A Few Ramblings…
Forty-six year old Christian happily negotiating the world with a wife and three daughters
May Walk to Cookham Dean – 29th May 2011
It’s been a quiet weekend overall.
Yesterday we did shopping in Sainsburys followed a little more work on the veg plot. This included planting a few more runner beans, as well as substituting three of the tomato plants (which had died) for French beans.
We still have some more French beans as well as onions to add to the plot. I’ll do a more detailed update with photos again soon.
This afternoon I went on the latest of our monthly walks to Cookham Dean with Rebekah. Here are a few shots from the afternoon.
Cricket at Cookham Dean Cricket Club
Daisies
Cow parsley at F1.4
More cow parsley
Rebekah
Daisy in Cookham Dean Churchyard
Second BBQ of the year – 21st May 2011
It was always going to be difficult to follow the excitement of yesterday.
After a visit to John Lewis this morning, during which Rebekah bought a Lego Police boat, some brief work and planting on the vegetable plot and the planting of a forsythia in our garden, we decided to make the most of the good weather and have a spontaneous BBQ.
Sarah hastened off to town to pick up the essentials while I was commandeered into helping build the aforementioned Police boat as well as cutting the grass – for only the second time this year!
We invited Sarah’s parents round to partake in such culinary delights as beef burgers, chicken burgers, sausages, Pringles, various salad items and wine.
Being the hard-working chef at these prestigious occasions I didn’t find much time to take photos, although I quite liked this one of Rebekah taking a photo of the food on the BBQ (not sure where she gets that idea from!)
Rebekah in her summer hat
I think the first BBQ of the season passed with such little fanfare that I don’t even have any photos to mark the occasion.
Hopefully the weather will continue to remain ‘BBQ friendly’ during the summer.
An engaging day – 20th May 2011
Today will go down as being the day that news gradually leaked out about the engagement of our good friends Alan and Jennifer.
Alan and Jennifer
The first inkling that I had that seemed a little strange was an ‘early doors’ tweet from my friend Becky:
http://twitter.com/bexfitnessfreak/status/71453660927893504
This seemed a little unusual, given that we’re talking about someone who doesn’t even possess a mobile phone and has only relatively recently joined Facebook!
Having checked it out, I found this as Alan’s first tweet:
http://twitter.com/alan_r_m/status/71375149882015745
His second tweet was more confusing, but I put it down to Alan being Alan:
http://twitter.com/alan_r_m/status/71379572804952065
Already the day was extraordinary enough:
It was only going to get more baffling:
http://twitter.com/alan_r_m/status/71470611335090176
A few Direct Messages later and it became clear that something was beginning to develop. It seems that the news leaked out first on Facebook before I received:
http://twitter.com/alan_r_m/status/71488963482877952
Not having been on Facebook, I jokingly replied:
Alan’s reply was even more cryptic, but interestingly there was no denial:
http://twitter.com/alan_r_m/status/71493290830217216
I jokingly replied before hearing from Sarah that Alan had changed his status on Facebook to being engaged to Jennifer!
For most of the day the story continued to develop, as people began to realise that this actually wasn’t a wind-up:
The afternoon wore on before it seemed that another friend had joined Twitter with the aim of clarifying the truth:
http://twitter.com/Davidhcic/status/71578485713408000
Finally, a seemingly official statement from the ‘Bride to be’:
I asked about the ring and it seemed that all was still work in progress:
Even up to a few hours ago, it still wasn’t certain:
http://twitter.com/bexfitnessfreak/status/71599557422747648
Eventually it seemed to be being verified by several people:
…including Alan:
http://twitter.com/alan_r_m/status/71622161852403712
…although some people are proving harder to convince:
http://twitter.com/nutterfreddie/status/71630208922435584
At the end of a day that many had hoped, wished and prayed for I offer them both my warm congratulations and best wishes for a long and happy marriage together.
Great work…eventually!
Update….even Mr Wells is happy now!
http://twitter.com/nutterfreddie/status/71719576450236417
Vegetable planting – 14th May 2011
What a difference a month makes! Last time I added a post on here about the vegetable plot, we were in the middle of an April heatwave, I was in shorts and battling through the heat to plant tomatoes and courgettes.
Since then, we’ve had some rain and the weather has cooled down although it now appears to be getting drier and warming up again!
Last weekend I managed to plant some carrot seeds with Rebekah. She made a small gutter for the seeds to go in and planted one row while I did the same, alongside, with another variety. As yet, there are no signs of carrots coming through.
Today was a busy day in the vegetable plot. Firstly I did more digging in the area still covered with grass. Originally an apple tree grew on the site where the vegetable garden is. While the stump has long-since been removed, there are still several roots that I regularly find whilst digging and these have to be cleared and dug out as much as possible.
The vegetable plot in all it's glory
Once the digging was finished, it was time to erect the bean canes and plant the runner beans. In addition, we also managed to put in some more tomatoes and four cucumber plants. Hopefully all will have survived the planting, although some are looking a little feeble currently!
Runner beans and tomatoes
In summary, we now have runner beans, tomatoes, courgettes, carrots, cucumbers, rhubarb and a gooseberry bush planted. There are still some French beans and sunflowers that really need to go in, as well as the final corner of grass clearance to be finished.
Hopefully all the hard work will reap dividends later in the summer and we can sit back in our castle and enjoy the fruits (and vegetables) of our labour.
A Few Ramblings... 