I have to share some good news with you.

We were on a break this week so made it up to the allotment 3 times – that’s a lot for us, especially at this time of the year. We’ve been working on one side and spreading manure all over it.

This was how it looked by the end of Thursday. It’s hard going – much harder than it was a few years ago but I’m stubborn and ignore the aches and pains as I prefer to focus on the progress we are making.

Dearest Son has helped too of course but his stamina is ‘under development’ and he takes regular and long breaks. Sometimes he clean forgets to come back at all.

We were back up today (yesterday at the time of posting). Just as we drove away from the house, the sky went dark and a heavy shower of sleet dropped on us. I had cardboard boxes to drop off so I was thinking that would be all I would manage and decided we would keep going.

As luck would have it, when we got to the plot, it was lovely and bright again! And I don’t like to complain but it was a little chilly at 1C when we left the house and a big fat 0C when we got to the plot. Luckily I know shovelling manure is a very warming job so this was the perfect day to do it.

I also laid the cardboard on the path at the top of the plot to start the annual process of weed suppression. We put some woodchip on it to hold it down but didn’t get that finished today.

What we did get finished though was this:

So we can take a break from the manure and focus on the fruit areas which are in a bit of a state. The good thing about that though is how different it looks when it’s finished. I will take you with us of course – better get your hat and gloves, things are decidedly chilly round here!