Rain!

It's difficult to feel motivated when you wake to heavy rain in the knowledge you're going to be outdoors all day.  Cold is somehow more cold when it's wet, and worse still when it's dark.
So I ambled into the morning rather than raced, no doubt with a visible scowl across my face.  And several gazillion layers of clothing (including a hat that has irritated me all day!)
We welcome (like really welcome!) the help of friends Andy and Jeff at out little salad growing plot on Tuesdays. We are developing a little routine of exchanging soup and crusty bread for their time and assistance. The soup was made this morning (all organic and vegan leek and potato) and left to stay warm in the Wonderbag (more about this later) and together with two flasks of tea, we can just about cope with the absence of power and cooking facilities. The soup pan, in fact, we too hot for me to lift the lid!
Growth is really slow at this time of year; there's too little light. But it's a great point for doing the big jobs, especially those that would be too hot in summer. Today we built compost bays. Six in fact, about 1sq m in size, which is the optimum. We used old pallets, staked through the middle for support and screwed to each other for stability. They're not pretty, but they function and are desperately needed.  At home I have six 'dalek' bins, which just about take all our uncooked food waste, plain paper and card, all the garden waste and all the gardening waste!  Composting is obsessive.  Everything others see as rubbish becomes a resource.  I find myself trying to bagsy the paper shreddings from the office and other people's mowings like other people root through the Whoops! bin at Asda.  Surprisingly, I don't get a lot of actual compost, certainly not enough for growing food.  But it's satisfying to be nurturing your soil with what you've taken from it previously. Circle of life (I think someone sang about that once...)