Today we finished digging the grass up to clear a space for the polytunnel, and then managed to put the frame up. That is stage 1 complete but it was a little too windy to attempt to put the cover on today so we will come back and attempt that in a week or so.
So today we picked a really nice selection of veggies from our allotment, it’s really great to be able to eat all this freshly picked food and it always tastes fantastic in comparison to the stuff you get in the shops.
Today we’ve got various types of peppers, fennel, flat custard squash, crookneck squash, cucumbers, carrots, beetroot and radishes.
Been down digging up some veg today and dug up this whopper carrot, one of the bigger ones we’ve managed to grow so far. They don’t seem to have grown as well as the ones we grew last year at our old house, hopefully we will have better luck on the allotment next year.
Personally I think we just planted them a little too close together this time and didn’t thin them out enough, but we shall rectify that next time.
Today we went to the allotment and the courgettes which only a few days ago were tiny are now monstrously huge. It seems all it needs is a downpour of rain and courgettes can grow to 2kg in the space of a couple of days.
I have a feeling we are going to get very bored of eating courgette at some point!
So after many MANY hours of hard work I managed to disassemble our washing machine, replace the bearings and put it all back together again. This made me immensely happy as for £30 and about 6 hours of my time I thought I had brought our washing machine back to life and saved us many pennies.
Unfortunately whilst everything seemed to work fine when it was doing its wash cycle, once it came to doing it’s spin it sounded VERY unhealthy and I ended up unplugging it.
Lesson learned that I am not a washing machine repair man and we ended up buying a new washing machine. On the plus side I found out a friend of my mum’s IS a washing repair man and so he is going to collect it and strip it down for any useful parts and recycle the rest, apparently replacing the bearings on an LG direct drive machine is not generally a DIY job and he was amazed I even attempted it.
Today I wrote my first book review that has been published on Josh Hanagarne’s blog, Worlds Strongest Librarian. This, along with my recent post on Adam Glass’s blog makes me a happy man. Getting quite into this writing malarky!
http://worldsstrongestlibrarian.com/8418/the-child-thief-by-brom-book-review-by-kris-wragg/
Today I donated blood, it may hurt a little at first, and sure I couldn’t workout this evening due to it. But it is definitely worth it because it could save some poor kids life!
If you are fit and healthy then you really should consider donating blood as it doesn’t take much time and it only really impacts you for 24hrs.
The Mighty Atom written by Ed Spielman is a fantastic insight into the life of Joseph Greenstein aka The Mighty Atom.
The Mighty Atom is the best biography I have read to date, relegating Anthony Kiedis’s ‘Scar Tissue’ to second place. The writer details Joseph’s beginnings as a sickly child, his running away from his family to be cured by a strongman in a travelling circus. Throughout the book you are humbled by the aura of this magnificent man, the feats performed by this 5′ 4″ 140lb man are seemingly inhuman. Feats such as chewing through chains and ripping up horse shoes with his bare hands, not to mention stopping a propeller plane from taking off by attaching a rope to his hair!
The book contains images of clippings from newspapers of the times to back up the claims of some of these outlandish feats, it even contains the recipes to some of his products. Yes, I forgot to mention, Joseph Greenstein wasn’t a brutish man, he may have been extraordinarily strong but he was a gentle soul helping others whenever he could and a loyal husband and a father of 10 (eventually 8 as he lost two children at young ages). Joseph spent the later years of his life travelling the United States teaching people about the power of the mind, about how to keep the body and mind healthy (stay away from sugar and white flour!) and selling his soaps, liniments and other products.
I have to thank Josh Hanagarne for recommending this book, it was a fantastic read. The book is now out of print, but I highly recommend you trying to find a copy in your local library.