Phew….it has been hot!
I live in Soham near Ely and only twenty miles from Cambridge where the UK’s hottest temperature ever, was recorded on Thursday last week!!
"38.7C (25th July 2019)
UK heatwave: Met Office confirms record temperature in Cambridge.
The UK's highest-ever temperature has been officially recorded in Cambridge, the Met Office has confirmed. Cambridge University Botanic Garden measured 38.7C (101.7F) on Thursday beating the previous UK record of 38.5C (101.3F), set in Kent in 2003" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49157898
New ideas for old ways
I keep asking myself why I have become a 'YouTuber' and a blogger with my own Web page, especially as I am most definitely a technophobe, and not very comfortable being the centre of attention (“really?” You might ask) but after a lot of musings, I have come to realise that it satisfies my continual need to create and make.
Ever since a child, I have loved making things and particularly like a project. Something in my personality, drives me to make stuff, be it sewing, painting, building and growing. For many years, I made my own clothes and in a past life I even had my own curtain-making business. But my most compelling obsession is the garden, not just the growing, but the landscaping too! In fact, I am as equally partial to a sewing machine as I am to a power tool and usually have something on the go.
All this got me thinking…….
Creating a garden
I thought I would just sift through some old photos of the gardens I have created in the past….There is one garden from the late 1980’s back in Eltham, South London, that I just cannot find the photos of, but no doubt when they do unexpectedly reappear from whatever bizarre hiding place I have put them, they will be posted here.
Any way it all began in Swanley, Kent. I started off in a maisonette with no garden in 1978. I wasn’t particularly bothered at first, but when the summer arrived and there was nowhere sit other than the front doorstep, that I began to crave a green space of my very own.
In 1980, I got the keys to my first house which had a very basic garden. Mostly lawn and overlooked with low link fencing between neighbours. It was very boring, but over the next few years, I had some panel fencing put in to create some privacy, planted an apple tree, a very rampant Russian Vine (or mile-a-minute) Fallopia baldschuanica, to cover the brick wall which ran down on side of the garden and was the back of a row of garages.
I moved to Eltham, South London in 1987 and inherited a rather long garden, with a shed, an old greenhouse and a pond. I never really altered the layout, but with a large area for a vegetable garden I began experimenting.
The big change came when I met my boy’s dad and in 1990. I moved into his flat in Welling, Kent which had a tiny grassed area for a washing line and surrounded by the communal car park; but when my eldest was born, I realised just how much we needed a garden. I bought some plants, a small birdbath (which I still have), two chairs and tried to make the best of it.
Then in 1993 we moved up from Welling, Kent to Kennett in Cambridgeshire, a small village near Newmarket. We bought a lovely old Victorian cottage with a 130 foot garden. It had an outbuilding, large wooden garage and a track out onto open fields.
There was a large lawn with even larger borders full of cottage plants and a large vegetable plot. It also had a lovely front garden with a very old apple tree, a climbing hydrangea around the front door. There was also a beautiful old flint wall which divided us from our neighbour and ran the full length of the property from the front gate all the way down to the end of the back garden. I loved this garden. It had had decades and decades of custodians and now it was my turn!
My goodness, it was a lot of work, but I prided myself on looking after it and the boys would often ‘help’ me using their own little garden tools. I always enjoyed doing the front garden too, because I had a lovely elderly lady by the name of Mary who lived next door and who would always come out for a natter and tease to the boys and they loved her. She was a bit of a recluse and had been born and lived in that house all her life (70 plus years). It was a real museum piece, having never been modernised and still had the Victorian type range in the kitchen….But I digress
All of the above now brings me to my current Kitchen Garden in Soham.
Life often throws you a curved ball and in 2002 the boys and I moved into my current house. We have lived here for 17 years now, which in itself alarms me that so much time could have passed already!
The house was a relatively new build with a typically small garden. Mostly lawn, a couple of shrubs and an ugly golden Leylandii hedge on two sides. Initially, it was ideal for two young boys being an enclosed and safe space. The only significant change, I made at that time, was to plant a plum tree.
But, over time as they got older and didn’t want to play, I began adding more and more plants. The Leylandii were dug up (all seventeen of them) and fencing put in. This really opened up the garden. I then dug three small veggie beds installed my summerhouse and started to put my stamp on it.
I have already spoken about how I brought the allotment home in my earlier blogs, so I won’t repeat myself here.
Building my exposure
Back to my online adventure, I wanted to take this opportunity to thank those of you who have begun to support my ventures! I am so grateful and really touched by some of the wonderful responses I have also received.
For the record…
I now have 19 subscribers and my videos have had 119 views! Which is just astonishing as I really do not know what I am doing!!
Website: Annie’s Kitchen Garden, living life on the veg: https://annaustin593.wixsite.com/mysite-2
Collectively, my already published blogs have had 53 views plus some interaction!
53 new Likes; 51 new followers; post reach 1202; engagement 802
I really want this to grow, so if you have a mind too, please like, comment and share from all three sites as this would really help me to raise my profile. Also, I would love to know the sort of things you would like me to cover in future posts and videos, what you think you would find most useful or interesting.
Annie