Happy meals : )

 I am happy to report that all the members of my family who were ill, have now recovered. However Covid then decimated the numbers at our church, including all the people who do most of the work including the minister. On one Sunday this month we had less than 25 % of our normal congregation attending. I am very glad to be able to report that neither my husband or I have had Covid this time when so many around us got it. The first time was quite enough!

The hens are definitely of the opinion that spring has arrived. Despite supplying all three kids and their families and a couple of friends, I am giving eggs away because I have so many. My husband is not pleased now when I say that it is farmhouse omelette for dinner - again. But we have lots of eggs and various bits and bobs from the allotment so why not? I have to admit that I feel really pleased when we eat a meal that is totally home produced  : )

Our allotment is looking very good at the moment. Everything has been tidied up and dug over and it looks very brown. Later on when we can't keep up with the weeding, it will look very green, but right now, we can see lots of goodlooking earth. We (the royal we as it is my husband who has done the heavy work) have dug out one of the enormous compost heaps and much goodness has been dug into the beds.  

We have started with this year's crop and have planted two sorts of potatoes - King Edwards and Wilja. We also have various seeds started and are hoping that there will not be too much heavy frost in our future. The broad beans are looking good and we are hoping for a good few dinners off those. I like them best when they are really young before that skin on them gets really thick.

We have three sorts of kale now as well as our leaf beet which are all producing well I have just picked all the sprouting flower heads off those to eat in the same way as the purple sprouting broccoli which is just coming to an end. The sprouting broccoli flowered earlier than we had expected so we have not managed to harvest as much off the plants as I would like because I really enjoy it for dinner.

Just off to start preparing dinner now and it will contain lots of the sprouting flower heads from the kale plants - yum.

Family woes

 Well it seems that I blinked and missed February because we are in March now. I still seem to be very busy with coffeeshop at church and did another large scale preparation of tomato and cheese pasta on Monday - all packed into two portion foil trays for the freezer. It is not quite as time consuming as the cottage pie or the lasagne but my back was complaining loudly by the time I was finished. 

Covid has been going around our family. First my eldest grandson had it (although he was asymptomatic) then a couple of weeks later his mum went down with it and was not too good. Then my younger daughter got it for the second time. She was really poorly. Unfortunately the test she did at home was positive but the one at the clinic was negative so her school said she had to come in because there were so many staff off ill. So having forced herself to cope with work for a whole week, she went down even harder than she should have. I am not impressed with that school. Her doctor said that indeed had covid and she was off for three weeks and is starting back on a 50% timetable for a week followed by a 75% timetable. Very little effort makes her feel like she has run a marathon so I hope she copes at school. While she was ill, youngest granddaughter went down with covid and was not very well with it. She was not as fortunate as her big brother. Then last week, not to be outdone by his cousins, youngest grandson went down with gastroenteritis. What a poorly lot! Thankfully the ones that started first are now a lot better although they have not got much energy - apart from eldest grandson who is absolutely fine.

I was in school yesterday invigilating an art exam - and getting paid for watching paint dry ..... : )