Dino has wanted one for a while and today he spent his pocket money on his first bionicle.
Work in progress.
And the finished thing and a proud boy. No idea what it’s name is, but it’s a big robot shooty thing and Dino is very happy.
Someone elses dog is asleep on my sofa, one child (mine) is sprawled on the floor watching the other child (also mine) sitting in the dog’s bed to play on Lego Racers.
Something is not quite right here…..
Lava soup from the Shrek Cookbook
Although apparently Rainbows don’t parade, they process…. 
Cue on the spot discussion with Raindrop on inequality within the Guiding/Scouting movement…
Anyway, pics..
And she met the Mayor….
Mimi is in there, you can just see her hair!
Yeah, I know, my desk is a mess…
Both kids have been selling my surplus plants at our home ed group and to other friends. Partly this is to join in with the fund raising that Granny and Granddad do for the Lung Foundation, but we’ve discussed giving your time and materials for free and decided that any money made will pay for compost, but not seeds or pots as they’re making pots and I have plenty of spare seed. Also for every £5 they take they will each have £1 and the BLF gets the remaining £3. It’s easy for them to understand and it means we’ve been having lots of business conversations, including keeping some sort of accounts.
But keeping accounts on paper involves writing…. Much reluctance from Dino. Until I set up an excel spreadsheet for him… That involves gettig on the puter…. So today he and I have been talking about cash flow, spending and running totals while he was putting in the sales they made on Wednesday. Might see if we can make it make a graph of something at some point.
AKA Anti Cabbage White device, or Cloche - call it what you will, it’s up, and has brassicas in it.
It could be perhaps a third long again at a push and could have the poles set no nearly so deep to give it a bit more height - but it’s in place, pegged and weighted down and has plants in it. Around 9 or so each of Romanescue and Purple sprouting broccolli, and there’s space for a few more in there - green calabrese if they come up fast enough I think.
I’ve decided that some categories might help me keep track of things on here, especially as I’ve started referring back and showing progress in places. So, I’ll be adding categories as I think I need them.
Today we have Growing things and Pumpkin comp. The kids and I are each growing a Jack O’Lantern pumpkin to see who can get the biggest, or any. *Someone* is threatening to help the kids….
We put the plants in yesterday…
This is the kids plant:
And this is mine:
In other growing updates, here is the Bramble patch:
The spuds are coming up nicely and I have to go earth them over after I have some lunch. The bit where the fence shadow falls is mostly dug over now but needs to be wider and longer so the plant shelter/cloche can go there. The very back bit is a heap of the rubble we’ve dug out. 
There’s rather a lot of it and we’re easing it into our bin bit by bit.
Last pic - by special request, some sunflowers…
Very small for now but survived the first night in the soil. More soap nut juice on everything tonight to keep the slugs off.
Another glorious day here so we’ve been in the garden and I think I need to find the aftersun…
Mimi has planted the sweet peas and nasturtium she’s been growing, along with a row of carrot seed (hope that comes up) - all in her little patch by the half fence. She then sowed seed for a selection of wild flowers in little pots to germinate inside where we can watch them! She and I moved her foxglove, teasel and candytuft into bigger pots and she has a tray of Lavatera to do something with, but not today. She already has sunflowers, poppies and strawberries in her little plot.
Dino put in a potato, a row of carrot, a row of lettuce and a row of beetroot to go with his couple of sweet peas and strawberries. He has sugar snap peas sown in a seed tray that will go in his bit as they come ready and he wants a pumpkin.
Must remember to soap nut wash everything before it goes dark.
I’m trying an experiment. Last year, and the year before my carrots were abysmal, very few germinated and even fewer survived. So, this year I’m sowing them into compost filled toilet roll inners and paper pots and will put them in the soil later, if they even germinate.
I’d be sat here writing now but the curtains are on the line and the sun is coming straight through the window so I can barely see the screen. Time to get them in I think, and wash bedding tomorrow, then time for a large cuppa, and a biscuit, or three.
*Update* It’s almost 3.30 and I’m giving up before I start to fall over. Curtains are back in and at the windows again, did you know they’re actually white? There was me thinking they were a kinda grubby cream with brown blobs…. Seeds sown and 6 more spuds in the back patch, which yes, required lots of digging and clearing but it’s starting to level out as I dig and clear up there.
Kids are drenched after a water fight and starting to get narky so the water guns can be put away now. But it was lots of fun!
After shopping (bleurgh, but now we have food in the cupboards), and walking round to the post office - we attacked the garden.
The grass is mowed, the edges strimmed and it’s looking a bit better, although still with way too many bare patches for my liking. Not sure what can be done while there are 2 very energetic kids racing about on it all day every day, assuming it’s dry - mind you they still like to go run about in the rain.
Then after a long discussion on why I was insisting Dino in particular helps with things round the house and garden 
, we measured out the space we’re going to need for the cloche/plant shelter and it’s quite big, bigger than I thought, but never mind. We might get brassicas without the caterpillars, I hate picking out caterpillars so I can eat and I’m always paranoid that I missed one.
So now the large veg bed behind the shed is dug over, the part not occupied with way too much garlic anyway. I’d forgotten quite how heavy and clay that part is. It’s cold and wet as it doesn’t get as much sun as the rest of the garden. So now I’m taking a break because my back is hurting, and pondering where to sow some carrots…. And wondering if I can put in another small block of potatoes next to the existing ones… I have some in the cupboard that are sprouting because we didn’t eat them fast enoguh and I’ve grown nice spuds like that before.
