Gonna stop scrolling and post a thing...

[bunn]

There is a local glut of strawberries, because all the market gardeners that usually sell to hotels and restaurants are now desperately trying to get the general public to buy more strawberries before they drown in the things.  They are very ripe, and very, very good.  I went to the honesty-box stall, which has been doing a roaring trade, and bought a great number of strawbs, some asparagus and (because I only had a £20) a couple of loaves of panettone.  I don't know where that comes from or why the roadside stall is selling it off cheap, but it's very very good.   And then I bought MORE strawberries today in the local butcher's shop because it was Friday afternoon and they were closing soon and the strawbs were so very, very ripe...   I have just made scones, and if I keep this up I'm going to be able to just roll down the front steps rather than walking.

I'm off to visit my mother tomorrow, and will pick up a hamper from one of the places that is doggedly staying open to serve takeaways so we can sit and isolate in the garden and chat. From Monday, we can do this with up to six people, apparently, though most of the people I would cheerfully invite to visit my garden are too far away to do so. But I have now mowed a lawn, and intend to mow more if it's not too hot at the weekend.

I took the hounds down to the river today, and we mooched gently in the shade.  Normally they both avoid water and mud and don't even much like getting their toes wet, but today it was so hot they both found a stream and got muddy! It's an incredibly warm and sunny end of May. 

(I am very sorry to those who are stuck in cities!  I hope the food supply situation has eased up now.)

Am feeling slightly shattered at the moment.  The Shop on the Borderlands has been super busy, even more so than usual.  Also, we are attempting to clear the house up, tentatively thinking we may sell it and move to somewhere with more rooms for Shop storage and not quite so many steps to carry heavy boxes up and down. So we've been ebaying stuff as well.  I had two giant boxes of stuff to take to the postoffice today and there will be more tomorrow. 

In other news, I accidentally chose a second art in the Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang, so now I have two stories to write: one will be about protohobbits, and another a strange mishmash of British myths.   I made two arts which were both claimed, so that's going to be a productive summer, if all goes well.

Umph, I'm sure I had more I was going to put in this update, but I think I may just go to bed instead! 

Comments

[lilith_lessfair]

The strawberries are beautiful.

[bunn]

And DELICIOUS!

[narya_flame]

I am very excited for your TRSB fics! (I think I am still mildly jealous of your second one, but I could not have done it justice and kept it at a sensible length, so probably for the best that it has ended up in your hands!)

Those strawberries look wonderful.

[bunn]

Well, you could always treat, you know ;-) \

TRSB fic#1 is progressing! I'm hoping the writing for this one will be fairly smooth...

[sally_maria]

Sounds like you've been pretty busy. :-) I don't know what it's like in the cities, but here we've been fine for shopping since the middle of April - there were a few weeks of not being able to get everything we usually would, but never any reason to seriously worry about food. But then I was able to do the shopping, so we weren't reliant on deliveries, which made things easier.

Good luck with the house clearing - will you be staying in the same part of the country?

[bunn]

Last time I went to Tesco a couple weeks ago, they were out of eggs, flour and yeast (but the local postoffice has started stocking flour and yeast, so all is well there!) But I was thinking particularly of one friend here who is isolating in NY. Not easy. :-/

We're thinking we might go to Pembrokeshire. Cornwall has got more expensive since we moved here, and Wales is cheaper, so we could afford more shop space for the same sort of money, and still be somewhere quiet with nice walks!

[sally_maria]

Yes, eggs were one of our problems to start, and we had one weekend with no potatoes, but I must admit we haven't gone looking for yeast - we have a wonderful local bakery which apart from anything we want to keep in business, so scones are as ambitious as we've got with the baking. There's no doubt we've been very lucky here, compared with so many people.

Pembrokeshire is lovely - some of my friends have parents who live in Broad Haven, and I've visited a couple of times. I hope you find somewhere that works for you.

[bunn]

We have loads of people with hens round here, who sell them in a slightly-illegal garden-gate manner so eggs were never a problem. But coincidentally, our closest small-supermarket/large corner shop is closed at the moment, being reengineered into a Co-op, so bread was definitely a problem for a while.

Luckily we do have a dry-goods trade supplier that mostly sells to bakeries etc, and they live on-site, and have had a busy old time getting their flour and yeast into small domestic bags. I think bread supplies have now normalised again, but clearly a lot of people are now into the baking habit!

[alithea]

Kev has friends who've moved to that neck of the woods and they really love it. And as you say, much more reasonable house prices than Cornwall these days.

I'm glad the shop is doing well but sorry to hear it's exhausting. Hope the clearing out goes well.

[bunn]

I have a few friends out that way too, and that was initially why I thought of checking there. Though as it happens, Pp was born in Wrexham and I grew up in Swansea, so Wales would feel familiar as a place to live.

[alithea]

Ah ! I realised as I was writing that I didn't know if you'd always lived in Cornwall. Having friends in an area always helps with settling in 😀

[anna_wing]

Hello! I've been kicked out of LiveJournal, so I'm here on Dreamwidth now.

Those strawberries look stupendous. Strawberry season here is January/February, though with new varieties and greenhouse cultivation it can extend to April. I bought them both fresh and newly frozen in huge quantities, and they are now living in my big chest freezer ready to be turned into strawberry icecream for the rest of the year.