Smile it's Friday

We certainly have something to smile about this week, the allotment is finally looking tidy after approx 7 weeks of hard graft in our spare time. Just in time for the June inspection too **Breathes a huge sigh of relief**

The Rhubarb has settled in nicely after it's traumatic move from our old allotment. So far we have Potato's 1st&2nd Earlies just poking their shoots through, also the Garlic and Onions have taken off. The  third bed is still empty, it's reserved for all the seedlings in the green house when they are hardened off a bit more, as it's still so bitterly at night. Feeling very pleased with ourselves with what we have achieved in a short space of time.

Look we have stuff growing whoop whoop

 We've opted to keep the main part of the allotment covered this year, that's to keep the bulk of the weeds and grass under control and hopefully make it easier to dig in the Autumn. You can see how long the grass had got, looking at the allotment next to ours on the right. A heavy duty petrol strimmer was needed to finally bring it under control.

Looks good to me :o)

You can see how bad it was before we started here.

Now let's see who else is smiling today :o)

Follow @Miss_Biggun

Where Does The Time Go?

Now I'm retired I seem to have so much less time to do anything these days. 
I'm always so busy, how did I fit everything in before?
The past couple of weeks have been exhausting!

I had to have an emergency Dental appointment, More expense I could do without! My bridge shattered one of the teeth that supports it at the gum level, so I had to have a peg drilled into my jaw to support it so it could be refitted again. It's still really achy but the pain is dying down now.

The car had it's MOT and passed but needed a service, as my son has really clocked the miles up on it in the past year that he has been borrowing it. I'll be so glad to get it back next month, not having my own car is really getting me down now. 

Although I have the use of Himself's car it's really not the same, always having to make sure he's not using it if I want to go out or catching the bus is a real bummer. Don't get me wrong I'm not complaining, he's been a real star about letting me use it. I just hate being dropped off and picked up all the time, if I go out I want to leave when I feel like it, not at a set time. 

Stone Pit Crafts was born, which I'm very excited about.
 I've got my work area all sorted in the spare bedroom.

I've got myself a Domain name to set up a website, but having real problems trying to take it to the next stage. I thought getting it through Google/Blogger would be easy as I'm using it already, but I'm not finding the Help pages very Helpful at all, any hints, tips or tutorials on this subject would be much appreciated please.

The allotment is starting to take shape at last, this year we are only using the bottom third as there's still a lot of manual work to do on the other two thirds. I've covered most of the area to keep the weeds from growing and now I have a petrol strimmer, I'll soon make short work of all the weeds and grass at the back.

The acupuncture I'm having done is amazing! It really does work, I'm so much more mobile and my pain has been reduced by about half. I was very skeptical at first, but now I'm a total convert. Maybe I'll be able to reduce my medication at some point as a result, I sure hope so.

I've had to start wearing one of these weird wrist things, as the Carpel Tunnel in my right hand is causing me a lot of trouble, thankfully the left hand isn't playing up at the moment.

The problem is, when I'm wearing it I can't use my walking stick as it keeps my wrist rigid, so I have to take it off to go out, but the stick aggravates it badly. 
Catch 22
There has been talk of an operation on it, but it's something I've decided against for the time being after discussing it with the Specialist, as I won't be able to use my walking stick for approx four weeks to aid the healing process. 
Yeah right, how the heck am I supposed to get around then?

For my Birthday Himself treated me to a photographic workshop with Robert Barclay who was formerly a Fleet Street Photographer for many years, what an awesome guy. 

He was the subject of my Silent Sunday post last week and here's another of his awesome expressions.

We all spent time taking pictures of each other doing different poses, but Himself had to put is own spin on it which you can see here. 
I hate my picture being taken, but there are some really good ones of me that look really natural too. When I've received all the emails from the others on the course and sorted through I'll pick out some nice ones to post.
 I'll finally have a profile picture that I actually like at last. 

Just to finish off here's a couple of "arty" pictures I took that day that I really, really like.
Hope you do too?

Follow @Miss_Biggun

Silent Sunday

Follow @Miss_Biggun

Fun and Games

For my Birthday Himself treated me to a Photographic workshop run by Robert Barclay.

We had an awesome day and learnt so many new techniques. Himself got a little bored with the usual poses everyone was doing, so put his own spin on it, I was on continuous pictures so it worked pretty well.

For this to work properly you need to scroll through all the pictures really really fast, I've NOT used the full 42 pictures I took of this sequence, but pretty sure I have picked the best ones to give the effect of what he was up too.

Hope you found it as funny as we did. 

You can link up below to spread your Friday Smiles, or head over to Badger Boo's Daft Adventures where you can grab the code for the blog hop when you link up.

Follow @Miss_Biggun

Silent Sunday

Follow @Miss_Biggun

Silent Sunday

Follow @Miss_Biggun

Beauty and Ugly

The two extremes between Beauty and Ugly. 

I love how the pretty little Blue Tit is just sitting on the ugly barbed wire without a care in the world.

Follow @Miss_Biggun

Mumbo Jumbo and Voodoo

I'd like to start this post with a "Big Thank You" to Lesley Beeton for all her support. 

She recommended I ask the Doctor to refer me to the Pain Clinic, when my Arthritis was really agonising several months ago and having a severe negative impact on my life.

As a result it was recommended I try acupuncture. 

Yeah right, it's all mumbo jumbo and voodoo isn't it?

Well I'm telling you it really, really works!!!

 It's not for everyone I grant you, but it has improved my pain management no end. I feel great, so great I just scared the chuffin' life out of myself when I realised I'd just trotted down the stairs like a normal person without thinking about it. 

Normally I have to go down one stair at a time hanging on to the hand rails in case my knee's give way, they do quite often. I've fallen down the stairs on numerous occasions sustaining minor injuries and one time dislocating my shoulder.

I've been having Reflexology for about five years now with Christina Driscoll in Camberly and it's great at keeping me moving, but as my Arthritis has got worse I've needed something a little more.

The first acupuncture session was all new to me and little scary, but it didn't stop me sneaking my camera out to prove I'd had it done, to those who thought I couldn't go through with it.

I won't lie, it did sting a bit when Gev (my Physio-Terrorist) put the needles in, but soon I couldn't feel them at all. As the weeks have gone on I now have much bigger needles and a lot more of them, although I've never thought to count how many.

I'm still on some pretty heavy duty painkillers and hopefully I should be able to start reducing them soon, but one step at a time I don't want to rush into anything to quickly.

I'm linking this post to The Gallery as the theme this week is "New" and acupuncture was new to me.

So if someone suggests it to you for pain management, give it a go.
You have nothing to lose except the pain. 
I'm so glad I did.

Follow @Miss_Biggun

Silent Sunday

Follow @Miss_Biggun

Blossom

Apple Blossom

Cherry Blossom

Beautiful things always make me smile :o)

Follow @Miss_Biggun

Hard Work Now Showing Results

Every weekend since the middle of March except for one Himself and I have been slogging our guts out, digging our new allotment with a little help from Badger Boo although BB's help was mainly in a supervisory capacity.  

When I took our allotment over it had been left for sometime, although it wasn't in as bad an overgrown state as some of the others I looked at. Yes I was lucky, I had the choice of four. 

Looking up the plot.

Looking down the plot.

It's a big plot it's what is know as 10 rods, but our last one was very tiny and as we have such a small garden I wanted the largest I could get, so this can become our garden to sit out in as there is a fabulous community spirit there.

So we set about digging and got some Potato's  planted the first week.

Backbreaking work for Himself :o)

We quickly dug three beds in the bottom quarter, it was backbreaking work as it is over run with Couch Grass. We decided we would work the rest of the plot slowly over the rest of the year, and rid it of as much Couch Grass as we could, then really go for it next year.

As most of you know, neither of us are in the best of health, so we don't want to knock ourselves out, as then we may lose interest. Then the weather changed and the sun came out which is great after the long cold Winter we have had.

BUT

That meant the weeds and couch were growing like wildfire! So we had to cover most of them over and get the rest cut down, our lovely new allotment was looking like The Dingles Homestead in Emmerdale  compared to everyone else's. We've still got to buy a petrol strimmer, so it had to be done by hand with a pair of shears and the first assault  of "Operation Kill the Couch Grass" had began.

It was bloody hard work but we are very pleased with the results.

First part of "Operation Kill the Couch Grass"

We laid tarpaulin to kill off most of the couch grass, when it's all dead we'll dig and get the roots out as it's really resilient stuff. Himself had to sift the couch roots out of the compost, I'd been putting them in there, not knowing it was the wrong thing to do. They are now all happily drowning in the buckets of water and holding down the tarpaulins, so they can be burnt in a few weeks time, on the advice of one of the other allotment holders, they really are a helpful lot there.

A well earned cup of coffee for Himself as he surveys our efforts.

We've been offered the third shed down from our plot (in picture below) it needs a new roof as it has completely rotted but that's easily sorted. It's basically sound for an old shed, so Himself we just need to level a spot for it and find some helpers to shift it. Complete if we can as it may not survive being taken apart. Whatever happens, if it falls apart we can always rebuild a smaller shed with it's wood. I do love a challange to adapt and overcome.

We still have a lot to do, but thanks to the glorious weather over the Bank Holiday weekend we are getting there and our hard work is showing results at last. 

Very pleased with the end result, still loads more to do but we are getting there.

The Apple Tree on the allotment is now in blossom, I'm really looking forward to try out my very own home grown apples later this year. 

I wonder what type of apples these will grow into?

  Now go check out the other links to The Gallery theme The Weekend.

Follow @Miss_Biggun