who only by moving can balance

Conveniently I can no longer find the bit of the allotment rules that says No Bringing In Gravel, so I am making plans to blithely bring in gravel for the sake of a base for The Shed, which is Definitely going to Happen this time, Honest.

The chief component I am now missing is a floor. Conveniently, there's an almost-complete house being built just up the road, with a big skip outside it, which currently contains several large sheets of plyboard. I can't actually get at them (it's all behind gates), but I am intending to show up on Tuesday morning and look hopeful at whoever's working there then.

(I am also missing enough sharp sand to level, and the gravel, but gravel at least should be fairly readily acquirable. It is possible I am also missing Some Important Bits Of Wood, but I care less about that because I have so many bits of misc wood at the allotment that I am pretty sure I can cobble something together.)

I am not going to manage to get all of this together before I disappear off to a field for a week, but I'm optimistic about getting it done in time to e.g. actually fill the greenhouse with chillis for the summer (an irritating amount of said greenhouse is currently functioning as storage space and actually I'd prefer it to be growing space. Actually.) Even I have now read enough guides to putting sheds together that I'm at least half-convinced I can probably actually more-or-less work it out.

... I will report back either triumphantly or shamefacedly in a few weeks' time. Watch This Space, etc.

There is about 20 minutes of sawing left to do to get all the railway sleepers cut down to size. I have won some bits of shed (that conveniently complement the bits of shed that actually are in my possession), courtesy of the railway sleepers human having some parts spare. I am very excited about both the potential for more growing space in the greenhouse and the More Growing Space of actually finishing getting in the beds I have been Imagining basically since I got the plot.

(I am also very grateful that I will Have Help in actually making attempt #2 at the shed go. Need to sort out a floor for the thing, but.)

I am also happy about: lots of broad beans??? peas go ZOOM. saffron really very happily established. flowers on all the Ribes, and for that matter the blueberry! ridiculous blue/purple kohlrabi continues ridiculous (and the choi sum in the greenhouse is also looking promising). cherry blossom now delightfully enthusiastic. I am apparently spending enough time there that the fox is getting much more comfortable about me. seed-grown shallots and garlic chives still extant & not dead yet.

SO many things.

Yesterday I noticed that the cherry tree at the allotment had burst into flower:

It definitely didn't have any open the previous time I'd checked (which I think was Saturday); I'm enjoying it immensely.

Something is going wrong with it such that I'm winding up with picking up slipped stitches progressing faster down one side of the glove than the other, and the flap consequently winding up all askew. I cannot work out what I am doing wrong here -- the slipped stitch columns are very definitely slipped stitch columns! I don't think I made sufficient Errors to possibly account for this?!

At present I am grimly -- well, okay, at present I am grimly doing YET MORE FROGGING to unfuck a cable I made go the wrong way when I was busy concentrating on the slipped stitches -- going "fuck it, just skip some of the slipped stitches on the questionable side, you can come back and reknit the whole pair for yourself once you have sorted out the netting for the peas and also A's gloves". But I don't understand what I did wrooooooooong and I am suuuuuuuuulking a little about it.

BUT TODAY HAS ALSO FEATURED GOOD THINGS. The ridiculous volunteer tomato is nearly as tall as I am and has flowers with yellow bits and everything. (I have no idea what flavour of tomato it is. I'll find out or I won't...) The peas I sowed in the greenhouse are Going (more slowly than the peas I sowed at home, but nonetheless Going). One of the quick brassicas in the greenhouse bed is coming up. There is still so much garlic. And!!! I have successfully Removed one of the self-layered Extremely Jostaberry Bushes!!! and relocated it to a new home!!!

I do this thing where it gets to 3.30 p.m. and most of me is like "well there's no point in trying to leave the house and go to the allotment NOW, you've WASTED the WHOLE AFTERNOON, --" and actually it consistently turns out that if I nonetheless get up and get moving I can still spend a very very happy hour or so Pottering, productively, and feel vastly better for having achieved same. I wish I could maintain the emotional permanence required to not have this knowledge disappear into defeatism every damn time. But! Did the thing, and lo, it was good.

I have not in fact sown all of the tomatoes yet. I have six known flavours of tomato to go, plus two dubiously-labelled flavours, plus three or four Mysteries (Feo di Rio Gordo? Marmande? something else?????)

I am trying not to worry about where I'm going to put all these tomatoes until such time as I've managed to coax any of them to adulthood. Ditto I am trying not to think too hard about the three varieties of summer squash and, er, seven of winter squash. The less said about the beans the better. ON THE UPSIDE I traditionally manage to kill enough of the things I start that I probably don't need to worry about it too much, just put things in and watch as they fail to grow.

... I am going to be so excited when the seeds start hatching, though.

So. Yes. Tomorrow priority: finish the tomatoes.

For reasons, I spent a fair chunk of this afternoon in and around Bonnington Square, of which I'd previously been totally unaware but which has been entirely reasonably described as "Vauxhall's secret jungle neighbourhood".

Most of it I spent in the Pleasure Garden, but I was also directed a short way up the road to the Harleyford Road Community Garden -- featuring, among other delights, a lot of mosaics. Herewith one such example:

To my startlement and delight, I have in fact made it (partially) through the outermost layer of seed to the point of starting to uncover some of the seedling leaves, Which Are Definitely Leaves. Exposing the meat of the nut to the high humidity is definitely making it easier to remove small sections; I think priority for tomorrow will be attempting to work my way back toward the point the stem emerges from the seed case (I've started along one of the longer edges of the seed, where I had better access), possibly via application of a razor blade.

(Other things I have done today include "sending a grouchy e-mail to the Patient Advice & Liaison Service at a hospital I am theoretically currently receiving care from", because I sent them an inquiry about something in March. Earlier this week I realised I hadn't heard back and e-mailed in to nudge. I was asked to provide more identifying details again, because apparently the existing e-mail chain was somehow insufficient, and then informed that I have an upcoming appointment and I should get my questions answered there. I am feeling very tired of being Difficult. But. Plant.)

The persimmon has hatched.

It has no quite got its head out of its seed hat yet, but it has over an inch of root and a lot of green and has now been moved from its warm nest of damp kitchen towel to A Pot Of Compost.

I am cheerfully resigned to it Not Making It To Adulthood but I am also extremely happy about it getting this far.

I stopped off at the allotment to drop off the contents of our compost caddy, this afternoon, and then continued on down the hill to collect DRUGS (controlled substances for A, steroid nasal spray for me because the one I've been using since circa 2016 has been unavailable for months at this point and I finally managed to coax my GP surgery into prescribing an alternative, which took one written request and three phone calls) and then, on my way back up, Sternly Enjoined Myself that, per title, I was going to stop by the allotment again. All I had to do was open the front gate and go through it. I could then immediately turn back around and go home without even getting to the second gate. This Was Permitted.

... obviously, having got myself through the front gate I spent a very happy hour pottering and had to drag myself away. Things achieved: some weeding of the fruit cage, including some bramble roots I've previously repeatedly tried and failed to get up, but apparently at present the ground is soft enough for PARTIAL VICTORY; relocating several of the raspberry canes I pulled up (they're raspberries so I'm fairly confident they'll cope with the indignities...); and tidying up some more of my raspberry thicket via removing extremely dead canes from lo these several years past.

I am currently very keen on the idea of going back, but it's extremely bedtime. We'll see if the desire survives sleep and contact with the morning, though there's the added complication that I really need to finish Hallucinations before the library wants it back in a few days' time, and tomorrow is the first day of the 2024 Migraine World Summit...

I continue to Acquire high-quality Premium Leefs (leaves.) in part because when I went to the allotment yesterday I Observed that The Leaf Sweepers had been along but had run out of bags/time before they ran out of neat piles of mostly-oak leaves. So I acquired two full panniers to dump at the allotment, and then it was GETTING DARK so I acquired another two full panniers on my way home to Encourage me to go back today... so I went to drop those off and observed, en route, that the filled bags had all been removed but the unbagged leaf piles were very much still there.

So I dropped off the first two, and then the first round of refills, and then I did a second refill On My Way Home, so now I am going to try to trick myself into going back to the allotment again to drop those off, and then we'll see whether my Leaf Cylinder is actually more-or-less full yet or if I am going to trip and fall into acquiring. More. leefs while they still exist.

I am going to try not to go "well what if I did just collect the rest of the piles, though--" because there are non-leafmould things I could and should usefully be doing at the plot, but for now, hey, I am taking advantage of my good days.