Friday 2nd May - How does your garden grow?

 Too soon to say... 

The radishes are up, the spinach is on its way. The fridge potatoes have made it to the top of their tubs, there's enough room for a little bit more earth and then they can grow in peace.

More lettuces, 'Reine de Glace', these ones are called. 'Delicious in salads or cooked' it says on the packet. Cooked? I've seen Jamie Oliver and other chefs charring 'Little Gem' lettuces on a BBQ or in a frying pan, but I haven't tried it myself. 

The carrots went in today as well. These were on a seed tape and that did make life very easy.

The only obvious plants in this view are the original Egyptian Walking Onions, and the radishes. You might make out the tops of the potatoes further back.

This is from the other end. Two tubs of broad beans, and two of peas. On the right is a leek. Only two survived; they are puny things and their days are numbered as that's where the French beans are going.

I summoned my courage and pulled up one of the younger Walking Onions. It looks an enormous spring onion, and smellsa bit like a very mild shallot. 

I prepped it like a spring onion, chopped it up as for a stir fry and cooked it in a little olive oil with a couple of tomatoes and half a red pepper. Delicious! Why did I wait so long? We shall steadily munch our way through the rest in time for the original ones to produce all those bulbils again.

Yesterday I heard about 'asparagus peas' for the first time. There's another thing to try!

My elbow

Yesterday I did quite a lot of knitting, about an hour of Cover Story Stitching, extensive gardening, rather too much sudoko, and the usual cooking. Oh, and also taught a piano lesson. My elbow, which has been a bit twingey recently, was in open revolt this morning! So much so that I nearly dropped our plates at lunchtime when I was lifting them out of the oven. Ow ow ow!

So I've been revisiting the activities of yesterday to find what caused it. Gardening was fine  as was knitting and using my tablet (I'm tapping away on it now). Chopping vegetables was OK... and then I did a little more stitching. Ow ow ow! It's pulling the larger-eyed needle with perle cotton throughout thicker layers of fabric! I've been working on areas with layered fabrics for a couple of days, and it was a bit of an effort to get through the thicknesses. I'll be fine working on a different bit where there are fewer layers, but I'll take a break from sewing a break over the weekend to give my elbow a chance to recover. 

Music 

Up until now I've been doing my own research, delving through 60 years of listening to and playing music. I thought I'd give my 'little grey cells' a rest, and look at the playlist for 'Another Year Of Wonder' by Clemency Burton-Hill. 

I've got the original book; each day of the year has a piece of music and information about it. I don't have this second book, so I can't crib any programme notes! 

This is one of Schumann's 'Kinderscenen'. I've had the book ever since I was quite young, but was disappointed to find the the pieces aren't so much for children to play, are literally 'Scenes from Childhood'. Schumann's own childhood?  I've no idea. I sort of managed to get my hands around some of them, but apart from 'Traumerei' which I was nade to learn and don't like, never really pkayed any of the others properly.

This is Kind im Einschlummern', or 'The Sleeping Child'