Crash tackling cuddler

I can finally say the vegetable garden is weed free. It has taken days and I have been mightily distracted by a tiny pint sized critter who keeps head butting me and crash tacking me for cuddles. Artur is in a very strange mood.   I can’t settle down for a spot of weeding without a plaintive squeak  and a demand for affection.

I’m not really complaining of course, it’s a delight to have him about. Right now he is lying in among the shade of the parsnips after a heavy morning’s work.   I could do the same but I need to pick mirabelles and raspberries.

The kitchen is starting to resemble a green grocer’s shop. I have courgettes, swiss chard and beans for curry tonight; three kilos of apricots that need to turn into jam; mint syrup on the go, and of course the mirabelles.

They are extraordinary trees. There never seems to be an off season like a lot of fruit. They have been reduced in size by at least a half by Nicolas last autumn, and yet here they come, raining down onto the ground beneath.

I have placed the fleeces on the track so things don’t get too grubby, but right now I’m only limiting myself to picking them up once a day – it can be tedious.

And I have to get on.   There is the cabbage bed to weed. About thirty feet of it, up at the top vegetable garden.   And the temperature is rising fast. Everyone else seemed to have a good soaking of rain yesterday.   In our rain gauge I found a measurement of half a millimetre and a dead moth.

But first I must get on with the jam. And the syrup. I made 14 pots of green fig jam too late last night. And really want to do things in a more orderly fashion.   Besides, it’s just too jolly hot to be out and weeding right now. The cabbages will have to wait.