Seizing the positives (or trying to!)

 

I have started the week as I want it to go on - with a positive note.  I have just bought "car recovery plus" coverage from Green Flag, who we used to be with before Saga offered us "free breakdown recovery" with their policy.  We all know where they can stuff THAT offer.  I didn't really want to drive anywhere without fresh cover in place, even though the car has been thoroughly tested and the only problem was the one they fixed, the air hose.

Over the weekend, I blew the dust off the x-stitch project I had been working on earlier in the year and have really enjoyed doing x-stitch again.  I just have to be careful I'm not hunched over it or else my back complains mightily.  I have another one which has lingered and is destined as a gift, so I MUST get back to that too as I was working on that BEFORE I had my reading specs and a better magnifying craft light.  I also have a nearly-finished one of a Devon village which I laid aside when it looked like Keith was really against us moving to Devon.  I just lost heart completely.

Apples.  We have L.O.T.S.  This is the eating apple tree.

The cooking apple tree which does an amazing apple sauce as the fruit cooks to a mush.

The pear tree - one which had humble origins at about £7 or so from Lidl or Morrisons.  Jolly good value and look at the pears on it!  We soon won't need to buy any for a few months.

More apple trees at the top of the yard - I grew these from pips and so of course have the parents of the apple I grew it from, which is the tree at the end of the drive, which you can cook with when first picked, but it mellows to be eaten raw too.

We have a goodly crop of Damsons again too, so I shall have to make some room in my freezer.  I can see some have mould but I need to get the step ladder out to remove them.  A job for when it isn't pouring with rain as it has been most of the morning.

The first pickings off two more plum trees (Lidl again).  They taste SO GOOD.

The Greek Gigantes beans are . . . gigantic!  I questioned Tam cutting 8 foot poles from our copse, but now I can see why they had to be that tall!

A 2nd crop of peas in a tub are growing well.  I sowed two rows more in the top of the bed, where the Kestrels have been, but it's a bit soggy at the top and not many have survived the recent rains.

I have just read The Summer Queen and am now on The Winter Crown.  Brilliant historical novels - Elizabeth Chadwick writes so well.  My friend Gay loaned me these, so I must see if she has The Autumn Throne too . . .  I can see I have lots of her novels to catch up on, which is something to look forward to in the winter months.  My bedtime reading is Bernard Cornwall's The Pagan Lord, about Uhtred. I've just finished his Death of Kings and written them all down in sequence.  Keith had the whole lot and I have them downstairs so will put them in order now.  Great story telling.