Nollaig Shona Duit, or, Hauskaa Joulua!

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2009!
Instead of Christmas Cards we decided to spend the money on a
Hamper of Cat Food Delights that we donated to
The Society for Abandoned Animals
With seasons greetings,
Dee, Emma, and Lily & Rose

Hauskan Joulun ja Onnellisen Uuden Vuoden 2009 Toivotukset
Joulukorttien sijaan päätimme käyttää rahat
Herkkukorilliseen kissanruokaa, jonka lahjoitimme

Löytöeläintalolle The Society of Abandoned Animals

Jouluterveisin,
Emma, Dee ja Lily & Rose

Couple of allotmenteering links

It's been a busy autumn and we've not had a chance to put up photos here... shame on us!
And I still won't, just adding couple of useful links as we've been working to get the allotment in winter shape

Compost in Manchester

Tips for allotment - especially how to make pots from newspaper as we've utilized the other tips already before. Just wondering if these homemade pots will keep water at all...

Our old ladies

So, summer is over, we are back in Manchester. I'm planning to get pictures up from Shetland travel soon enough...

But here's the happy news - we've got two cats! These girls came from the local animal sanctuary (http://www.s-a-a.co.uk/).

Here STARING is Mama Rose (previously known as Stanley), she's anything between 10 and 13 years old. Very calm (mostly) and loving social cat. Staring is something she does a lot!

Here then is her one-eared daugher, Lily White (previously known as 'Fatty'! - horrible name!). She's at least as loving and sociable as Rose, and likes to eat :) She's a bit younger than Rose but around 10 yrs old too.

They are both indoor cats, which suits us very well.

news and views from the allotment

In this time between traveling up and down the country we're trying to spend as much time in the allotment to weed, fix and plant the last few seeds. As Emma has explained in the previous post we've been harvesting a nice little amount every time we visit the allotment.

So for some images:






























































Never quite sure which way these images show up when published so a little bit on each:
We've had quite a few berries - that makes Emma happy! She's waiting for the day when our bushes produce enough to make jams, juices and all things Finnish!

Our spinach is doing very well - no matter how often we pull off leaves etc - brilliant for regeneration! Same goes for the lettuce. Those small little heads have produced so much. My attempts at getting other seedlings to survive isn't going well :(

We're so delighted our courgette plants have not only survived but started to produce fruit! it's amazing. Those plants thrived at home and even when they got into the raised bed (which you can see from lettuce/courgette plant image).

The other image shows sunflower plants growing against our 'shackeen'. Basically this structure made from pallets and plastic sheeting - works well to store our tools etc.

As this is our first attempt at allotmenting - any produce is real success for us! The state of our allotment back in Oct/Nov this stage of bringing fresh salad, potatoes, courgettes etc seemed a long way off!

So well done us!

Our next trip comes too quickly again - and we'll be away for near 5 weeks - so we're on the lookout for allotment-sitters! if ya can help get in touch!!! free food for you :D

ciao..D

First harvests

We're back from Brighton now - a long drive on Fritz! Too long for one day... No photos just yet tho.

We went back to the allotment to see how things are growing - all well. Even the brassicas (cauliflower & broccoli) that as seedlings were quite eaten by birds are recovering well now under netting, and growing a lot!
This far we've got
- a lot of potatoes (and a lot more to come)
- nice pieces of rasberries from our tiny little bushes
- lettuce leaves (a lot!)
- spinach (and a lot more growing!)
- raddishes

... and for next year we've bought a (plastic) greenhouse! :)

Northmavine, Shetland part 2 - Eshaness Cliffs

The views are one of the main reason for people to travel to Shetland and indeed the views in Eshaness are fantastic!

Northmavine, Shetland part 1

These photos are from Mavis Grind, the small bit of land that connects Northmavine to Mainland Shetland - without which NM would be an island... but as it stands, it is not

People in Northmavine have been developing the area lately and trying to attract more tourists there too. Part of this is the 'geology wall', which introduces the different types of stones found in Northmavine - among them the most oldest one in Shetland!































This is Mavis Grind from a hill - on the rigth hand side it's Atlantic, on the left hand side it's the North Sea! (In 'olden times' people used to carry their boats over the small bit of land to get a shortcut!)

My wheel!

So, I'm back from Shetland now, will try to get some photos online... Here's my spinning wheel - made by Stewart on Fair Isle - he thought me to spin when I first was there in 2004, now I have a wheel of my own!

(eli kuvassa on mun rukki! Jee jee :)

Harvey RIP

Our poor little darling cat was hit by a car on Monday night. Dee found her next morning after spending a sleepless night worrying for her - she hadn't been out all night before.

We only had her for some months but she had found her place in our home and our hearts... Missing her..

Eshaness campsite, Shetland

Finally I have an internet connection that stay on long enough to post photos! Best not risk it though, so I'll just send this photo on it's own.

The photo is from the Shetland campsite in Eshaness, with fantastic views to the sea!

Another day - another round of planting and weeding

The amount of weeds from one small section of the bed I was working on is amazing!



Potato plants showing up in bizarre areas! Perhaps we didn't get them all out, Em! - right next to the raspberry plants"




How our raised bed looks now with:
Courgettes, lettuce, radish, garlic plant (tiny one to the left, above the leeks), and of course leeks.














This pic shows the drills I dug to plant 2 rows of cauliflowers and one row of broccoli.




Spud plant up close..











The finnish flowers!







The area I worked - where the amount of weeds came from!
I planted the little spinach plants the Greek lady gave me!

Allotment update

Ah! It's been a while since we've posted about the allotment. I've spent some time there recently and it's beginning to show an improvement. The current plantation is:

Leeks, onions, potatoes, carrots, raspberries, courgettes and lettuce and some Finnish flowers! Over the weekend, I hope to get there to plant some corn, broccoli and cauliflower, and perhaps some sunflowers. We've decided to keep the tomatoes at home as last summer's crop was great and so accessible.

We've some new neighbours - and I'm horrendously jealous of their plot. Seems to be weed free. All they've had to do is clear the grass and the top growth. Our plot was, and still is, inundated with all sorts of weeds, especially the dreaded bindweed. You could spend the whole year clearing the plot and still have some bindweed in there :@








Now for some pics of our plot:







This is where I've been focusing my attention recently. Spuds are in and so too all the carrots and onions in this space.











The leeks in the raised bed - next to the leeks are lettuce and courgettes















The raspberry bushes









before all my hard work today - more pics tomorrow

Burntisland

Again, beaches attracted us and we set up camp in Burntisland - across the water from Edinburgh.

The site was part of a massive holiday home complex...not the best in terms of facilities but it did the job.

From Burntisland, we made our way to visit Scotland's secret bunker! (check it out: http://www.secretbunker.co.uk/ )














Onwards to St. Andrews

Scotland! Finally...

We finally made it to Scotland! We had a pit-stop along the way..in a town I can't remember!!

Sheep talking!

Sheep talking is surprisingly easy!

It's a long way to....er....Aberdeen!

Thurs 24th April:
We left Manchester after 3pm with a full tank, instructions left with Steve for the cat and the map on my knee. Our first destination was north of the Lake District on the Cumbrian coast. The idyllic views of the countryside were welcome after the hecticness and aggression of motorway driving. Our fears of big hills were quashed when Fritz showed he was more than capable of tackling the longest and steepest hills (albeit slowly and grudgingly!)

Our campsite for the night was in St.Bees. With the sun close to setting we arrived and set up Fritz for the night!
Below some pics..


























The site was more or less on the beach and we had terrific views. The site was mostly static motorhomes & caravans.

Friday 25th April:
We crossed the country the next day using A roads instead of the motorways.
Our target was Hadrian's Wall at Haltwhistle. We set up camp in a site very close to the wall..with a duck & pond for a neighbour!















We did some walking along the wall
and eventually found the pub!