One of Those Life Gets In The Way Situations

Not my usual post but I have always said I will share our journey and this is where we are right now.

I really need to get a grip on collecting wood..

We love our allotment and love spending time there, I will be honest it’s just tricky sometimes to balance everything. In the past few months, a lot has happened with work and in our family, the kids are getting to an age where we need to get them out a lot more and for them, the allotment isn’t magical anymore. Maybe that’s on us to try and find a new way of getting them more involved and bringing back the fun for them. So, any ideas for how to make it fun for teenagers some be a massive help.

We are struggling to find the time to fit it all in and sadly the allotment has had to take a hit this year, don’t worry we have still been planting stuff at home getting ready for when we can get there. We have a couple of Tomatoes, Cabbage, Cauliflower and Celery and once we get down there we can get them straight into the polytunnel. One of the amazing things about our tunnel is that we set it up in such a way that we don’t have much to do to prepare it. We have already cleared, topped and covered the beds, which leaves us with nothing to do but plant when we go down there. I am not sure if this is the case for everyone but when I went down to clear the tunnel of last year's crop, there were no weeds to have to deal with. It was so simple to prepare for this year.

I work full time as a staff photojournalist for a paper and with all the breaking news that’s been going on my work has been crazy busy, we have also family problems to take on board that has knocked us back a bit.

Example of my work.

This is a photograph of Boris taken on a trip to Manchester.

With life and work I tend to be all or nothing so when I am on the allotment, I miss doing a lot of the other jobs that needs doing. This year all the work on the house I have been putting off I have had to do; my garden has been neglected and the house needed DIY doing. As a photographer I am not too bad at doing things around the house, I always say try to do it yourself first and if you fail then ask for help. Recently I have hung 6 new doors, well impressed with my little self.

I don’t know what stage you are in your life, but we are still quite a young working family and balancing everything is tricky from time to time. This year it is the allotment that’s has been neglected, last year it was our home.

The plan hasn’t changed at all. We are still planning on growing only what we eat to save money on our household costs and I still have a few more plant beds to build in our polytunnel.

I will do blogs just on what we are planting and when, but for this one, I just wanted to be honest and talk with you guys about struggling so hopefully if you're finding it hard to get to your plot you’re not on your own.

I am glad I didn’t let the last week of hot weather fool me into rushing to the plot to plant, as it looks like the cold is coming back. I hope you guys haven’t been tricked into planting out on the plot yet. Most years we get carried away and plant too early so maybe just maybe what I call being late might be actually being on time for our location.

I am super happy with the amount of wood I have collect for building projects this year, I think I have enough to build a log cabin and then move in on the plot. The polytunnel is the perfect place to store the wood to help dry it out and keep it safe.

I know it’s not my normal type of post but our plan has always been to share our experiences and be honest. So once again if you're reading this, thank you for taking the time out to do so. I am not an expert, I just sharing our experiences with you and maybe it will help in some way.

For more on our allotment head over to our Instagram page @allotment102. We try to post a few times a week and we share everything good and bad