Buried Treasure!

Today was rather exciting, as we found buried treasure in my garden! My father-in-law was helping me dig over the allotment and he found an old coin. The date on the coin is 1735, which makes it really old in my colonial eyes. I cleaned it up a bit to have a better look at it and as much as we can tell, it's not a British coin. Here's a couple of pictures of both sides.
You can see the date at the bottom of the coin, 1735. Above it looks like three letters, Η Γ Α. Above that looks like it's less clear, but looks like a fancy A, with the middle cross bar extending past the angled sides, followed by possibly an F. 

This side is far more difficult to decipher. We think the bit to the left of the corrosion at the top might be a bird head and neck, with a wing on the right side of it. But it might not be, it might be a scroll, it might be anything. This picture is actually pretty good, you aren't missing anything in the photo that we can see in person. 

So if anyone out there has ideas of what this coin might be, or where to research it more, please leave a comment! 

EDIT: Through the power of the internet and my supergoogling friend, Babs, we have found that the coin is a Russian Denga. Not worth a fortune, but an interesting find. What is even more interesting is to ponder how it ended up in an allotment plot in Cookham??? 

A Glorious Week

The past 7 days have been absolutely spectacular spring weather. It's been sunny and warm every day. It's still only spring, because as soon as you are out of the sun you can feel there is still a nip in the air, but out in the sun you would think it was late May rather than late March. Lena and I have been enjoying the backyard and also trips up to the park and the allotment. Lena is much more into the allotment this year. She enjoys digging around with the little trowel. I have a toy one for her somewhere which I should find as sometimes I need the trowel and she's not quite willing to give it over. The hoe is also something she enjoys; by pretending it's the see-saw and singing Margery Daw while on it. I'm very impressed at how well she can sing it. I'm also happy to say she has no fear of bugs or worms or anything, whenever I find a worm to show her, she wants to have a "little talk" with the worm and give it a kiss. One day after being up at the allotment and putting in potatoes, I told her to tell G what we had planted. She happily told him, "We plant worms!" 

To me, it's unusual to get such a long period of time with steady good weather here in the UK, so I have really been enjoying seeing the sun everyday. Coming from one of the sunniest parts of North America, (Alberta gets more sunshine hours per year than Florida) it makes it easier to get things done and to get out and about when the sun is shining. Of course, now that I've blogged about it, it will likely rain to biblical proportions or descend into the next ice age or something.

The Littlewick Show

So I've finally made it to another show, after being at the Thame Country show last year. We went to the Littlewick Show yesterday. My favourite bit there was the traditional gardening and baking competitions. Some of the baked products looked very nice, but to be honest the vegetables on display were nicer. I was very impressed with some of the carrots, onions and leeks that were there. The size and quality were very good. Even if I got myself organised next year, I doubt I would even place, nevermind win in some categories. But it might be good for a laugh next year, so we'll see. The baking competition should be easy enough to enter. I mean, they even give you the recipe to follow for 2 of them. I'm not saying I would have any chance of winning, but I could at least probably produce something that looked edible with just a couple of days of work. Something I can't always say even after months in the allotment!

A Boring Gardening Post

I know that gardening isn't everyone's idea of a fun activity, and even fewer find reading about it to be stimulating. Hence the warning in the post title today. My husband could be considered one of those who don't find gardening that thrilling, which is part of the reason I went to the Open Gardens Day in Cookham Dean on Sunday without him. I made it to 4 out of the 5 gardens and it looked like the day was a big success, as there was loads and loads of people around with programs in hand. I paid extra for good weather on the weekend (we had a BBQ to celebrate someone's 30th birthday) and it was well worth the expense, plus the open gardens benefited as well from the mild good weather. As all the money was going to charity, Thames Hospicecare, so I'm glad so many people came.

It was a good mix of gardens, from some small ones about the size of our back yard to a big acre and a half plot which I didn't make it to sadly. I guess it makes sense to show a variety, rather than just the same type. I liked the two that also had vegetable plots the most. Partly because I liked the vegetables, but also because they felt like gardens people actually use and enjoy, rather than something created for a look or maintained to keep up the good surroundings of the house. But it was interesting see all of them. I'm sure lots of people were like me and were checking out the houses as much as the gardens. Cookham Dean is considered to be the rich part of Cookham, and there are some mansions about the place that would help you confirm it (not that the Rise or the village don't have them, but the Dean has more). So it's fun to have a gawk about and see how the better off live.

On my own allotment, I was getting a bit disheartened with the slugs eating my squashes, the grass growing better and faster than any of my plants, etc etc. But there is one thing that is keeping me going - I've had some absolutely fabulous strawberries this past week. They are one part of my plot where I've managed to keep the weeds in check and there were giant, sweet and flavoursome red jewels for me to pick as a reward for my vigilance. Lena likes them too. In fact, she currently doesn't make too much fuss leaving the playground and the swings to head over to the allotment, because she knows that the strawberries can be found there. G. has had very few of the strawberries, as between Lena and I, we usually manage to eat all the berries right there and then. Perhaps it will be encouragement for him to go up to the plot and do a bit of watering and maintenance for me while I'm away with Lena in Canada the next 2 weeks. A girl can hope.

A dirty story

The weather has been quite nice lately. It was apparently the sunniest February on record for the UK. It's gotten me itchy to plant things and get things growing in our backyard and in my allotment. I started off some pepper plant seeds a few weeks ago and was very pleased to find that all of them had sprouted. My secret? A wet paper towel in a plastic tray, covered with plastic wrap and put into our boiler cupboard. A steady 25-30°C and hey presto! Seeds grew. So obviously paper towel isn't the best nutrient base for seeds, so I transferred them today to some pots with soil. Along with them, I planted 4 different types of tomato seeds in soil as well. They were all sitting on our bed, catching a few rays before being put to bed in the cupboard.

Off I went to take a bath after potting the seeds and planting a few other things like sage in the backyard. Before I went to the bath, I got Lena up out of her crib from her nap. She enjoys standing on her chair and looking out to the street, especially after napping. So I left her there and told G. where she was before going off to my bath. G. was downstairs playing a computer game. As I got into the bath, I had a passing thought that it was awfully quiet in the rest of the house. But I decided that I had passed on the baton and wasn't going to interfere.

About 20 minutes later, I heard G. go upstairs and several exclamations from him. Soon he came down and brought Lena into the bathroom. Her hands, feet and mouth were covered with soil, along with a light dusting on all her clothes. She had crossed from her room to our and gotten into the pots, tracking dirt all over our bedroom. I was 5% sad about the plant setback, but 95% amused by what had happened. Lena joined me in the bath while G. worked on cleaning up the mess. He commented that she had been really quiet all the time she was upstairs. I told him that whenever she is quiet for too long, I always go up to see why she's being quiet. Not really the way I'd choose to get that message across, but hopefully effective for the future.

Clarification

I met someone else who reads my blog and I realise that perhaps I haven't made things clear to people who don't personally know us well. We have moved, but only within the village of Cookham. And not that far even in the village! So you can continue to expect posts about life in and around Cookham from me.

I met Liz, one of the great volunteers who looks after the fantastic Cookham website. She has over 500 daffodil bulbs that are looking to be planted in places that can be seen by the public. Since we live right on a corner with a little strip of green outside our fence, I thought it would be a good spot to plant some. I look forward to seeing them come early spring. So if you want some bulbs and have a place where they can be appreciated by everyone, do get in contact with her via the Cookham website.

Plots and Monopoly Spots Update

This is an update from an earlier post about allotments and Monopoly.

Getting an allotment was a great idea. I have really enjoyed going down there to potter about; weeding, watering and sowing seeds. G. didn't think much of the idea at the start of the time, seeing all the weeds that had to be removed. But since having had several delicious meals featuring homegrown produce, he has come around. Here's a photo montage of what has come out of my plot.

First, lots and lots of weeds came out.


These are the potatoes that came from the spuds we found in the ground from last year.

Me and just one of the many many bunches of Swiss chard we ate.

Pumpkins, bigger than my head!

Lamb steaks, with rocket, salad leaves, tomatoes and corn. Everything but the lamb was from the allotment.

Lena also enjoyed the corn.

There's actually a lot more I got out of the plot but I don't have photos. Lots of snow peas, regular peas and runner beans. Right now there's French beans growing, plus the salad, rocket, and 2 types of broccoli. I have to get some more stuff in to take up space over winter so that the weeds don't battle back. If you want to send me seeds to plant, send an email to zeebride@gmail.com and I'll pass along my address.

Knowing I want to keep up with the allotment, I went to pay for the next year at the parish office. She actually sent me away, saying to wait for my letter in the mail before paying. I don't see why it would be so complicated to take my money when I'm ready to pay it, but apparently it would mess up the system. Okay...

As for the Monopoly bit, the towns have been chosen and Cookham sadly wasn't one of them. This is probably a good thing for me, because it means I don't have to go out and buy a copy of the silly game. Monopoly is an okay game, but there are much better games out there. I'll save that rant for another day though.

General Update

I've been a bit slow posting this past month because we are trying to buy a house. I would love to post about it, but it feels unlucky to post anything before we actually have the house. In Canada, when buyer and seller agree on the price, the buyer puts down a deposit and the deal is done. In England, until the day you are actually given the keys to the house, the thing could fall apart at any time. Ours doesn't look likely to fall apart, but who knows. Since buying a house has been occupying so much of my thoughts, it's been tough to think on other topics to post about. My apologies for appearing to be slacking.

So I challenged a bunch of other allotmenteers I know online to update their gardening blogs, saying I would do the same. My big change on my allotment is I finally got around to making a compost heap. I could have gone and got a bin, but I was too impatient to wait the possible month for it to be delivered, so I decided to try the simple heap method. To give the heap a bit of shape, I started with one of our moving boxes. It's fairly large, not the 1 cubic metre that's recommended, but hey, you have to start somewhere. As it's made of cardboard, it's nice and biodegradable too, so it'll eventually lose its shape and become part of the heap as well. Anything that's biodegradable will eventually break down, but if you want to make compost fast, you can optimise the process. I've done a fair amount of reading about composting and here are some of the general tips I've pulled out.

• Keep an even mix of brown stuff (twigs, paper, manure) to green stuff (grass cuttings, vegetable peelings).
• If your mixture is too dry, add more green stuff. If it's too wet, add more brown stuff. It should be just slightly damp. Which yes, does seem to mean that you have to touch it with your bare hand. Gross, I agree.
• Compost has to get to a certain level of heat to be effective in breaking things down. The smallest size this works well at is the aforementioned one cubic metre. I think 3 cubic meters is even better, but I don't think I'm likely to acheive that on my plot. If it's smaller than 1m³, it will still work but it'll take much longer.
• If the stuff you add to your compost pile is in small bits, it'll be easier to break down. I'm tempted to use my food processor on the veggie peelings and stuff I have, but not sure I can deal with the idea of the mangy bits that weren't good enough for dinner being in my chopper.
• You can add manure, but don't add fresh manure; it should be aged like a cheap wine. 6 months or so. Manure from vegetarian animals is recommended, not that of omnivores or carnivores.
• Once your pile is producing heat, turn it every 3-5 days to keep giving the bacteria that produce the heat (and break down the stuff) fresh food.
• When it no longer looks like anything you put into it and is brown and crumbly, it's ready for use.

So I'm hoping that even though my pile is relatively small, it's starting to get the right bacteria in it to give off heat. I haven't been down there since Saturday morning, so tomorrow is a big day. Compost checking, adding kitchen waste to it, picking peas, pulling up blighted potato plants and weeding are on the cards. Assuming it's not bucketing down with rain. It hasn't rained in a couple of weeks, so a good drenching like today is okay. But I'm not keen on trying to take Lena down there in the rain and also to get some work done.

Speaking of it not raining, on Saturday morning, after a week of no rain, I was talking to one of my fellow allotmenteers (I love that word by the way, it's like a non-gun-toting musketeer). He said to me in his lovely accent, "I hope you don't mind m'dear, but I took the liberty of watering your plot for you a couple of times this week". It turns out he was doing that for my neighbour's plot while she was away and so he just turned the hose onto mine too. I had only been down in the evenings that week and he's always there in the mornings, so I had no idea. I did think that the plot was holding up remarkably well for no rain. I plan on bringing him some raspberry jam to thank him. He said he didn't need any thanks, but I'd like to thank him anyways. I thought it was awfully nice of him.

Lena is getting amazingly mobile for someone who cannot yet crawl. I'll upload a video of her in the next couple of days, so stay tuned for that.

The Great Outdoors

If you are savvy enough to be reading this online, you are probably aware of the flooding in England. It's been very bad in places, but you don't have to worry about us yet. We personally won't get flooded, as we are up two hills from the Thames. There's a flood warning, but not a severe one. I haven't started stockpiling drinking water or bought a campstove for cooking on, and hopefully this won't prove to be a foolish oversight. Here are a couple of pictures from the Thames around noon today near Cookham bridge.




It's supposed to peak later this afternoon or this evening in Cookham. As you can see in the picture with the boats, it's just over the banks, but not really threatening right now.



In other news, I finally got a chance to spend some time on my allotment. With all the rain, the weeds were feeling very happy and healthy so I needed to do something about that. Here is a before and after picture of the weeds near my corn.



It's nothing exciting, but I took the pictures to show myself that yes, you can actually see a difference after a good 30 minutes of weeding.

Short News

A few snippets of news in the life of us.

Lena is eating solid food, 3 meals a day now. Parsnip, carrot and potato is well-liked, as is zucchini. She is also quite adept at eating Italian breadsticks. I'll try and add a video over the weekend. At first it was tough to remember to actually feed her 3 times a day (to go from none to 3 times makes a big difference), but I've gotten used to it and she certainly doesn't let anyone forget now.

My allotment is coming along nicely. Except for any leaf crop - the slugs are winning the battle there. I tried to do some work to keep them down on Wednesday, but it's been pretty wet the last couple of days, so I don't know if there's anything left now.

Speaking of the weather, it has been wet this week. Although it's a shame really, I'm not complaining because it has eased my hay fever. I only ever get it in June, so hopefully it will tail off soon. I never had hay fever until I moved to Germany, so I would not be impressed if I find that I have more allergies moving to a new country again. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

And the final bit of news, I saw Queen Elizabeth up close and personal yesterday. Well, up close through bullet-proof glass of her Bentley. Her and her posse were leaving Windsor Castle, heading down to Ascot for Royal Ascot. It was a bit breezy and cool with showers yesterday (Ladies Day, by the way), but I'm sure she didn't get as chilly as we did on our visit. It was pretty nifty to see her, she drove down the Long Walk after our stroll along it. One thing I noticed in the brief pass as she went by is that she has lovely skin. Very nice porcelain grandmother cheeks. I hope all her grandkids appreciate them. And her of course.

And that's the week in brief.

Digging it up

I did a fair amount of work on Saturday on the allotment. Which was good timing, as it poured rain most of Sunday and Monday. Not really weather condusive to being outdoors, at least not when it will also involve a lot of mud.

The first crop I had sprout from the earth was rocket/arugula. I was very excited about it, but I was less excited to find slugs or birds had eaten nearly all of it. Plus with the new weeds growing up right beside it, it was tough to see what I had left. In the end I decided to call it quits and start again. So now with newspaper down for mulch, fresh weed-free compost and slug pellets strewn about, I might have some rocket again in a few weeks. The only thing that I planted that was surviving still was radishes. I'll have to head down later today and see if the newspaper stayed in place or if my fresh compost all got washed away. I can accept the fact that gardening isn't as simple as sticking in a few seeds and sitting back to reap the rewards a few months later, but too many set-backs will be discouraging. At least I can enjoy the company of the other allotmenteers. Everyone I've met has been really friendly, with a couple offers of letting me use their equipment if I need it. V's wheelbarrow has definitely come in handy several times.

I shall of course post here when I finally get something out of it that is edible.

P.S. I'd also like to thank my sister-in-law and hubbie for sending me some gardening books for Christmas. They have proved invaluable, so thanks again R and T for them!

Plots and Monopoly Spots

So I took the plunge and got an allotment. Very exciting. Actually, everyone I've talked to about having an allotment seems kind of excited about the idea too. It must be trendy. I went down there yesterday to do a bit of weeding. It's accurate to say a bit, I probably cleared one square meter out of the around fifty I have. But it's a start at least. It was funny, walking down there with my garden fork. It was like I was an angry villager, looking for a mob to join. I wonder what all the parents and children going to the Cookham Schools Prom (part of the Cookham Festival) thought of it. Probably most of them know that there are a group of allotment plots near Cookham Rise school. At least I hope they know and didn't just think I was trying to add colour to the village by walking around in my purple-flowered rubber boots and pitchfork...

In other news, Hasbro is coming out with a new "Here & Now" UK Monopoly edition. People can vote on what places get to be spots on the board. There's a chance for even little places to get onto the board as wildcards. So go here and vote for Cookham! http://www.monopoly.co.uk/vote.aspx