Decluttering: sword in the works

I am going to a two-afternoon course at the City Lit on decluttering my life, in the hope of picking up momentum in my attempts to make space in my home and not store so much.

My main stumbling blocks are not wanting to waste anything, and it might come in useful one day.

On Monday I had my first session at the City Lit. On Tuesday a colleague asked whether I had a sword at home*. I did - a wooden one from doing sword-form at tai chi 15+ years ago. So I've lent it to him to use as a prop.

I haven't used that sword  for all those years, and now it has come in useful!

* He thought to ask me as I used to do archery, so was associated in his mind with weapons. (All my archery gear was sent to someone who was working with an archery club in Uganda.)

Elderflower champagne getting its fizz

I started drinking my elderflower champagne 2 weeks after making it, when the "cork" gave only the tiniest of pops. It was very nice, but no fizz.

Yesterday's bottle now has a slight fizz, and with 5 more bottles to go, I am hoping they will get fizzier and fizzier.

The danger of fizzy is why I left plenty of space in the bottles!

Late one evening in my teens there was a loud bang coming from a cupboard in the kitchen. It was opened to find bottles swimming in elderflower champagne as 2 bottles had exploded, with the break coming just above the bases, so at first we couldn't see which bottles the champagne had come from. The whole  family, some already in pyjamas, were then slowly easing off the tops (my mother used the old fashioned wire-topped cider bottles) so we could decant some into another bottle, leaving more space at the top.

It happened to me too, at the flat where I used to live; and I left the flat with a tiny piece of green glass still stuck in the spare bedroom ceiling!

Alan Titchmarsh and a small urban garden

Caught up with Friday's episode of "Love your Garden" on itvplayer yesterday - the episode on a small urban garden. This time Alan actually mentioned the size of the garden - 20 metres, so about the same size as mine. Only mention of shade was when Alan was putting a seddum roof on a shed beside a neighbour's tree which was on the north side.

The vegetable patch looked like a real vegetable patch rather than an attractive pottager which us ordinary mortals can't achieve in real life.

Also the vegetable growing on a small balcony (8 ft x 4 ft) was interesting. No shade problems, but I can't complain it wasn't small!!! Chinese cabbage in 8 weeks - I will have to look out for seeds of that next year.

He did say there was no excuse not to get peat free compost. They rarely sell it in DIY stores round here - getting 20 litre bags I can lift is a problem all of it's own!

And lovage mentioned again - hope to try that next year as well!

First courgette

When I was watering the pots this morning I spotted a small courgette on one of my 3 courgette plants and thought, in a few days time I'll be eating my first homegrown courgette. Then, this evening, when I was doing my big weekly water of the veg, I saw on the other side of the plant a courgette ready for cutting. I have just had it with some left-over spaghetti sauce. Yum!

Usually when it is dry I water both pots and veg. I have just started experimenting with leaving the veg for a week after proper rain before I water, and then give a really good dose (2 cans per sq metre). Rain forecast on Acuweather for Tuesday, but otherwise would try to hold off watering until the weekend.

Though I used a rose when watering the asparagus peas they were knocked over a bit - hope this is not an open invitation to every slug in the neighbourhood!

lavender & blackberries

I've just picked the lavender on the small bush in the front garden, leaving the new buds.

This year I need to refill some old lavender bags whose scent has completely gone.

Cycling this morning saw a few ripe blackberries on the bushes by the marshes - should be able to pick next weekend, and I've got out my plastic container to put in my saddlebag so I don't forget it.

blackcurrants and (2) gooseberries

Though I have 3 bushes in their second year, not a large crop. So, this afternoon, I picked and ate the berries straight off the bush! I also picked and ate the only 2 gooseberries on the gooseberry bush.

The blackcurrants particularly nice!

present of ash logs

I came home yesterday to a small pile of fresh ash logs behind the wheelie bin. These are from Linda, a neighbour a few doors down. Some need sawing into 2 so they fit in my stove, but there's a good evening's worth of burning there - and ash is the best wood, and can be burnt fresh rather than waiting for it to season for 2 years.

I am having problems finding a supplier of a load of logs. The supplier for the first winter I had my stove, who I think got the wood from Eastern Europe, disappeared from the telephone book. Last year I had a tree surgeon deliver a load of logs. He was very put out to find a terraced house with a tiny front garden, and no drive to dump the logs in. Though I helped him unload, and it didn't take us very long at all, this year he's not keen, but will ring me if he is in the area. Which is unlikely to coincide with time I can take off work!

Therefore I am relying on Len's offcuts (he's a carpenter living 3 doors up) and bits and pieces like this ash.