Or as normal as things ever are around here anyway!
Sunday was Greek Easter so we took a trip into London to attend Mass at the beautiful Ayia Sofia Church. The plan was to meet up with my aunt, her husband, a couple of cousins and the two children of one of them and then to picnic in Hyde Park afterwards. I’d spent much of Saturday preparing the food to take, including koulourakia (Greek biscuits), bourekakia (cheese filled pastry diamonds rather like samosas), and good old organic sausage rolls. My aunt brought along some coloured eggs which are in keeping with the Greek Easter tradition, and some Greek Easter cake. Despite the journey into London taking quite a short amount of time once we got into the city it slowed down dramatically. We got to the Church late, missing much of the service including the Holy Communion, and it poured with rain. Once we got to the park we did get a window of good weather to allow us to have a quick picnic and for the children to have a run around. However, we did have to keep an eye on the time as £8.00 for every two hours of parking dictated that we couldn’t hang around for too long!
Back home and the garden is coming along nicely. I really can’t wait for the weather to improve so I can get on with my first season as a vegetable gardener! Still, we’ve been getting on with hardening off the tomatoes and cucumbers which have been growing on each available windowsill and they seem to be surviving ok at the moment. A couple of the tomato plants have begun flowering already which I wasn’t expecting just yet. Outside, one of the raised beds containing radishes, cut and come again salad, parsnips, carrots and spring onions is coming along extremely well. The broad beans planted directly in the flower beds have suddenly shot up a few inches and need me to re-fashion the protective mesh covering that is around them. We have several plants growing in containers including peas which have just started peeking through, blueberry bushes planted in a tub of ericaceous compost due to their liking of acidic soil, and a supply of garlic and onions as well as a couple of hanging baskets containing strawberry plants. I still need to prepare the second raised bed and plan where things will grow. I feel so proud of having achieved a little bit of greenery from scratch that so far looks promising especially considering I’ve never attempted anything like this before. I wonder if anyone else felt the same when they first started out or am I just so sad with nothing else in life to look forward to?! I can’t wait until the day we have a truly homegrown meal made from nothing but our own vegetables and eggs. That will provide a real sense of achievement to me!
The chickens are doing well and providing plenty of eggs for us. Most evenings we let them out of their run to wander in the garden before it gets dusky and they put themselves back into their house and off to bed. I never realised what characters the little birds are and how much enjoyment I get from watching them. It does make me laugh when one finds a worm and seems to get pleasure out of parading her find in front of the others before making a run for it, with the other hens chasing her tail! They definitely have their own personalities and I am so glad we made the decision to get them. If anyone out there is debating getting their own hens I’d strongly recommend it without a moments hesitation. Of course, the eggs are an added bonus too! I often read how chicken keeping becomes addictive and didn’t quite understand until now. Now we have plans of extending the run for the existing hens, and then a few months down the line making a second house within it for a couple of ex-battery hens to be rehomed. Oh, and there is always the hope that I’ll get a couple of Buff Orpingtons too but they seem to be very popular… and quite expensive too.
In the kitchen things have been pretty quiet. I have tried a couple of bread recipes. One was Egg Bread which was fantastic and went down very well with everyone in the house. Another one I have just taken out of the oven but not tasted yet is this Oat Bread recipe which smells gorgeous! In fact, it smells so good I think I’m going to sign off now and have a slice with some of my Pear and Lemon jam!
