A stressful week

   It has been a very stressful fortnight. The upshot of it all is that I am now a freelance.........well I am not sure what I am freelance at but I am not longer in paid employment. However the weekend was much as any other. Saturday was the Farmer's market at Castle Donington. The rain held of which was nice. Sunday H and her book club buddies went walking in Staffordshire to a place called Thursbitch. It is central to a book by Alan Gardener. H likes him. I went to the lottie for a digging session. Nothing new really. Bed 2 needs digging if I am to have any spuds this year. I got a good portion done. I have a job to do in Lincoln on Monday but hope to spend a few hours each day of next weeks to sort this bed.

  I forgot my tea bags but since I was working in a sea of nettles I thought nettle tea might be just the thing. I have made Nettle wine before now. I googled "Nettle Tea" on my phone. I got a couple of recipes. I fired up the Trangia and set about selecting the youngest shoots but how much to use? I put five leaves into the boiling water a turned the Trangia down to a simmer for a few minutes, as per the instructions. I picked a few stalks of Rhubarb whilst I was waiting. The Rhubarb is the first crop of this season.

 
   The rhubarbs look fit and health. They are throwing up big flower buds which always look a bit strange. I swear that if you stand and stare you can see the flower stalk growing. The Nettle tea looked an sicipant green. I let it cool which gave me time to gethe deck chair out a munch a couple of H's scones that she had made fresh that morning. The sun was out the wind had dropped. I had tea...of sorts and buttered scones. So all is well with the world. The deck chair is too uncortfortable for snoozing in but I gave it a try.  Snooze over I went back to the digging. My back was starting to complain and as if make my mind up the weather closer in and started to rain. I had time to rake the bed I had been working upon. I gathered up my tools, parked the barrow, closed up the compost bin and jumped into Degsy and was away before the rain came on properly.