Mary Mary

I'm quite pleased with the way the gardens coming on. The potatoes, onions, beetroot and peas are doing realy well. The carrots are so so and we can't decide wither we have salad or a patch of weeds. The plants in the green house are small but are doing very well. I've also picked my first radish, which was pot grown and the herbs patch and potted flowers all look amazing. But if I'm going to be honest I think Stellas sunflowers are doing the best.

We have pretty rubish soil and should have realy done some work to get it in better condition but of Pete's knee problem last year we never got round to it.

Half term heaven

We've managed to have a relay busy half term this time. Mainly because the weather's been so good here. We started off with the VegNE stall in town then a trip to the Taste Festival at which we bought some local cheese from The Northumberland Cheese Company and some jam and lemon cheese mmmmm.

The Sunday and Monday were spent doing the garden and catching up on the washing and Stella had her first sleepover at her friends up the road.

Tuesday was fantastic, we took the dog to Whitley Bay beach and walked from there all the way to North Shields. We did stop half way, at Cullercoats to have chips from the chippy but what made it relay special was that Pete managed to finish early and meet up with us on the way to the beach. We didn't get home till half ten with two shattered kids and one knackered puppy.

Wednesday we did the Orange Wednesday film offer and we went with Ruth, Ian and Josh to see the adaptation of the Neil Gaiman's book Coraline in the new 3D. Stella had borrowed and read the book, from Ruth and relay enjoyed it so was very excited about the film. We all relay enjoyed the it, it looked beautiful, the story was good but the 3D was a bit of a let down.

Thursday we went to our local garden centre to see if we could track down some grow bags. We'd tried all weekend to get some but for some reason there seems to be a shortage of them in the NE. It's a lovely walk along a footpath then over a couple of fields so we took Bracken with us. The farmer had just cut the grass in to lovely straight rows so the dog had a fantastic time jumping over the piled up grass there and back. We didn't have any luck tracking down grow bags though they, were all sold out so we bought some sorrel, lovage, a pot geranium and some lobiella for the garden instead.

On the Friday we decided to rest well rather pot out the new plants, tidy the house and do more washing. I knew my friend Ruth was going to pop over as Josh was having a tidy out and had some Goosebumps books books for Stella. When she turned up she had a supprise for us, two lovely grow bags. She had also bought some bedding plants which she split with me and I passed on what I had left over of the Lobiella.

We did our usuall Saturday stuff Stella went to dance class well rather we tried to get todance class but the bus didn't turnup so we were realy late and decided to forget about it and leave to the following week. Then we went shopping.

Sunday was again spent in the garden. I got out the 99p paddling pool we've had for years and put Stella in her UV suit and let her loose in the garden. Kyle even came and joined in and had loads of fun playing with Bracken and the pump action water pistol. Even 13 year old boys will allow them selfs to have fun when there's a pump action water pistol around. It was such a lovely day that we even eat dinner alfresco.

I love weeks like this it's nice to just be able to do things with the children with out the pressure of having to get up early or the routine of school. Roll on the summer holls and lets hope we have some of that promised good weather.

National Vegetarian Week

To celebrate National Vegetarian Week VegNe will be holding a stall in the Granger Market Newcastle. Info, leaflets and general chit chat will be availble all day.

This weeks list........

I have a plan to do a list at the start of each week of things that need doing. Some things might get done and some may not. I also might need to add to the list as the week goes on.

1 Track down a small bag of Aurtarky dog food for mutley.
2 Tidy out some of the junk in Stella's bedroom.
3 Get Kyle to tidy out some of the junk in his bedroom.
4 Put the box of stickle bricks up on Freecycle and what ever else appears out of the kids rooms
5 Sow some more tomatoes as the last lot don't seem to be germinating
6 Wash the couch covers
7 Henna my hair
8 Tidyout and dust the books
9 Cut the grass
10 Cut the hedge
11 Watch the rest of "Elfin Lied"
12 Get some elastic for the top I'm making Stella

Let's see how many get done, I'll tick them off as I go.

Monkey Girl

I think I have a monkey for a daughter. We went out with the lovely people of VegNe for a picnic, the other Sunday, and Stella and Zarah spent most of the time climbing the trees in Saltwell Park. Vicky, who was kind enough to organise the picnic, sent me some lovely photos of the girls in varions states of monkeyness.

The Flicks

I've been promising the munchkins a trip to the cinema for the last couple of months. It's really hard to find a film that they both want to see. Kyle likes the standered SF/action/anime and Stella likes Disney/singing/slushy/funny/anime so apart from them both agreeing on anime there's not a lot of choice.

In the end we choice "Race to Witch Mountain"a remake of the 70's Disney film. Lots of SF/action for Kyle and Disney/slushy and funny for Stella. They booth seemed to really enjoy it and it didn't have that dreaded lull, in the middle that so many films have nowadays, where the plot seems to vanish and they stick in twenty minutes of filler to pad the film out.

To make it a more frugal trip we used the Orange Wednesday offer and took along our own snacks. In the end we ended up paying just over a £10 for the three of us to go the the flicks.

Veggies

We finally managed to get most of the veggies planted this weekend. The potatoes, onions and carrots all went in nicely and this weekend it's the turn of the peas. I've quite a lot of things in the green house, sitting in pots and trays but they seem to be taking an age to germinate. Think it must be this northern weather. It's so changeable at the moment one minute hot the next freezing and the last couple of days have been like pea soup foggy.