18-Mar to 24-Mar 2012

Sun 18-Mar: Suppose to be an allotment 'garage' sale on Saturday by one of plotholders giving up due to family commitments, so I emailed Allotment Association members to let them know last week... and then promptly popped along to see if there was anything of interest. Sneaked in with an early offer of £25 for the poles (3 more to come), water butt and stand and garden slabs. The water butt itself would have cost more than £25 new. In fact another plotholder made an early offer for everything else on the plot (shed, fruit trees, fencing, raised beds) so there was nothing to sell by Saturday! Wheelbarrowed the last of the garden slabs across this morning (of course the plot was way on the other side of the allotment site)... flippin' 'eck, were those garden slabs heavy! Hoping to make a small patio in front of the greenhouse.

Mon 19-Mar: Here's what's growing on the study windowsill at the moment... three types of tomatoes (including the precious plum tomato seeds given me by Italian John) and sweet peppers. Just under 150 seeds in all, though none have popped their heads up yet. And the little dots in the red tray are 100 parsnip seeds I'm experimenting with. Parsnips can be hard to germinate (though Linda keeps telling me all hers came up when planted straight in the ground last year) and this is one way I've read you can check them out easily. Of course I've also planted about 100 in the ground at the allotment as well. It's really hard not to go overboard at this time of year.

Tue 20-Mar: Here are the new occupants of the pond... a couple of bunches of frogspawn, another couple elsewhere in the pond. Got them out of a ditch on the way up to the allotment. So the tadpole watch starts from here!

Wed 21-Mar: It was First Coffee of the Year on The Dolphin Patio Day today... the first time it felt warm enough to sit out and enjoy sunshine, coffee, and the fantastic view of the St Ives Bridge completed in 1425. Now all we need is Holt Island Nature Reserve to open (at Easter) and the fun part of the year really will have started.

Thu 22-Mar: Signed up for the new kitchen today from Anglia Interiors, all £7,800 worth which only involves floor units (don't want any wall units so as open as possible), oven and hob. Oh, and the beautiful, beautiful granite worktop of which the above image is a poor representation. Six weeks to delivery of units, another week after fitting by Chris between the granite people making a template and then fitting the worktop. What about the floor units? Click here for an idea of what the light oak solid wood style looks like (though not with those handles).

Fri 23-Mar: Off for a two hour plus walk from Fenstanton, along The Ouse and the lakes and back to Fenstanton this morning. Beautiful Spring day, so warm I was down to T shirt and thinking fondly of the shorts I could have worn. Here's the view across one of the lakes as we took a rest sat on a bench. Must take sandwiches and a flask of tea next time..., the one fault with this walk is no pub half way round.

Sat 24-Mar: Becky and Barry invited us for lunch at Johnsons of Old Hurst, the farm famous locally for breeding crocodiles for the plate (although don't think he's had any success yet). Sammy and Izzy loved the play area, the peacocks wandering about the tables, being able to touch the cattle and pigs, and all the other exotic animals including the crocodiles. We sat enjoying the warm sunshine on the patio. Here's what I had... excellent part steak burger, part lamb burger, both of which were reared on the farm, and a nice glass of merlot.