A Newsy Week

See that field on the other side of our garden fence?

It's become a nursery. Yip, lambing season has officially begun, a sure sign that spring is not far away. Each morning the farmer buzzes in with a trailer hooked up to a quad bike and deposits the new mums with their little lambs. Our days now have a background chorus of bleating between mums and babies. 

They are too adorable to watch. Every so often a lamb will confuse another mum for its own and receive an unceremonious headbutt to shoo it on its way. 

I don't think I've shared my latest news with you! I am now an official allotmenteer! I feel so very lucky as getting an allotment is just about impossible. There are long waiting lists, demand outstrips supply, and those that do have allotments do not relinquish them easily. But I guess I have found myself in the right place at the right time in our new neighbourhood. I happened to call up right at the time when they are calling for their annual renewals and it also so happens that quite a few people were moving on or wanting to split their full-size plots to half for various reasons. So it was meant to be!

We do have a lovely big garden at home but there are a few problems when it comes to growing veg.

* First, its really well established and every inch has been utilised so no space for growing vegetables

* Second, it's a coastal garden and so we get salty winds that blow off the ocean - not good for a lot of plants.

So that is why I thought I would look at getting an allotment. Never did I dream that I would be lucky enough to get one so quickly!

My tomato and sweet pea seeds have germinated nicely. They live in the Orangery which gets light from one side... can you tell? 😀These won't be going to the allotment, I think the tomatoes will have to live in the Orangery in order to have the best chance of the fruit ripening, the sweet peas are destined to be grown over a pergola here at home. But I'm excited about planning out my crop and hope to get a start on that next week.

We had a birthday in our family this week! My 'baby' turned 18. How on earth did that happen?

She had a lovely day filled with gifts, flowers, messages and a lovely lunch at a restaurant with spectacular views of the city and Plymouth Sound.

Another bit of excitement - and really, I totally get if you read this next bit and are left a bit cold but fellow planner addicts will relate 😅. I got a new Travelers Notebook!

I absolutely adore this Japanese notebook system because of the simplicity and the look and feel of the notebook. It harkens to a bygone era and that appeals to me. I will do a full post on the Travelers Notebook but for now, I just wanted to share my joy in getting this Travelers Train edition. It's so pretty. I fell in love with it the moment I first saw it on my Instagram feed. The only problem is that you can only get this particular edition in Japan and I have no plans of going to Japan soon. However, I found a seller on Etsy! What luck. Shipping was super quick and economical... now I can't stop staring at it 😅. It's all set up and has become my daily go-to. More on all that another time though.

And finally just for fun... it appears that I don't only grow plants in the Orangery but cats too....

She adores slipping in here and napping in the warm sunshine. Our temperatures are plummeting at the moment and there is a really cold wind blowing so to nap in the warm Orangery is like heaven to a kitty cat.

March arrives next week and along with it lots of lovely things to look forward to! I'll chat a little more on that next week, until then, have a lovely weekend!