A full Saturday (updated with more pics)

Saturday was drier than expected so OH and I decided to spend the day on the allotment. I wanted to crack on with preparing two more beds for the last squashes and some more herbs. OH wanted to finish the second raised bed for his vines -- Perlette this time (Mueller-Thurgau is already in and racing away).

The bee saga had resolved itself quite peacefully earlier in the week. That same evening, when I had said, heroically, that I would pick strawberries come what may, I had wrapped myself up full body-burka-style, plus a hoodie top, looking a little like Kenny from South Park with only my nose poking out. Bring it, thug bees. You won't get me.

OH all of a sudden decided to go to the allotment with me -- the secretary had emailed to say that J had been back and sorted the bees out -- so OH's decision to walk towards the gate with me only in jeans and t-shirt made me look like a total neurotic. Sure enough, as we approached the gate, it was open and a family walked through it on their way out, calmly, not sprinting or flailing madly. The mother glared at me as if I was a right weirdo. "Have the bees been behaving themselves?" I said to her from under my hoodie. The mother said nothing and just walked past me. "Arrogante Kuh, I hope one of them gets you," I mumbled under my breath, in German. Only later did it occur to me that they may not even have realised there was a bee problem. No wonder she thought I was weird.

Yesterday, Saturday, the bees were back but much more mellow -- no attacks this time. We'd learnt in the meantime that one of the hives had gone a bit nasty and would be moved up the hill to a less busy area. I was glad they were mellow yesterday because I was the one doing the horseshit run with our sack barrow and I was not in a position to run very far with this thing. We bumped into a gaggle of allotmenteers on the central path, all three of them men, who openly jeered OH for making me push the heavy sack barrow. This sort of thing is a man's job round here. Part of me went "Ha! Justified!" and another thought, hang on, so what if the roles are reversed? I enjoy heavy-duty grunt work, and he is the wizard in the kitchen. But I didn't want to get into a discussion over gender role stereotyping on a day like this so I let it go.

OH and I forked over the second compost bed, moved it further towards the boundary, manured the ground underneath, already saturated with all the composted goodness, and planted the remaining squash plants into it. They should get massive.

Then OH headed back home with the sack barrow to get his drill. I went on to thump the living daylights out of the hard-baked clods of overturned soil and managed to get 2 beds sorted out.

 Then weeded and sowed some more carrot seeds. Planted out more marigold seedlings, radicchio seedlings and lettuce seedlings. Our lettuces, Kagraner Sommer, are lovely, very tender and sweet and most have only one slug inside, but unfortunately they are bolting already so it'll be lettuce with everything from now on.

Some bug is chewing at the Bavarian radish seedlings but at least they're coming through. The carrots are a bit meh -- some have come, others didn't. The beetroot seedlings are poking through, which is nice. The red cabbage is doing well as is the sprouting broccoli. Some pigeons managed to get into the netting and had a go but from what I can see the seedlings all survived. The broadbeans are doing very well as is the rainbow chard -- lovely fleshy leaves and brightly coloured stalks (red, golden). The runner beans are still a bit slow to take off but they're starting the winding phase. Don't really know what to do with the soil to make them like it more but I have just not been very lucky with runners or with ordinary peas. The leeks I sowed some weeks ago are poking through. Self-seeded calendulas are coming up everywhere -- very nice. Sunflowers are also growing nicely now that we actually have some sun.

The only disappointment so far has been the kales, perhaps because we've not netted these and the pigeons are getting to them. Have said to OH that we'll have to net them this weekend to give them a fighting chance.

One of the really pleasing surprises this summer has been the sweet williams, a type of dianthus that is about 60 cm tall and throws out lovely bicoloured flowerheads in all shades of white, pink and purple. I sowed it last year but once the seed packet that I'd propped onto the stick had been eaten by slugs, I forgot what it was -- I'd sown so many summer flowers in there, I can't keep track of all of them! Anyway, no flowers came out of that row last summer so I just left them to it. This spring, the flowers all came up and for the last 3 weeks I've had the most fantastic display. They are great as cut flowers and last quite a long time in the vase. Having said that though: they look much nicer in the bright light outside where their flowers are luminous, especially at dusk when the purples really cut through the murk.

 OH and I toiled away until the evening when OH called beer time and we sat on our upturned Frueh Koelsch crates and toasted our work.

It's beer o' clock.

When we got back home, I nipped next door and threw an unbolted head of lettuce over the fence to P, who earlier in the week had brought us a cheap-as-chips Irwin handsaw. I will offer him the money back of course but he'll say no and so we'll pay him back in German beer, homebrew, fruit and veg from the plot and fresh mint for his mojitos. P must have forgotten about the fact we still owed him on the handsaw (it was worth about 10 lettuces) and came round five minutes later to offer us his latest culinary highlight, a tupperware box of cullen skink, a creamy thick Scottish soup made of potatoes, leek and lots of smoked haddock. Thank you!

We had that as our starter and then got ready to go into town for a proper dinner. If it was down to OH, who is surprisingly stingy, we would never be eating out properly but be forever eating out of sushi boxes from King's Cross Wasabi whilst sitting in hotel rooms overlooking an airport, or sitting down in tiled takeaways for yet another fricking kebab.

I said as much to him earlier this morning and he gave in after my rant and proposed to go to a new place that had opened up in town. I'd managed to get most of the allotment dirt out of my fingers and from under my fingernails but because I'd faffed around so much making sure I looked nice and presentable without the new red shoes shredding my feet, it was well after 9pm when we hit town and most of the restaurants stopped serving hot food by 9.30pm. The new restaurant was fully booked. We were getting perilously close to kebabs at dawn but thankfully we finally found somewhere and fetched up in an Italian chain restaurant staffed exclusively by Eastern European women, which did good basics and offered a so-so house white.


I'm actually quite glad we went there because this means I can nag OH about going to this new place fairly soon.

Today, Sunday, we're having a lazy morning followed by some telephone exam-prep tuition for one of the nephews, and then we'll go back out on the plot again to sow more stuff and turn over the last two beds at the back. Leftover chicken and fried potatoes and lettuce with mayonnaise tonight!