Lets spare a thought for the Pump Out man.

Lets spare a thought for the Pump Out man,

a thankless task emptying out another man's 'can'.

He'll put on rubber gloves and the wellies too,

just to remove the things that you and yours do.

Along the lane he trundles in his tanker so small,

emptying every body's septic tanks or their cesspool.

It's a lonely job and not the place to be..

especially in a heat wave at 36 degrees C!

They toil all day rolling out their pipes and kit...

It has very little kudos pumping out another person's...

pit.

You'd have to enjoy it or it'd be a bummer of a rap...

Peering deep into the tank to look at your fellow man's....

trap.

It's hard to impress the girls when going out on a date,

if you tell her "I'll pick you up at 7 in my tanker mate!"

Ostracised by one and all, they even reject your money at the bank,

You know it's bad when the Fishmonger says "Cor blimey he stank!"

So spare a thought for the Pump Out man,

for removing tons of feculence is not grand.

But it is a noble job which someone has to do

and thanks be to God that it's him and not you!

M.Thomas

Our pump out guy came last week, he is often seen passing by in his bright blue tractor with matching tank being towed behind. More often than not his wife is riding 'shot gun' in the cab with him, true love runs deep (about 6' deep actually). I am truly staggered at just how much 'stuff' is processed by our tiny septic tank. It is a very old structure, could easily be 100 years old. Brick built it is just 6' deep and at best 3' square with all our waste entering through one pipe at the top where the solids drop to the bottom. On the opposite side there is one pipe exiting the pit. It's job is to take the liquids away to an area to soak into the ground (in a neighbours garden!).

Well in that year I have had hundreds of nights with B&B guests all busy flushing, showering, washing etc. I and ours all doing the same, the holiday cottage occupants too. On any one change over day my washing machine is normally running for at least 8 hours constantly. Absolutely hundreds of washes go through in the year. On top of that all of the rain water running of the back roof of the main house and the whole of the east wing also runs into the tank. So I think it is quite astonishing that this tiny tank can process that volume. My pump out man was very impressed and said that I "Had a lovely crust formed on the top of my solids".  I'm so proud.

Summer is here and things are growing fast and furious. We picked several pounds of Blackcurrents the other day and have made some lovely jam from it which the guests are already eating up.
The Raspberries are good and the Loganberries prolific so more jam urgently needs to be made there.

We spent several hours picking Gooseberries down the allotment too, it seemed to take for ever. Tub after tub of the things. We spent the evenings watching TV whilst we topped and tailed them. We have still not finished the job and so ave not weighed them all yet but we reckon there's between 24 to 28lbs of them.

Picking, freezing, picking, preserving, picking, jam making, picking, eating, picking......

Did I ever mention that I left work to get away from the drudgery of it all?





The Redcurrents look like they're next and all the time the Rhubarb keeps cropping so we pick it and freeze it for crumbles for our guests in November / December.

I have a small field of New potatoes which I need to start digging and I have about a hundred Onions which look like they are just about ready to harvest.




The Brassicas are in eventually and as you can see my little trolley was very useful in getting them down to the allotment.

I think of my little trolley much like Lieutenant Hubert Gruber from "'Allo'Allo" thought of his little tank with much affection and pride, but not in such a gay way.

Now we are seriously starting to harvest what I sowed and time as usual is of the essence.  Here the Broad Beans are just at the point that I like them most, slightly under mature and able to be eaten raw.








I really don't like fully grown Broad Beans but these are delicious and I can't eat enough of them.









Now cast your mind back to September 2012 and this was the allotment plot which I had inherited...

And from the same view point you can now see a bed of 300 onions ready to be pulled....

 

I have to admit that I'm pretty chuffed with myself now I look back at the progress made. Despite the full on business, the renovations to The Old Bakery and even squeezing in a few holidays my 'patch' has actually done quite well. 

So here are a few photos to show what I have replaced the weed infested plot with....

A small field of both 'New' Potatoes (Kestrel and Casablanca) and main crop (Desiree and King Edwards), all staggered to give me different cropping times, hopefully taking me right through to January as they did last year. This is handy as I use these in all the guests meals right up to Christmas.

Kestrel New Pots,  Mmmmmm!

I had some nice carrots & Parsnips last year, but not many because the weeds over took them both. This year I worked really hard to minimise the weeds and so far it is looking promising.

I'm hoping that this Sweet Corn is productive too, I have doubled the plants this year because I so enjoyed the taste of last years crop. It has been bone dry with hardly any rain and I have been using plenty of my stored water to get all of the young plants going.

A large patch of assorted squashes, Black Beauty Courgettes, Patty Pans, De Nice a fruit rond and Yellow Scallop are in there somewhere. I have also planted A LOT of Pumpkins which I may sell on my garden wall again like last year (depending on the success of the crop of course). Oh and I'll make my favourite Pumpkin soup too.

A great crop of Blackcurrants, many of which are really large the biggest being as wide as my thumb nail.....

Mmm, perhaps I need a manicure.

And Next up are the Redcurrants which are also prolific and pretty large too.

We have had pounds of Strawberries and at least 10lb of Loganberries from the garden along with something similar in weight in Raspberries from both the garden and the allotment. There are about 30 Runner Beans growing plus Berlotti Beans, a whole row of Autumn Raspberries, yet to crop and a good hundred Leeks in their early stages. I have even planted some Sweet Potatoes but I'm not too convinced that we'll see much happen there.

So all in all looking quite promising, just need that Summer rain now.

An update on the fedge... Well as the photo above shows all my canes seem to have taken and with the Mock Orange pouring over the arch the room has really come together now. We even had a little girl go in their (from the cottage) so mum would read her bedtime story in there.

It is Poppy season again and there are a few fields out there just blushing with poppies. They look spectacular and I just can't resist taking more photos of them.