The Baby Tour

12 March to 3 April 2018

The Baby Tour: Five babies, eight towns, three weeks (in the UK).  Two weeks in the north in a hire car circling from Manchester Airport through Shrewsbury, Derby, Sheffield, Redcar, Durham and Ormskirk (or points nearby), before a rail trip to London to visit Greenwich followed by Easter weekend in Lyme Regis.  Dave's two new grandsons, my first new grandson and two newish nieces to visit in their natural habitat, and hand over a small stuffed elephant each.

It all went surprisingly smoothly, and mostly according to plan, despite a flurry of snowy weather between Derby and Sheffield.  Lovely to see everyone, and we were looked after very well.  We continue to be mostly vegetarian, and that worked well too.

The weekend in Lyme Regis, in a low-lintelled cottage in the hills with Mum, Jono and Sarah, with Nick and Mike in a flat in town, was rainy, but the cottage was cosy and we had one fabulous Easter Sunday morning following the receding tide along the beach ahead of the crowds, searching out our very own ammonites. 

Here are the babies, in the order we visited them (there were also, in some cases, siblings, but this is only a quick record of our time, not a family album):
  

 Dave's grandson, Vinnie

 My niece, Penelope

 Dave's other grandson, Jake

 My other niece, Penny

and my grandson, Noah

Everything rosy

12 March 2018

Just before we leave, a quick scoot around the garden to see how things are left ...

First blossoms on the apricot tree

Long shot from the south west - cleared and mulched beds with baby Moringa trees under plastic bottle cloches.  Looking quite neat and tidy.

Down the hill to the north-east, the big white slug-things are bags of manure that need to be opened and spread around.  Still lots to do.

And the very first signs of the Judas tree blossom.  A pity we'll miss it, always a highlight of early spring, but we'll be in the UK for the next three weeks, and it'll likely be gone by the time we're back.

A herd of little elephants

Up to 10 March 2018

Having recently become a grandmother, I discovered an urge to make soft toys.  As we are due to visit five new relatives in the UK, Dave said if I was making toy elephants, I had to make enough for everyone.  I finally finished the herd of six (one spare in case of mistakes) with only a few days to go.

Moringa nets

7 March 2018

A few of our Moringa seedlings were looking a bit spindly, so we decided to risk another planting out.  The danger now is less the overnight cold and more the voracious crickets, so we rustled up some quick frames covered in insect netting, and planted the seedlings in the annual veg beds, at the west ends.  If they grow, they will provide some shade from the fierce afternoon sun later in the year.

And one seedling in the bed with the two Elders: the elder Elder and the younger Elder.

Our eco-weekend at Z Cafe

3-4 March 2018

We were invited by the lovely couple who run the Zita Cafe in Lefkada to take part in their Eco/Bio weekend.  We decided to promote Permaculture and set up a table on soil fertility and improvement.  We also looked after the Lefkogaia table for a lot of the time too.

Panos came with us and helped enormously by translating our talk.  Here he is with some junior participants in our workshop on making seed tapes.

Bigger water hotter

28 Feb 2018

As we now have a bath fitted, we need to think about moving the hot water nearer to the house.  The water hotter was originally installed by the shed when it was our bathroom for the camper van, and since we moved to the house there’s been quite a delay before the hot supply reaches us, which is wasteful of water and heat.  Instead of moving the existing unit to the house, we decided to get a bigger one, leave the existing one to supply the shed and put the new one near the house.

Dave started work on the ‘meccano set’ frame.

Below is the proposed site for the new frame, currently an unstable heap of floor stones.  So Dave built the frame, and I moved the stones, separating them into piles of thick and thin ready for laying the floor in the utility.