Apples and Marrows

Thought you might like to see some of our produce from the 'lottie'. Other years we've had an abundance of runner beans, this year it was courgettes, or rather the marrows they so quickly turn into, that we had coming out of our ears. At one point it was marrow for lunch and tea every day for weeks, the family narrowly got away at breakfast time. There are still several in the fridge as well as under the ground waiting to be picked at the allotment.

The apples have done very well, too. Lots and lots of them, shame I don't have a photo of the pears as they've also done well. Apple crumble tastes so much better when they are your own, even when they aren't cooking apples.  It's Apple Day tomorrow, October 21st, and there'll be a few events going on one being a 'bring your own apples to be pressed and get mulled cider and hot spiced apple juice in return' one which sounds good to me!

Our House has Turned into a Jungle

Not  a real one, of course, but it feels like one. The Chauffeurs' business partner needed to collect a lot of his plants from his offshoot business. The company who rented then from him doesn't have the money to pay for the rental of the plants and the upkeep of them, this is down to the money crisis going on in this country right now. It's a very large and public concern but even they can't spend on 'frivolous' things for the time being. Shame because plants are known for their soothing effect on the mind and the quality of air they enhance and goodness knows, this business who let them go could do with that right now. They haven't even fixed the window in the front of their building which the recent rioters smashed. As you go past in the centre of my town you can see it still boarded up, apparently it'll cost £80,000 to replace, so I can see why the plants have to go.

It's obviously a big disappointment to the Chauffeurs' partner, losing a good chunk of wages, and he also had the problem of knowing what to do with them all, there were over eighty large plants. Some were bought by the original company's employees and some by other people, but he was still left with excess, which is where our jungle has come in, we took a load of him. Better than throwing them out.

But our house is small, where do we put them? We've been plonking them wherever, but don't really have many decent places for them. And we do feel over-run by them as though they're taking over - hence the jungle comment. I felt like shouting 'helppp!' as the Chauffeur and his partner kept bringing more and more in. Mind you, I can't complain, it was my idea, 'a few nice plants will make the house look better', I said, 'a few plants will make things pleasanter and give a more homey feeling', I said - hmm 'a few plants', I said.

As my skills of plant husbandry in the past has always always resulted in dead plants which is why we don't have indoor plants it is now up to the Chauffeur to take care of them. He's been trying to tell me things like 'if the leaves look a bit yellow cut them off just here' but this fills me with fear and I can see in my minds eye Dead Plant, so will just leave it up to his capable hands.

This is the biggest, a trough of them. As you've seen they're all tropical ones, you know, rubbery ones. The Chauffeur suggests putting them altogether, making a statement type of thing.

They are nice, lovely in fact, and we're pleased to have them, but where to put them all? Apparently we have more to come, too!