Hooray for long weekends
I had planned to post over the bank holiday weekend, but it
ended up being busier than I had expected! On Friday we took a nice walk down
the Thames towards the city centre. The towpath is well maintained, and wide
enough for walkers and cyclists to pass one another relatively easily (assuming
the cyclists are sensible enough to use their bells and let you know they’re
there – if they just hover around behind me huffing I move to the middle of the
path and slow down. Because I’m horrible, that’s why*). We had planned to walk
as far as the meadows and have a little picnic brunch, then wander home again.
In the end we had our brunch in the meadows of Christchurch College after two
hours steady walking, then walked home again. We were both feeling it a little
the next day but it was a lovely walk, watching the canal barges and rowing
team practises, and having the closest encounter I have ever had with a jay. I’ve
always thought of them as shy birds, but this one landed six feet away from our
picnic rug and inspected our food with the air of a restaurant critic before
graciously accepting some titbits of sausage roll.
We managed to get a fair amount done in the garden as well.
Previous tenants have obviously had strawberry plants at some point because
there are about 20 popping up in random locations along the side of the shed
and one of the raised beds. I’ve transplanted the 10 healthiest looking ones to
a raised bed that gets lots of sun and if any more start looking like really
determined little survivors I’ll figure out some kind of planter arrangement
for them. We have picked up some grow-bags and compost as well for the tomato
seeds that are sitting in a cheap Wilkos propagator in the little lean-to conservatory
at the back of the house, and I’ve put some cabbage seeds in there to get
started as well. Wilkos have had gro-bags, compost and other garden ‘essentials’
on special offer for a couple of weeks, and although the shop is only a 10
minute walk away neither of us have really fancied doing the walk back with 200
litres of compost to carry, so on Sunday I put Leo in the wheelbarrow and we trundled
round, got our compost, and he toddled home holding my hand while Matt pushed
the barrow. We did get a few funny looks from mums with £500 designer ‘travel
systems’ as we clomped past with our rusty wheelbarrow full of giggling two
year old, but we also met an elderly chap in Wilkos who said he’d been trying
to figure out how to take advantage of the special offer on compost and would
be back later with his own wheelbarrow!
*Partly kidding – I cycle to work every day and stay off the
pavements, stop at crossings, signal clearly and wear high-vis clothing, so
cyclists who behave like ill-mannered hooligans and give the rest of us a bad
name really peeve me.
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