The garden continues to flourish in the summer heat, and we’ve managed to survive despite our heat averse bodies.

More Garden Action

The heat has more than made up for my late start in the garden, and the raised beds are doing amazingly well. The one remaining courgette plant has finally started to produce fruit and although I’m not expecting the glut we had with three plants in 2020, I’m hopeful we’ll get enough to sustain us for a while. The rapsberries are starting to die back now and most of the gooseberries were eaten by unknown assailants.

I did a little garden re-organisation as well, moving one of the bushes from the front of the cordon and replacing it with a blueberry bush. At the same time I added another apple tree to the cordon. Moving established trees and bushes is always a little hairy as it can be stressful for them. The hot weather adds an additional challenge as plants need a substantial amount of water when being moved, too. My parents successfully moved two established bushes last summer, so hopefully this works.

We All Scream…

Speaking of the fruits of my labour, I made the first ice cream of the year. We’ve got a small Lidl ice cream maker which I was close to giving away as it struggled to work last time I used it. The motor is light duty and the paddles are a bit flimsy, and if it doesn’t get started immediately then the mixture freezes too quickly and the motor can’t keep up. This time I used a custard mixture (a great way of using the ridiculous amount of egg yolks in our freezer) and the frozen strawberries and raspberries from the garden. Having two beakers allowed me to make two different flavours. After nearly scrambling the custard, I managed to save it and produce some really nice ice cream.

Instrument Heaven

I have been looking for a ukulele since falling in love with the instrument during our trip to the Pacific North West. The few that I’ve been looking at online have fallen through, then a more expensive model that I could not justify appeared. Starter instruments are a great way of getting…started, but I wanted to get something more substantial that would allow me to progress without having to upgrade. Millar ukuleles are made in Taiwan in a small workshop and are trying to break into the UK market. The man selling it, Matt Hicks, is a fantastic player. You can see him in action here playing my new ukulele. I may have also bought an Alvarez blues acoustic guitar off him, too. It was not a cheap day.

Under the Dome

The Market Hall in Devonport is home to both shared workspaces and a 360 degree dome cinema. We had a childcare day last Friday and in addition to a morning trip to Pennywell Farm, we booked in to see an animated film about a coral reef. It wasn’t an ideal setup with some sound issues, but it was still impressive and worth experiencing if you haven’t done it before. The beanbag chairs were pretty comfortable too.