Snow!!

This was the view this afternoon from my bedroom window, very pretty and very cold! I wonder how long this snowy spell will last?

Finally, a new post!

It's been ages since I blogged about anything so it's time to do a bit of updating. I've dropped the doll's house mini's for the time being - I just seem to have lost the enthusiasm somehow. I might get it back but it's pointless carrying on with it when I don't really feel like it. Nigel and I have an allotment now, we got it last Summer and spent a lot of time digging it and getting it in some sort of shape to grow a few things. We weren't all that successful, we started late in the year for planting and the weather wasn't great, and we were inundated by a vast army of slugs. We did manage to grow some courgettes, peas, sprouts, strawberries, beetroots, radishes and spinach, so we did okay. Oh, and my leeks are doing quite well, they are still in the ground and almost ready now. Hopefully this year we'll be able to grow more. One thing that was hugely successful was our crop of raspberries, not on the allotment but in our garden - we still had raspberries appearing in December! We didn't do a lot of foraging last year because we were so busy with the allotment, but we did go out one day to gather bilberries, which was backbreaking because they grow so low down and they're so tiny! We persevered though and brought back a big tub of them. I made bilberry pancakes, they were delicious and they freeze well, too. I'll definitely be gathering them again this year. So here we are in 2013, the year has got off to a slow start, not much work around and my car has to be taxed at the end of this month so I'm not exactly loaded at the moment but things will pick up soon I hope. I'm planning to find another job, something a bit different this year, even if it's just a few hours a week to start with. I feel as though I've got stuck in a bit of a rut and I need to branch out. I also plan to have a holiday this year - haven't been anywhere for ages!! A change of scenery is definitely needed! Things to buy this year... a new sofa, ours is very tatty now and I don't think it will stay in one piece for much longer. When I say a 'new' sofa, I actually mean a second-hand one, probably from FRAME. I don't see the point of spending hundreds of pounds when I can get on for around fifty/sixty quid! New stuff doesn't really interest me, I'm quite happy to buy second-hand stuff as long as it's in reasonable condition and clean. Besides, Neo, our cat, will claw whatever sofa we get anyway - even if we spent a zillion quid on it he'd start to wreck it as soon as it arrived, so what's the point? I'd also like to buy a pushbike, even though the incredibly steep hills that surround our village would render it practically impossible for me to go anywhere! I could cycle down to the beach though, that would be do-able and it would be fun, that's if we get any decent weather this year. I had a walk through the woods the other day, I was looking for cleavers, those long, clingy weeds that stick to everything - they make a brilliant tonic. I found some, they are still small at the minute but I managed to collect about half a carrier bag full and I drank the juice with fresh orange juice, it was lovely. It snowed heavily today so I couldn't go to work. Nigel came home early and said the road outside the village was very slippy so I stayed home and built a snowman :o) Well that's it for now, I have a sink full of washing-up to tackle so I'd better crack on!