Back To School/Back to Normal/Back to the Allotment

Today, Little Bird went back to school.  It was with mixed feelings that I dropped her off at the school gate in her new uniform.  It's the first time she's had to wear a uniform, so was a pretty big moment for her.  She looked older somehow.  I made sure I got a photo of her, looking very smart, before she headed off to school.

My feelings were mixed in that although I was sad to see her go back to school, as I do like having her around everyday in the holidays, I also relished getting back to having some time to do my own thing and not worrying about whether she was bored or not or wanted to go where I needed to go for whatever reason.  I'm sure that many parents feel exactly the same way at this time of the year.

To be honest, this summer seems to have gone by quicker than any in the past, save for the year we spent 3 weeks in Australia visiting my sister and her family.  I think the good weather has probably helped too.

Anyway, my first morning of freedom was spent in a leisurely fashion devising a couple more blog posts about our recent holiday in the US.  It was nice to take some time to remember it and look through the photos.  It seems so long ago now, even though it's only a couple of weeks.

The afternoon was reserved for another visit to the allotment.  I wanted to spend a bit of time tidying up a bit more and transplanting some of the lettuce plants.  It kept me away from the shops and spending money though, which is all good.

In the end I didn't transplant the lettuce as it was scorching hot and I was worried I might actually kill them by transplanting them on such a hot day so instead I concentrated on weeding the plot and cutting back the overgrown edges of the plot.  It looked a lot better by the time I'd finished and I remembered to take some photos this visit.

As you can see from the photo there's  a big gap in the middle of the plot where I'm going to transplant the lettuce and kale when the weather cools down.  The sweet peas to the left in the photo above are growing well now.  I managed to wind them around the wigwam as they had all been in a heap on the ground.  As you can see the lettuce are looking quite good.  I transplanted these from a living salad from the supermarket and it worked really well.  I might do it again sometime as you get quite a lot of lettuce from one box.  I got the idea from A New Life in the Country blog.

There's quite a few tomatoes yet to ripen (still not tied up properly), and small cucumbers to harvest in a week or so.  There's a few cobs of corn growing well too.

 

 

There were just a few tomatoes to harvest, a few carrots and beans too.

 

I was secretly pleased the following day when the there was a bit of rain, as it meant that everything would get a good water.