Tag: The Week That Was

TWTW # 12 Welcome To British Summer Time

On By TontowilliamsIn Garden / Allotment, The Week That Was, work

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The clocks changed last weekend, and my body & mind have been trying to catch up all week, and it’s been a pretty busy week!

On Monday evening I was giving a talk to Harwell Gardening Club. The talk was entitled An Allotment Year, but as Monday was also April Fools Day, I couldn’t resist talking a little about some of the “gardening” April Fools that there have been. These included Waitrose’s Pinanas; Tesco’s whistling carrots (so you can tell when they’re cooked); who could forget the great Panorama spaghetti farming story; and finally Herr Moler’s phosphorescent sunflowers so that you can read in the garden at nighttime.

I think the talk went well, and there was an invitation to come back another time, so a good evening was had by all.

I’ve also been mostly working on the delivery of the proposal accepted by one of my clients last week. It’s involved a lot of research, and I’ve started writing the main report. That will continue this week, and I hope to deliver the draft to the client next week.

I’ve had a couple of other meetings so it’s been a pretty busy working week all in all.

Although we are officially on Summer Time, it seems the weather has dropped several degrees in temperature. Gone are the shorts of last week and I’m back in jeans again. This will probably be short-lived (sorry for the pun), as it was getting warmer again yesterday.

The weather has meant that other than harvesting purple sprouting broccoli and leeks, I’ve not done very much on the allotment. Instead I’ve been busy transplanting broccoli and cauliflower seedlings into bigger pots, and sowing some sweet peas and a few other flowering annuals for hanging baskets and pots.

It’s possible that we might soon be able to see White Tailed Eagles not very far away from here. A licence has been granted for their reintroduction, and although that’s only a step in the process it’s moving in the right direction for a reintroduction in due course, possibly as soon as this summer. You can read more about it here.

The clocks changing has really mucked up my sleeping patterns, and with a busy week I’ve been a little bit too tired to read when I finally end up in bed. I’ve been dipping into Under The Rock by Benjamin Myers again, which although I read this last year, is coming out in paperback in a couple of weeks time and the publishers have asked me if I’d re-review it. They’ve also given me a copy of the paperback to give away here when that review is published, so if you’re interested watch this space (if you really don’t want to miss your chance then you can subscribe to posts in the box on the right hand menu – you can unsubscribe at any time, and I don’t give your details to anyone else or spam you with anything other than posts from this blog, one post equals one email).

That’s it for this week. Things are a little quieter this week, my main focus needs to be on my clients report. The sooner that’s delivered, the sooner I can have a bit of fun!

TWTW # 10 Potato Palooza

On By TontowilliamsIn The Week That Was

After digging the potato trenches last weekend, I finally got my potatoes in the ground this weekend. This is considerably earlier than last year, as this time last year we had snow on the ground, and there was nothing happening on the allotment, but around the end of June / beginning of July we should have some new potatoes to eat.

I also managed to transplant my shallots and get them out, along with sowing a row of carrot seed between them and the over-wintering onions. The smell of the onions and shallots is supposed to disguise the smell of the carrots from the carrot root fly.

I’m also feeling that I have a better idea of the rest of the allotment layout for this year ahead. If the weather holds, I’m going to start sowing some more seed.

I think the season has really started in earnest.

 

I had a meeting mid-week which resulted in a request for a proposal and I completed it on Friday, now I just have to wait and see what happens next.

I spent a morning this week sorting out all of the loose recipes in the kitchen, which I’ve been meaning to do this for such a long time. These are all the printed sheets of paper from recipes off of the internet or those clipped out of newspapers and magazines. They’re now in a nice folder and the shelf in the kitchen is a bit tidier. I had planned to move some of my cookbooks onto the shelf but it is deceptively low. It looks like regular sized cookbooks will fit, but it’s about a centimetre too short and they won’t.

TWTW # 9

On By TontowilliamsIn books, The Week That Was

I’m behind. Normally by this point in the week I’ve written this post and it’s scheduled to appear around 10am (GMT). Today although I’m behind it will probably appear a bit before that.

I have an allotment talk coming up at the beginning of April, so I’ve been doing a little bit of prep-work for that this week, making sure that the slides I want to use are still relevant.

I’ve also been following up with a few clients on work that is ongoing or bids that have been submitted but haven’t had a response yet.

My exploration of the Maigret novels continues. I had a book token for my birthday and have purchased a few more to keep my curiosity going. This week I read The Night At The Crossroads which was very good. All these novels are very short, most seem to barely 150 pages, and only take a few hours to read. They are also very good, I’m surprised that it’s taken me this long to discover them.

I also read An Arabian Journey by Levison Wood which is an incredible tale of his journey around the Arabian peninsula. He undertook the journey when ISIS were still very much present and there was civil war raging in Syria. This really is a tale of what that part of the world is going through, and if you have any interest in that part of the globe I’d recommend reading it.

Warren Ellis posted about wearing a watch this week. I can’t say that I’ve ever owned or wanted to own a “smart” watch, and I flip between wearing an ordinary timepiece and not wearing one at all.

Beginning to think that Elon Musk is a pretty unstable and a not very nice person.

I wrote a short review and recorded a video about my Pineider Pen Filler, which was  a birthday present.

I also recorded my first allotment video of the year (and actually the first one for quite some time).


I also managed to get my potato trenches dug, I’m hoping to get the potatoes in the ground later on this week. With that and the rate of progress of some of seeds that I’ve sown recently (swede, cauliflower) it won’t be long before the season is really underway.

TWTW # 8 Another Solar Orbit

On By TontowilliamsIn The Week That Was1 Comment

Another week, and another year of my life completed. Saturday was my birthday and although I mostly had a quiet day I did have cake!

This one has been pretty quiet overall, particularly when our TV set-top box died. We were able to get a work around going, but it means that we lost all of our recordings. We’ll get a replacement but it seems it’s one of those things where as the technology moves forward there is less choice. We really don’t want to be live streaming everything, some plain old fashioned technology would work. I was wondering if there’s still an old VHS machine in the loft. Maybe we could go retro.

Speaking of retro, one of my favourite tools is a fountain pen. I much prefer them to write with, probably second only to a pencil. For my birthday I was given a portable inkwell. The idea of this is that you can take several refills of ink for a fountain pen with you, without having to carry a whole bottle of ink. There’s a little bit of faith involved in refilling an empty pen, as it requires you to hold the inkwell upside down with the pen you’re trying to refill inside. I’ve had one trial run so far, and the ink stayed in the pen or the inkwell and didn’t end up getting on me or my desk. I look forward to trying it when I am truly out and about.

I ordered a new banetton for bread making, one that is oblong rather than round, which obviously means I get an oblong loaf.

It worked well and the loaf, and sliced bread is a much more usable shape for things like sandwiches.

The allotment is still pretty wet after a few days of rain, I’ve got a few seeds sown in the potting shed, but I’m still not ready to sow directly onto the plot. In another week or two, I’ll get the potatoes in the ground.

I was watching and listening to some of the coverage of the Space-X Crew Dragon this week. Whilst it would appear that everything went very well, there was quite a lot of discussion regarding the “commercialisation of space”. It concerns me that this appears to mean that there is going to be competition for resources in space, particularly on the Moon and Mars. Perhaps someone should be asking the question as to why we should be doing this as we have virtually destroyed earth by our own arrogance, we’re going to do the same (potentially) on the Moon and Mars too.

 

TWTW # 7 Too Cold For Spuds

On By TontowilliamsIn The Week That Was2 Comments

Another week is over and another month, 2019 seems to be galloping at a pace. In a weeks time I’ll be another year older. This February has been reported as the hottest on record with temperatures getting into the 20’s on several consecutive days, which  has been mad. A few people seem to have gotten their potatoes in the ground already, including a few on my allotment site. I’m going to hold off for another week or so, as I’ve planted too early before and lost part of the crop due to a late cold snap.

I got round to sowing a few seeds this week, broccoli, cauliflower, swede and leeks all made it into pots. I’ve been thinking of trying some different approaches this year to what I grow on the allotment and am planning to utilise more plants from seed (I hope), and top up from the local nursery with anything I’m missing, doesn’t germinate or for some different varieties. I’ve bought odd plants from them before and they supply good stock, so either way we should be good.

I finished “After The Fire” by Henning Mankell and thoroughly enjoyed it. Starting with a fire – an arson attack – I thought that this was going to be a crime novel, and although there is the crime, the book is about much more than that. As with Mankell’s other books it is incredibly well written and set in the Swedish archipelago so a different pace to life, but one where you sense the scenery is both beautiful and isolating at the same time (sounds like my cup of tea). The multi-stranded story is held together well by the first person narration and ultimately I was a little sad to have finished it, knowing that as the author has sadly passed away there won’t be any chance of a continuation of the characters.

I may well revisit some of Mankell’s other books, and just check that I’ve read all of them.

 

TWTW # 6 – Home Baked

On By TontowilliamsIn The Week That Was

I’ve mostly been working from home this week, with some interludes for baking, and a few other things.

It’s also been a week where it would appear that Spring has tentatively arrived. The weather has been unseasonably warm, but it may not last. It’s still a bit early to get properly started on the allotment, so for now nothing much is happening there.

We had feedback on the last lot of tests that the vet did for Wilson, and it would seem that everything is normal. This is obviously good news, but doesn’t answer the questions about what might have been wrong in the first. For now we’re going to monitor he and see if there are any changes over the next couple of weeks.

 

I love a good domino toppling!

I’ve been reading Henning Mankell’s “After The Fire”, the last book he wrote before he passed away. I’m only a few chapters in, and I’m not quite sure what is actually going on but it is very good. I’ve always enjoyed Mankell’s books – the Wallander novels in particular – this isn’t a Wallander story but is a character that he’s used before in “Italian Shoes”, you don’t have to have read the previous story to enjoy this one though. Written in the first person, you can really feel the emotion of the character and what he’s going through after his home is destroyed by fire leaving him with only his night clothes and two left-footed wellingtons. I’ll try and remember to do an update next week.

 

The Week That Was # 2 (Experiments With Sourdough)

On By TontowilliamsIn books, Cooking, The Week That Was, work3 Comments

I’ve been wanting to do some sourdough baking for a while now. I already bake quite a bit of our own bread (mostly in a breadmaker), and regularly make pizza bases, rolls and other things and I wanted to give sourdough a try too.

I got a starter (you can make your own but I opted for the slightly easier option) from the Wild Baker and it arrived earlier in the week. I feed it (with flour and water) a couple of times and then it was ready to go.

There are a couple of quite long pauses for rising etc. in the sourdough process and I think next time, I’ll shift things around a bit so that these happen overnight rather than try and squeeze things all into a day-and-a-half.

That said the resulting loaf was fantastic (see above). Great tasting and a definite success. It’s always good when cookery of any kind goes well, but this was especially pleasing.

It’s been a pretty chilly week, with temperatures dropping below 0°C on most nights. This had meant that my home office has been a little inhospitable some mornings and so I’ve moved to our lounge to work.

I’ve been assisted by the dogs to keep me company (and warm), although I must admit they have been a little more distracting than normal. I assume that this is as much the change of routine for them as it is for me.

I’ve been asked by a potential client for a proposal for a piece of work, so I suspect that most of the coming week will be taken up in pulling that together. They have ambitious plans so it’s good that potentially I’ll be a part of that work.

I’m between books at the moment, but a quick visit into town to post a parcel took me past the secondhand bookshop.

I always try and leave more books with them than I take away, and this time I succeeded, although I have to admit to be quite pleased with the ones I found.

The Week That Was #1 – I’m Back

On By TontowilliamsIn The Week That Was

So I’ve made a decision to try and get back to posting at least once a week. I’m going to ditch the old format of the “Quick Links” posts but stick with the premise of reviewing the previous week. We’ll see how that goes and what comes out of that in terms of topics, but my suspicions is that the overall content will broadly be the same. So here we go!

Continue reading “The Week That Was #1 – I’m Back” →