Autumn

Spring and Autumn are my favourite seasons. I like the changes in the countryside, and the feeling of progress. The Great British Bake Off has started (two weeks earlier than last year!) and it is perfect viewing for knitting yet another TV jumper (an amended version of Sarah Dallas's jumper from Vintage Knits). I LOVE this warm yellow colour. 

I have an expensive new habit - teapigs earl grey. It is SO nice. 

Yesterday I spent a mammoth day digging up onions and potatoes. The potatoes were back-breaking: pulling the plants, trawling for the potatoes, laying them all out in the sun/fresh air to dry, dusting them off, bringing them inside and laying them all out again to further dry but not expose them to too much light so they turned green and poisonous, and finally sorting them into three hessian sacks - perfect, almost perfect, and scabby. We'll eat the scabby ones first. The scabby potatoes are edible but they don't store. All in all a much better crop than last year. I think we have a higher yield, and last year ALL the potatoes were scabby and after all the work we'd put into growing them it was quite upsetting when we pulled them and they looked awful and we knew they wouldn't store over winter.

The onions are a semi-success. They took up a whole bed and I think in total we have about 30 onions. Some of the sizes are a bit small. 

Now that the two beds are clear (we still have maincrop potatoes to pull up) I'm hoping to plant turnips, and wondering if I still have time to plant Brussels sprouts and even broccoli? Will visit the garden centre tomorrow.

Last Saturday my eldest nephew, Stuart, got married. His son, Calvin, is the boy on the left. And on the right is my other nephew's son, Keigan. They both look so cute in their kilts. They were most impressed with having a pretend dagger, which you can just see sticking out of Calvin's sock. When I look at Keigan I can see my sister, my dad and my grandmother in him. They all have/had a sunny disposition. Keigan's sister Lucy is the same. It was a great day.