stereo, which is now over 5 years old.
Electrocuting myself
While investigating a faulty kitchen light, I think that I may have accidentally electrocuted myself. I have a small blister on my thumb, and one on my forefinger, where I pinched a screw. As far as I can see, it’s not radiating heat, so electrocution seems the likely candidate. In hindsight, it should have been obvious that said screw would be live.
Playing Tomb Raider
I rented Tomb Raider Anniversary for a week. I played the original, many years ago, and it’s interesting to see what has been added and what has been taken away. I’ve bought a second hand copy so that I can complete it at my leisure.
Teaching Bernard to spell his name
Not putting too much pressure on him at this early stage, obviously, but it does yield such gems as this one:
Bernard: “R”
Me: “No, that’s not an ‘r’, it’s an ‘n’.”
Bernard: “Buck, buck.”
Me: “Heh, not ‘hen’. ‘N’.”
*This is a companion piece to a similarly-themed article on Karen’s site which, all things being equal, should be published at roughly the same time.*
We’re getting an allotment!
My role in this project is very much as hired muscle. I think it’s going to be up to me to do all the digging and clearing and other manual labour. Hopefully this means that Karen will be the Weed Queen and keep all of that stuff in check.
Since uniting with Karen, I don’t really do much cooking, it’s true. I’m not a completely incapable cook, and if she went away for a while I am sure that I’d be able to pick up where I left off. But in the absence of such a situation, we have a mutually beneficial arrangement. I haven’t had to do much cooking for the last 3 years, and she has rarely had to touch a vacuum cleaner. I mop floors, do all the car admin, get the TV license, take the bin bags out on Mondays, trim the ivy, make the bed and keep her WordPress installation up to date, she does the laundry and grocery shopping. We’re both happy with the division of labour.
So when it comes to deciding what to grow at the allotment, I have to defer to her. And if she asks me what I think we should do, I’ll give her my ideas (Hey! How about we plant everything *diagonally*?!?!?! ((yes, I really did make this suggestion)) ) and she’ll smile politely, somewhat condescendingly, and ignore my stupid ideas. Because, truth be told, I’m like the three year old with a plastic hammer who is “helping” his dad to put up a fence.
But what I do know for certain is that we need a shed. A huge great big shed, mounted on stilts, in case it rains.