One of the allotment holders gave me 12 spring cabbage and 12 winter cauliflowers yesterday - he said he' get me some when he went down the nursery with his daughter. This meant that I had to sort out the area that is now free of onions so that I could plant them out. Trouble is that the compost heap from last year is covered in marrows and courgettes, compost heap number 2 is not yet ready and the children with cars are on holiday.

So this morning I arrived at the local garden centre as the doors opened and smiled nicely to see if I could get something added to the Friday delivery knowing that I was pushing my luck. The driver, being a nice gentleman and knowing that my allotment is a close and easy drop off point, said no problem see you after lunch. So I paid for six bags of manure with added goodies that were on offer and jumped on the next bus from the stop at the entrance to the garden centre to come home for breakfast. Yep - the bus that would have got me door to door to the garden centre for opening time runs before my OAP bus pass works.  I would have had to pay so therefore I walked the fifteen minute walk door to door and missed the second cup of tea.

So this afternoon after clearing some of the peas that had finished producing and were dying back, it was a case of digging over and manuring the ex-onion patch, planting out and then netting against the butterflies!! Of course the ground is now only sort of dry on the top despite having had a dry week after what seemed like the monsoon season recently, it was damp digging and clay sticks.

I also shared some runner beans and a marrow with the nice lady from the house over the road who has been very generous to my compost heap when her hedge was trimmed and her back garden mown from its overgrown state. She also gave me lots of plastic bags to bring goodies home in. What a nice lady. Her daughter is in the same school year as grandson from up the road.

Meantime the gentleman on the allotment next door has cleared out his "rubbish corner" so that there is no hiding place for the rats that appear every winter.  He is concerned about rat attacks on his racing pigeon stock and the food that costs him somewhat it seems. Apparently it took two hard working men two hours to clear out the corner - my goodness you should see the junk that is waiting for the scrap man. It must have taken some years to collect it - old bike, old barrow, old paint tins, old metal gratings, one of those old blue gas bottles and items that could have been anything. Steptoe would have been proud of this collection I'm telling you.

I was asked if I was entering the allotment holders produce competition but I don't think that I have anything which will come anywhere near a prize. So I don't see the point - I mean it's the winning that counts not the taking part. I had to agree with the reaction of the person who asked the question mind as it's exactly what I would have said if I'd received that answer to the question.

Thank you for an interesting sneak preview of what is to come on the van before Christmas and a couple of hours being asked for views on future products. It's a good idea I suspect to see what some of the customers think of your new ideas before you let them go out into the big wide world. If a room full of regular customers pull faces and shake their heads you are not exactly going to manage to sell them on the van that delivers to the door are you? Unless you find the only room full of customers who don't like them out of all those others who are on your books out there and who will buy them, it gives you an idea of what you can sell on the doorstep.Unlikely. But possible.

The doorstep is a completely different place to the internet - people on the doorstep buy because it is delivered and they like the idea of a delivery of goods that are not sold in shops. The Ringtons tea van is a sort of institution in areas where the vans are known and certainly in the areas around the head office in Newcastle there is a good presence. I suspect that the doorstep delivery is more for older customers although there were some younger ladies in the room (oh and two gentlemen as well).

Now I have to ask myself the question. Would I buy the teapot and tea cosy that fits it? - even if the cosy is a most appealing woolly sheep that made me laugh. But it's a much more basic duo of questions that come to mind. Will I ever make a pot of tea again? Or will I just use a teabag in a mug? Now therein lies the question. There's one person in this household and rarely if ever does more than one person come here to drink tea. I used to make pots of tea and then never drink them all because I forgot and the pot was cold when I remembered or I didn't want any more after the first mugfull. Yet I will go into a cafe and drink a cup of tea from a pot and then have another because there is some more in the pot. What an odd person I am. But the whole conversation shows how far I have come to the idle modern ways of just dunking a teabag into a cup of nearly boiling water at home and waiting till it is strong enough. Is this the really idle housewife in me coming out? Yes probably.

The internet market seems to be a new are for Ringtons and the marketing department says that it is looking for a different set of customers. Certainly it is a slightly different variety of teas that are shown on the website to those that you see in the van and a slightly different set of tea drinkers obviously. You mean that there are posh tea drinkers? Look I know that coffee drinkers have their own fads and ways - I've seen the Pumphrey's coffee showroom too and there are more varieties of the stuff than you could sample in a year of serious drinking if you are just one person. Unfortunately coffee doesn't like me anymore so there is no sampling of that for me. But the idea of sampling varieties of teas by way of a tea club - now that is a new idea to me. I see that there are a couple of other websites offering the same sort of service so it must be a new area that is being tried on the web. I suppose that it saves you standing in the supermarket looking at the usual variety of teas and then picking up the same old, same old again doesn't it?

The year is now well on and fruit is ripening everywhere. The first space on the allotment has appeared where the onions have been lifted and set to dry. The cooking apples have been harvested - the tree did very well for a first year one and has provided two or three apple crumbles. The runner beans are rioting but it looks as if there will be a late crop of peas on some plants which decided to sprout, grow and flower far later than the first ones - all out of the same packet.

The farmers are working to catch the weather when it is dry enough to work and the blackberry crop seems to be ripening in the hedges. Once harvest time arrives, you know that autumn is not far behind. Spring and summer feel such a short part of the year whilst autumn and winter with the shorter days seems to be so much longer. Already you need a light on in the evening by 9 pm.

The compost heaps are growing apace ready for next year as are the plans for what we shall grow. It's pleasant to sit in the sun when everything is growing well and consider what does well on your allotment and what is not so good. That was yesterday - today being a bank holiday is grey and sullen with all the threat of rain. I'm glad not to have any plans for the day.

Meanwhile I'm looking forward to the sneak preview of the Christmas goodies at Ringtons Tea head office tomorrow. I've spotted something on the website that might just make a good present though it's not in the Christmas range. Perhaps they will let me buy it whilst I'm there to save on postage and packing do you think?

The local family (daughter, husband, grandson) flew off to Canada for two weeks holiday this morning leaving me with a pile of ironing to do (well long enough notice) and in charge of the tomato plants in their entry conservatory.   They left the dishwasher for me to empty and a trail of oddments that require washing loafing around. I might just ensure that the bathroom is clean, that the two kitchen window sills are cleaned and tidied at some point, pick up the debris that has been left around in the haste to get into the taxi and put allotment offerings on the table on the day of return.

Meanwhile the coach outing to Edinburgh tomorrow has been cancelled - usual reason - lack of numbers to make it economical to run the coach out of the garage. So what was spending money  is now more money into the savings pot towards getting a real decorator in over the winter in order to sort out the artexed living area. Paint on plaster is one thing but artexed areas are another.

.. be sure to take your wellies or even flippers and a snorkel set. I knew that it was too wet to work on the plot but I wanted some vegetables for tea so needs must go down and get them. Had just picked what I wanted and thought I might sit on the seat in the sun and shell the peas when ....

Eventually the town coach company managed to run a day trip that interested me! The minimum requirement for customers on the coach is 20 - isn't it something that they can't make up the numbers for day trips to destinations in the Lakes, the Yorkshire Dales, Blackpool, Chester, Skipton, Harrogate and other less well known but fun places? Anyway, we managed to get a full coach with no spare seats for a day in York.

I noticed what a different set of customers boarded the bus. There were no parents taking children and the older people were not the usual pensioners without cars on a lower income. They were definitely of the younger, older people, and some of them had indeed left the car at home. If you are a single person going with a friend, it can be cheaper to book on a day trip so that maybe the one of you with the car does not have to do all the driving. There were still one or two familiar faces from previous years though. The lady next to me had left the husband in charge at home and was going down to meet her daughter for the afternoon. I was just going to take the camera for a walk round the city to see how it looked from behind the lens of a camera. I came home with a variety of pictures and not one of them is of York Minster although there are about 77 items in the album from just the one day. That's without the duplicates taken in case one didn't work and the two or three mistakes (oops what did I take that for?) - aren't digital cameras great fun? You can get rid of the fingers and thumbs and the shots you didn't intend to take. So much cheaper than having to have all your mistakes developed at a cost to your wallet. No wonder there are now more cameras on the road

After a dry day, I arrived home thinking that it would be good to go down the allotment today. But it rained heavily over night so it will be just as wet as if there had not been a couple of drier days. Send the children back to school I say - then summer might just arrive.

Now that this simple item is going out of fashion, the habits of the allotment gardeners who are used to gathering their produce and taking enough home for the day in a plastic shopping bag are going to have to change.

This subject came up when I stopped at the large greenhouses in the garden next to my allotment for a couple of cucumbers (absolutely huge for 50p each - a real bargain and one thing that I am not growing as I have no greenhouse). The lady said "Ooh I've no carrier bags because people aren't getting them from the supermarket anymore". At the time I had one in my pocket so it was no problem. I have had a share out and given her a lot of mine. I'm hoping that I am going to be given some as replacements from the nice people on Freecycle and will certainly share with her again. However this doesn't give a long term solution.

I have some Ikea bags in the garden shed which will carry my produce home from the allotment on the bus. However there is the small problem of sharing with the local family - we could end up with all the Ikea bags unwashed and waiting to be collected two or three miles up the road in a different village. A small logistical nightmare. At this time of the evening I have no answer to the problem. Bin liners are more plastic to be disposed of, plastic washing up bowls and buckets could all be used so long as the cycle of returning empty ones can be organised but that is rather like the Ikea bag syndrome.

I expect that there is a perfectly sensible solution to a family that turns up having forgotten to bring the composting bucket which is full or goes to work far to early in the morning to put one of the vegetable containers in the car boot for the evening. I ought to know what to do about my children after 38-40 years of living with them ..... but there are times when I don't.

I have made an executive decision about what the family will eat off the allotment next year. We shall be growing and eating purple carrots as this is the traditional colour. They probably taste no different to the usual orange ones but we may as well enjoy life trying out different vegetables. So I have decided to go the whole way and ordered a rainbow mix from Thompson and Morgan so that we can try different colours on our dinner plates. It should be fun seeing the faces of visitors who are presented with variously coloured carrots when we are cooking and harvesting.

Orange carrots were bought to the UK by William of Orange when he and his wife became King William III and Queen Mary II after the country asked James II to leave due to his religious views. In Holland carrots had become orange as a matter of patriotic pride as it was the national colour of the country.

I have also ordered a variety of other interesting seeds along with the rainbow variety of carrots which I am going to stock in a corner all ready for next year. Delivery will probably be next week. This means that along with the stash of seeds obtained from a free offer (but you had to pay postage and packing!) in one of the national newspapers, there should be almost enough seeds to fill the allotment. Another bill sorted.

Now what can I do as it's still raining stair rods?

Second Tuesday of the month is Ringtons tea man day. Oh you haven't heard of The Ringtons tea man? Goodness me - well have been aware of the service since heaven knows when back in the 1980s. Sure and it may be a bit more expensive but to your door in an old fashioned basket - teabags of all sorts and biscuits to go with the tea as well as fun items. Who knows what will be in the basket this week? Could be toffees or some other sweeties, a toy car for the children, a tea caddy full of tea bags, tea towels with the Ringtons logo on it, a diary, a jigsaw puzzle ....

Today the poor delivery man had been plodging through the torrential rains since mid morning and was soaked. He seemed to think it was all part of the job. But then if you read the snippets of history you will find that deliveries have even been made by sledge. It's a different sort of company isn't it?

Yesterday evening came at the end of a dry day here so I decided that there was no more putting off compost heap turning. I knew that one heap had stopped "doing anything" which is always a sign that it needs attention. So it was pile the bricks to one side, off with the black polythene, fetch the trusty fork and give it a good mixing. Some of it was dry so it had a watering. Whilst I was there, I gathered extra material from the other compost heap which was uncovered and soaking and also worked in the spent compost from a couple of tubs that no longer had carrots left growing in them. It looked a goodly heap and tidy when I had finished forking, turning, adding, watering and shoveling with the trusty spade. So it was back on with the black cover to help it get warm again, replace the bricks and then turn to the remains of the other heap. Having done a shovel and mix there, this has been left open to the elements at the moment. As it catches the sun, it should be quite happy with itself for the time being (oh assuming that we have any sun of course).

Then there was the cleaning of the wheelbarrow, spade, fork and rake. there was some very wet pigeon loft clearings in the open pile which stuck to everything but you can't turn down the offerings of a hotter rotter that helps to hurry up the composting process can you? In fact if you are serious about composting, you can accept most offers of things that go on the compost heap.

You should have seen the state of my shoes when I had finished though - there was so much wet compost on them that it was a shoe cleaning job before leaving the allotment. It took quite some work at home to restore them to a decent state even after that.

I was hoping that it was beginning to dry up so that I could get around and clear up some of the growth around the edges of the plot today. But no - the weather forecaster was serious about the dampness of today. It's wet enough to put working on the allotment again by days. Ho hum - British summer. Perhaps the end of the school holidays will see an improvement do you think?

The allotment has been sodden since Friday - it's so wet that the weeds come up with half the soil with them. So weeding is out. It's almost too wet to collect goodies off - but we have been eating the goods despite the muddy work collecting them. It will be hard work sorting the place out if the soil ever shows any signs of drying out. Shades of last summer have reappeared. This was just as I thought everything was actually doing reasonably well. Of course the nasturtiums are rioting - again. Left well alone to run to seed, there will be no need to worry about what grows under the fruit trees next summer. One less bill.

I have fingers crossed as I saw the first signs of possible pumpkins when last I looked. If we get three I shall be pleased as these were affected by a late frost. Marrows and courgettes are keeping us in business. Along with the peas which are doing better than expected and the runner beans which are not as good as they could be. However we have thriving swedes and even the broccoli which is officially a failure is providing something edible that tastes OK even if not quite what it should be.

The onions need to be lifted soon so some sun would be nice as we could then let them dry on site in the warmth. Not that the next week looks as if there is going to be much of  that hot stuff.  The trouble is that wet weather leaves me with nothing to do in the high summer. I have raided the hidden pile of jigsaws which I was keeping for winter to pass the time.

Now the question is - shall I plant a variety of coloured carrots next summer? I'm trying to persuade the family that they would like purple carrots and yellow carrots as well as orange ones. They don't realise that all carrots were purple in the UK till William of Orange bought along orange ones in the late 1600s.

But history doesn't fill dinner plates does it?

I've been making them for years - jigsaws. Usually over the period October to February there is one on the go on the table. Sometimes on wet days or when it's too wet under foot on the allotment I have a go on-line.  Today I've had a go at a brown pelican and it was slow going. Hmm - more practice needed. There is also a requirement to go on a hunt for a stiff yard broom, go and pick produce on the allotment, clip the outside of a privet hedge and generally get off the computer.

I have also discovered that I have some seeds that need planting this year so I need to find room for lettuce and radish which means that I may well have to buy some more compost as I've run out of good stuff. Oh if it isn't one thing it's another. The trouble is that I don't think that I have any spare space on the allotment.

Oh dear me and it looks as if there is going to be further rain - at least showery rain. It was that wet last night when I came home that the street drains couldn't cope. The major wet on me was from cars aqua planing rather than the rain coming down. I told one youngster that it was time to go back to school so that we could have some fine weather for the rest of the summer. He told me no quite firmly.

I must be getting old as both the step children have passed 40 and now the oldest son is about to hit the mark in a week or so.

Now what do you get someone who is 40, has a house with all the necessities and no space for more, all the gear needed for his hobbies and a good wife too?  It's taken a couple of weeks to come up with a good idea but at least the wife has said she thinks £40 worth of garden centre vouchers would do very well.

There's the last one who hits 40 just before Christmas 2009 and she will be totally beyond solving. I shall have to start thinking now as she really does have everything including access to my allotment for vegetables and fruit on top of a nice house and all the gear required for hobbies.

Ideas for a frilly daughter with a wardrobe full of clothes and more jewelry than she can wear on a postcard over the next year will be quite welcome.

When it's raining here are some games to drive you mad over a cup of tea.

1. Play parachutes
2. Play mini golf

1. Or you can read some useless information
2. Then you could take up an artistic occupation
3. Click on the rotating bit to see what happens
4. Or look into car park design
5. Design tee shirts
6. Get expensive items for compost making

Or you can join Stumple Upon and send it off to discover stuff that you fancy for yourself

You go round the supermarket and are faced with shelves of beautifully packaged cleaning items full of chemicals said to make life easy - oh and all at a wonderful price. Yes cleaning products have shot up in price along with all the food price rises. Laundry powder boxes are still the same size but the price has gone up or the contents have gone down - or both. Then you can have a look at the contents on the box and find that you are paying for a wonderful chemical brew which does no good for the environment. So we are paying through the nose to keep the house clean and damage our surroundings. Hmm - time to think again.

First question - why do you need all those items for different things? Are we buying the advertising that our houses need all these products or are we keeping up with the neighbours? And are these cleaning chemicals to blame for the rise in allergies and asthma? Is the cleaning shelf a reaction against the hard time stories of "the old days" and the need to show that we are still houseproud whilst going out to work to support the lifestyle? A true conundrum.

Granny would have been shocked. She lived with white distilled vinegar, borax and soda bicarbonate for the house and soda crystals for the laundry. All used to be cheap and easily available. Oh and they do somewhat less harm to the environment. Right well off you go to the supermarket down the road and have a look. Cough, splutter - exactly. You can get soda crystals and an eco-friendly laundry detergent at Asda at the moment - both are competitively priced. But you try looking for simple distilled vinegar, borax or soda bicarbonate - nope not in quantity  but in small containers for food uses. Now I'm all for cheap as my only income is the state pension and pension credit. I'd like to help the environment but not at the prices charged for branded eco friendly cleaning stuff at the moment - you pay a premium for it.  I'd be quite happy to be able to wander down to the local supermarket and buy distilled vinegar, borax, soda bicorbonate and soda crystals at a nice cheap price in nice big containers just like Granny did. The place would be just as clean. Can I do so? Nope.

Now the other side of the coin is that if you do a big shop every so often for the heavy stuff (cleaning products, staples for the food store cupboard) you are going to get charged for delivery by most supermarkets unless you drive. Well I don't drive and can't carry the heavy stuff. So that puts up the price of everything even if you are shopping for cheap brands of chemical cleaners and food. So - do I pay less for the cheaper cleaners in bulk which will last longer at somewhere like Summer Naturals or The Soap Kitchen (you do have to hunt for things on that site) and go for bulk laundry and washing up at Faith In Nature where the prices are competitive for the items and where you can get free delivery over a certain amount? Funnily enough the Faith in Nature products are supposed to go further than similar products down the supermarket unless you are buying the cheap and nasty laundry stuff. Tried that once and found that the clothes didn't come up clean. Now if I buy in bulk for my cleaning every six months I will be no more out of pocket than doing a delivered supermarket shop which includes these items more often. This would mean one staples for the store cupboard every six months as well. An interesting money problem..

Of course the supermarkets will say that there is no requirement for larger quantities of white distilled vinegar, borax, soda bicarbonate and soda crystals. Well no of course there isn't because they don't sell them.  They don't know do they because they don't sell them?

OK end of rant.

July rained itself out in style here! I was down at the allotment tidying up hedges, adding netting for some late peas, tidying up around the edges of the plot, picking some new King Edward potatoes and generally doing what had to be done when the rains came. I'm not sure whether to be happy in that there is no need to do the watering now or whether to be sad because it will be too wet underfoot to do a lot of the jobs that are still outstanding. The latest compost heap will now be well watered which should help it to start rotting down. It has been well pigeon poo'd and now needs some greens to add to it.

I live in hope that the local council is soon going to strim the grass bank over the road by the bus stop then I can scrap up some of the spare grass there and take that down to the plot for said compost heap. But at least the things like the tops of vegetables, weeds and light hedge clippings help with the greens for the compost heap. Oh but with the troubles that have happened with farmyard manure this year ( more reading here with pictures of an affected allotment and comments on compost making), the compost heap may be the only safe way forward for soil improvement on the allotment for some years to come. And to keep producing at the present rate, it would seem to be a good idea to plan ahead for the winter and early spring when the plot is fairly clear. I've been begging, borrowing and scavening for items for the compost heap since March as I could see that there was a problem coming. I may also contact the farm that does the collecting of garden waste and composting of it on behalf of the council to see if I can get a load unbagged delivered in November. I'm lucky in having easy access from the road for such things as deliveries and it would certainly help (finances permitting and this week I am just a bit broke with the bills for the house).