Shhh…it’s early!

It’s not quite 7am as I start to write this - these days I find that on a weekend if I wake up any time after about 6am though, I just want to get up. Uninterrupted time to just potter about is underrated, and my usual weekend morning routine in the warmer months is to get up, pop the kettle on and head to the garden for a wander round. Want to come with me? Come on then…

We head out of the door and left - with the first thing that catches the eye being that painted-pallet table where the herb boxes live. They aren’t loving the hot weather mind you, and look a bit ratty I agree, but the petunias in the small pots in front are a different story and have been flowering away! Those are a garden centre clearance bargain as are so many of the bedding plants we have.

The Tromboncino Squashes are one of the undoubted triumphs of the year, and their comedy value cannot be understated. They are also growing like the clappers - I’ve got a fridge full and these two will need picking before long, with “long” being the operative word - MrEH measured the closer one yesterday and it was 2’8” for goodness sake! 

Next doors Honeysuckle is a welcome intruder over and through the fence - with its gorgeous smelling flowers in spring and early summer, and then the riot of bright red berries just now. We’ve actively trained it on our side so it covers the fence nicely now - there is a winter Jasmine as well but that takes a bit more attention and cutting back!

Our runner beans have been a disappointment this year which is a shame after the prolific crop in 2025 - we think the hot weather is to blame, there has been plenty of flower as you can see, but beans setting have been a rarity.

Into the corner created by the shed and office, and the first tomato plants. The mini greenhouse too -  can you spot the newspaper blocks MrEH makes ready for use on the fire in the winter? Obviously no need of the greenhouse at this time of year but it does work well for drying those out. A first aubergine plant in that little area too - we’re so pleased with these, those purple flowers alone are worth the effort! A courgette creeps in on the right too - this one is in a growbag and isn’t massively happy - we had a spare plant and nowhere to put it though and by now we all know MrEH’s take on “spare” plants, don’t we!

We didn’t have huge success with pepper and chilli plants this year either - but this is a Corno di toro Rosso sweet pepper which does actually seem to be earning its keep. 

Something that really does work well in growbags are Minibel tomatoes - just look at how much fruit is on there! I love this variety - tasty little fruit, compact and easy to grow and as you can see, prolific. They also fruit for a long period of time rather than the tendency of some varieties for everything to ripen in a rush. 

We still call this the “new” veg bed - it’s the one we created by removing a big patch of patio soon after we moved in, remember? The bronze fennel on the left is looking a bit sorry for itself now but it is absolutely covered in seed - a little more time drying and we’ll be nabbing those for use in cooking. Those Minibel toms get into the action in the foreground and then our main courgette plant - more on that in a second. A Savoury lurks in there - lovely with roast chicken, it sees a lot of use through the winter months, and in the summer when it flowers the bees love it. In the background there is sweetcorn and a few additional sunflowers - although none as big as the monster in the header picture which was one of the plants next door gave us in exchange for tomato plants. 

The courgettes we’ve grown this year are Sunburst - a flat squash style. A little less practical for cooking in some ways as they require some thoughtful cutting up, but the flavour is wonderful with a really nutty edge. Once ready to pick they look like flying saucers! 

Back to towards the house then and yet another space with tomatoes in it! In the foreground here though is mostly herbs - a beautiful tricolour sage bought on clearance from a favourite garden centre is loving life - I think I’ll find a more permanent pot to transfer that to before long. Parsley and basil are favourites although the parsley has struggled this year too - always a devil to grow from seed, we did finally get some plants but they aren’t really loving the weather I don’t think. The bright splash of yellows-green to the left is a bolted basil - I always let the first plant bolt to flower as it’s so popular with pollinators. The rhubarb is getting in on the action on the far left too - still producing more stems!  Honourable mention to the little watering can in front there - it was popped out on the windowsill in the communal space at the flat years ago - our “please take me” area for useful stuff no longer required by its original owner - and we gladly obliged. It’s a bit rusty inside but still very useful indeed! 

Finally then, looking across the area nearest to the house - an absolute mixture of stuff - more herbs, with the Lemon Balm in the trough being another garden centre rescue, there is a tarragon in there somewhere, another herb I love! The big purple pot has an elderly rosemary - that was brought with us from the flat. Strawberries - with this years runners starting to be potted up as well. I will pot on another two troughs-worth of those and then next year the original plants will probably be treated as spent and composted. Strawberries are great for providing their own replacements though! That pink geranium in the background has been a joy - it’s been flowering since not long after we bought it as a tiny plant - for anyone local reading this we buy our geraniums (and lots of other stuff) from Matthew’s Plants at Roydon - they absolutely never disappoint and the quality is superb.

There you go then - it’s not the biggest of gardens, I’d be the first to acknowledge, but we have packed a fair amount into it and the joy it brings is immense. The fact that it helps feed us well at this time of year is  the best thing about it - and makes the hard work worthwhile. Now though? Breakfast time..and that will NOT involve any home grown produce!

Robyn.

Frugal Friday...

 

Portreath Harbour - May 2026

You know we have talked before about the value of having an emergency fund if at all possible? Well - we have just found ourselves in one of those periods of time where we are reminded exactly why that is such a good position to be in! 

It started back in May when you might remember we had a nice camping trip down in Cornwall at the start of the month. All was going wonderfully on the way back until MrEH's car suddenly threw up an engine fault. Uh-Oh, we thought, that's not ideal! It was still driving fine, so we decided to chance driving it back rather than calling for breakdown recovery, and then get it looked at on our return. A few days later lovely Neil - a good pal and also handily a mechanic - popped it onto his diagnostic thingummy and, as we feared, agreed that it looked like the Diesel Particulate Filter ("DPF") was almost certainly blocked - not something he could fix, sadly, but he did confirm that the car was drivable enough until it was repaired. We opted for using it a little less than normal while MrEH started finding someone to deal with it (not something Neil could do unfortunately) and so my car got a bit more exercise than she is used to (AND was the one popped onto our ferry booking for our upcoming Hebrides adventuring - hurrah for that!) In true MrEH style it took a rapidly approaching MOT Test for him to get around to this, but sure enough in mid July, off went the car...

The car, pre-problems, lurking quietly on the campsite!

I don't think either of us were expecting "cheap", but nonetheless the options of a bit over £1000 to remove the DPF, get it cleaned, and re-fit, or nearly £4000 to replace it completely were a bit painful. Even more so was the fact that the "clean and replace" option might not actually solve the issue...OUCH! Conversations were had - the car itself was worth less than the higher figure, so we rapidly came to the conclusion that we wouldn't be spending that much on it, so the repair and some crossed fingers seemed to be the way forwards. Still though - that's a big old chunk of money to find isn't it! MrREH gave the go ahead for the clean, and the garage got cracking. Meanwhile we set to thinking about the money. Of course we DO have the emergency fund - but needless to say we really don't want to dip into it any more than we absolutely have to, so the first mission was to see where we might be able to round up any oddments of money to at least put towards it. The surplus in the joint account - which would usually be steered off towards savings - netted £200. A "spare" £100 in the account that funds payments to one of the Regular Saver accounts also got siphoned off, as did a balance slightly higher than needed in the account where we budget for logs and coal for the winter - another £100 there. Our car costs pot also has a tiny bit of slack in it - although we have insurances and breakdown cover on the horizon so need to account for those too. 

Tintagel

All in all our scraping together of bits of money from here and there has netted over £550 towards the £1020 repair bill - so more than half. The balance will of course come from our Emergency Fund - but we'll be focusing all savings we can make elsewhere into paying that money back into the pot as fast as we can - it makes me uncomfortable not knowing that money is there ready in case the proverbial hits the whizzy thing! We will also be ramping up efforts to put money aside ready for a car replacement without having to hit the long term pots more than necessary as it is fair to say that we've both lost a bit of confidence in his car now, and we know from experience that once one major thing like this goes wrong, more things tend to follow! For now though the DPF clean seems to have been effective - indeed the MoT test has been passed with one of the cleanest emissions test results I have EVER seen - so that at least is something! The bill itself was paid on the cashback credit card so there will be at least a small amount of money to come back on that, which is something! 

I will be sitting down at some stage with my budget book and working through some figures for the next few months - there may be some rejigging of what goes where as we want to bolster the car account a bit as well - neither of us are comfortable leaving it running on empty for long! Maybe that will be another Frugal Friday post..? 

Robyn 

Hebrides Countdown...

 

Eriskay

Some readers may already know that I have recently bought a new camera. It has taken me into a situation where for the first time I have two camera bodies both of the "mirrorless" type, meaning that if one fails, particularly in an airshow setting, I have far more "security" in being able to just continue shooting, and came out of the fact that my previous 1st body - my Canon R7 - suffered an unexpected and way before expected timescale catastrophic shutter failure at a Shuttleworth show earlier in the year. That is now sorted out, but it did hasten my plans to get a second Mirrorless body - and NOT another R7 as this shutter issue seems to be an ongoing problem with that model! Instead I have opted for a Canon R6Mk3 - bang up to date and my first ever full-frame digital body, to boot! It has also cost me more money than i ever imagined I might pay for a camera! 

This has prompted me to think about trying to be a bit more active with taking photos using the main cameras in my everyday life rather than mainly at airshows - I've been tending as most folk have I suspect to simply use the phone camera as my "regular" device on a day to day basis - the iPhone 14 Pro camera is so good it's quite tough to think of a reason not to, but weather permitting, my intention on our upcoming Hebrides trip is to make more use of the big camera than I have done in recent years - indeed, I'd like to set aside some time most days for what I am thinking of as "intentionally taking photos". 

I think the above shot must have been taken with the long lens on board from the hill at the bottom end of South Uist looking across towards the island of Eriskay - I believe it may be called Easabhal. By coincidence I was also thinking it might be nice to head up there while we are across this year - so who knows, perhaps I will recreate this shot? 

Robyn

July Reading...

 

The month began as June ended - with Ian Rankin's Set In Darkness - one of his Rebus series. As always this was a great and engaging read, bringing in many of the usual favourite characters outside of Rebus himself. This is set around the time that Queensberry House was being remodelled to turn it into part of the new Scottish Parliament complex, and indeed that is where a big strand of the story originates, with other strands weaving there way through that as the book goes on. I can remember those works starting back in the late 1990s, it was quite interesting thinking back! This one will be joining the other Rankin novels on the shelf.

A random book find early in the month when I spotted some books sitting on a wall as I walked back to the car after work - Phillip Pullman's The Amber Spyglass. I'm aware that this is the third book of a trilogy and I'm not certain whether I should track down the others to read first, or whether it works as a standalone - if anyone has views I'd be happy to hear them! 

On to another author who has rapidly become a bit of a favourite - Leanne Moriarty - with Here One Moment. This one was a cracker, with the main storyline woven around events that occurred on a flight from Hobart to Sydney. Subsequent chapters follow the stories and lives of those involved and how those events affect them, and are as usual from Moriarty well written and extremely readable. Less of a twist in the tail than some of her books, and I’m not even going to HINT at why that is the case because that would definitely be a spoiler and we’re not here for those, but still her signature mix of chick-lit and thriller. A great read and I think I will pass this one on to Mum as I reckon she’ll enjoy it. 

With the hot weather ramping up, I felt like something suitably easy on the brain for my next choice and so. a Reacher book was the obvious selection. Lee Child, Never Go Back. Obviously I have read this before - it is going to turn out that we already own it? Perfectly possible, but never fear, if that is the case once finished it will return to the charity shop from where it originally came! As usual I pretty much tore through this - we’ve established that the Reacher books are fairly formulaic, yet  none the less readable for that. It isn’t any sort of spoiler to reveal that this one in no way breaks the mould. A good read - it’s obviously now been added to the shelf. 

On to an author whose stuff I’ve read in the past although not for a while - Adele Parks. First Wife’s Shadow begins as classic chick-lit then takes a turn. The first part of the book was actually quite an uncomfortable read I found - as it appeared that it was fairly obvious what was happening in the storyline and where it was heading, the lead character Emma is instantly likeable which adds to the discomfort. I didn’t see the twist coming though - and then a further twist towards the later stages of the book adds to the surprise. A really clever, well written tale, I’ll pass this one to Mum as it’s definitely her sort of thing. 

Elly Griffiths is another author who is rapidly becoming a favourite - she writes as excellent thriller and The Zig Zag Girl is no exception. Set amongst the variety theatre scene post world war 2, it takes us back to the "end of the pier show" and names up in lights, with a dose of murder and mystery thrown in. Again this one had plot twists along the way - with the murderer being revealed as one would expect in the closing chapters. Entertainingly written with excellent characters and good judgement around who "snuffs it" and who doesn't. I'll set this aside to go to Mum I think - she's doing well this month! 

Another "incoming" book when MrEH found a Lee Child we hadn't already got in a charity shop - well done him! That's on the shelf and I may even wait and take it on holiday when we go - we'll see! 

Finishing up the month is a Val McDermid I've not read before - The Mermaids Singing is one of her Tony Hills Series, not quite as good as Karen Pirie but there is still a  nice strong female character in there so all good. The usual McDermid mix of a great storyline plus enough personal interest created in the characters that you actually care what happens to them too. This is the usual breadcrumb trail of clues left throughout the story, until the twist in the tail arrives and you realise you’d missed something huge. Great reading! Onto the shelf with the others!

It almost feels slightly annoying having to go into a new book on the last couple of days if the month butI will make an exception for a Mark Billingham - not least because I know I will positively romp through it. Good as Dead is a bit of  twist - we meet Helen Weeks for the first time, and in quite dramatic circumstances, enter Tom Thorne to save the day…or will he? We’ll know by next month! 

Robyn

July in the Garden...

How beautiful are Aubergine flowers?

July so often seems to be where the garden really seems to come into its own - but also where it demands a fair bit of work and attention, and this year is no exception on that! 

Tromboncino Squashes

The month dawned sunny and warm, with the temperatures ramping up until the second week of the month saw us in the year's third heatwave with temperatures above 30°C for a run of days - unsurprisingly this means rather a lot of watering, particularly for our huge number of tomato plants. This is another reason why MrEH has been firmly told we will NOT have that many plants next year! Sadly the San Marzano variety have struggled with the temperatures and the fluctuating moisture levels - we're losing a lot of fruit to blossom end rot and there really isn't much we can do to prevent it. First past the post on fruiting though was Maskotka - a variety we hadn't grown before but which we would happily choose again, nice tasty fruits, slightly larger than a standard cherry tomato, and prolific. By the end of the month the Gardeners Delight and Minibel were also joining in, and we're not expecting to need to purchase tomatoes for the next little while now. 

Tomato harvest ramping up!

Although the new water butt has very much proved its worth simply by how fast it fills, it does of course still require some rain to get - and keep - it full, and that has been in short supply. Realising that not only does it take the rain from our roof, but next door's too was an added bonus. We’ve prioritised using the water from that when it has water in it - but unsurprisingly it doesn't take long for our 9 litre watering can to empty it, and even more so when we have a hosepipe ban - and yes, that is indeed where we find ourselves! Even a garden the size of ours takes a surprising amount of time when it all has to be watered by watering can, but it's worth the effort. We were grateful for a short but heavy downpour mid-month but that's al the rain we've seen in ages.

A garden visitor that is always welcome!

Tromboncino squashes are proving to be a great success - although again we have far too many plants as I mentioned last month. Thank goodness though checking the info on these confirms that if harvested young they can be used effectively as courgettes - we're currently quite pleased about this as at the moment the actual courgettes really aren't doing that well. Hopefully a run of at least slightly cooler temperatures might help on that score. Cucumbers are also struggling which is a shame as they did well last year - I think next year we'll look to get them in a sunnier spot perhaps. 

Sunflower - proving that the bees enjoy them!

Another thing doing really well this year is our sunflowers - with one out the front of the house absolutely proving its claim to the "giant" title, now being well over MrEH's head height and still climbing, while having multiple flowers on it too. The back garden ones aren't being left out either, with plenty of flower to be seen there as well. Lovely cheerful things - this is a "must have" for us in the garden now, and we were delighted to take a few spare plants that next door wanted rid of, too. The lavender has been positively covered in bees and we waited until it had properly finished flowering to cut it back, Similarly the Aquilegia was left to go to seed - this will give us some new plants in the garden, and some of the seed has also been scattered up the way in our little "guerilla gardening" spot where with any luck they might spring into life. Some very cheap reduced bedding plants from "hospital corner" at a favourite garden centre have also been filling the pots with blooms - that is such a good way of getting masses of colour for very little money, just make sure that the plants look like a good soaking and repotting will give them a new lease of life.

Peas have mostly finished, although a flurry of new growth is starting to flower as well so we may yet get some more. We have mostly stopped cropping the rhubarb now, although we may pick one more batch to cook and freeze. The strawberries are flowering again and we are starting to get odd fruit there again now - it's not been the best of years for them, but they are producing runners now and we're starting to pot those up ready for planting a couple of new troughs in the autumn. With luck beans will be the next thing we properly harvest - although look, this little Aubergine may have something to say about that! 

Robyn. 

A glimpse into the past...

 

Our lovely fireplace - seen here at Christmas

Pretty much as soon as we moved into the house we started trying to find out a bit about its history - the town itself is pretty well documented and we already knew a reasonable amount as we'd gone through the same exercise when we first moved here - indeed, I even have a blog site now with images of the town as it is now and references to the history. It is far harder to find information about specific areas of housing though - the building of the town was divided into neighbourhoods first and foremost, and then estate areas within that - we fall into one of the earlier neighbourhoods to be built, and had narrowed the building our house down to a narrow band of years around 1950, and had in fact managed to find some old photographs which bore this out also in a visit to our local museum. 

A couple of weeks back we were outside the house chatting with a builder who had come to quote for some work we're considering having done, when a gentleman walked past, hesitated for a moment, then said "I hope you don't mind me interrupting, but I was born in this house!" - well, as you can imagine, that caused QUITE the excitement! He told us that he was born in 1955, and lived in the house with his Mum (initially his Dad too, but sadly his Dad died when he was still very young) and 4 siblings too until they all gradually left home as they reached adulthood - imagine anyone being happy to have 6 people living in a 3 bedroom house now! They were the first family to live in the house from new - and had many happy years in it which is so lovely to know - it has always felt like a "happy house" if you know what I mean, we know our predecessors loved it here too. 

We asked if he would like to come in for a look round the downstairs (which is after all the bit that has changed the most) and he initially declined, but then a few minutes later asked if it would be OK if he changed his mind as he admitted he was curious to see how it looked and felt - we said that of course it was, and I lead him inside. The front room he told me was much the same - and yes, it did originally have an open fire, as would have been expected at that time! The back of the house has of course changed hugely thanks to our sellers building the extension, shed and garden office - he told me that the garden was of course much bigger when they were there which we'd known of but never really thought about - and they had 5 apple trees and a pear tree, if only THOSE were still there now! 

It was an absolutely fascinating conversation and really gave us insight into the house and its history which was lovely - a subsequent conversation with a neighbour later in the day helped fill in more blanks as well - it seems likely that we are the fourth people to live here since it as built in the very early 1950's - with a young couple with a couple of daughters filling the gap between the original family selling (after the death of his mother, by the sound of it) and our sellers moving in in the mid 2000s. It prompted me to look at some of the paperwork from when we bought the house too - including the copy we have of the original transfer from the Council when it was bought under Right to Buy  in the late 1980's - we now believe by our friend from the above conversation's mother. (I'm kicking myself, at no stage during the conversation did we think to get his name, or tell him ours!) MrEH & I have also agreed that a task for the winter is probably to pick up once again on more of the local history we'd looked into previously - perhaps with another trip to the Museum archives. 

Robyn

Grump Grump GRUMPY!

 

Red 8 & Circus 8 2014 - "Stop!"

So - right now we should be sitting on an RAF Base in Gloucestershire baking our backsides off and wielding our cameras at lots of fantastic aircraft at the Royal International Air Tattoo - lovely vintage ones, big commercial ones, heavy military ones and whizzy fast pointy ones -  and why are we not, you may well ask? Well, events in Iran have meant the cancellation of the event for this year - as soon as the USA started their little party, and rather a lot of B-52 & B-1 airframes started arriving at Fairford, we had our suspicions that the writing might be on the wall, and sure enough, late May saw the expected email land from RIAT telling us the news. It has to be said at the time it was just a case of shrug, think "not unexpected" and make some decisions around tickets, accommodation etc - but now the dates of the show have come and we're not there it is hitting harder!

2016 - Red 1 & Prince George

I first went to RIAT in 2014, and have been back every year that the show has run since, with the last few years being in the FRIAT (Friends of RIAT) enclosure with its grandstand seating, marquee and (the best bit) posh toilets!  we pay a premium for this of course with tickets pitched at the £300+ level, but also get the benefit of attending right from the first day of arrivals through to departures day which makes for 6 days of immense fun. We've seen ludicrously cold-for-July shows, lovely sunny shows, shows where there has been SO much rain that we've barely seen anything fly some days, shows where the relentless grey wall of cloud has been ever-present and shows when it's been so hot we honestly felt like we were frying. This year it must be said would probably have been one of the latter! Regardless though, it is always one of the highlights of the airshow season, and it does really feel very strange indeed to not be there!

2017 - Italian Tornado creating some heat...

It made me think back to some favourite moments from the years I've attended - with the first shot above being my absolute favourite RAF Red Arrows groundshot from my very first Circus at Work project in 2014. Then Circus 8 Ross was one of the original reasons for these projects starting, and has featured here on the blog a fair few times I think. the second photo I've chosen is also featuring the reds - this time then Red 1 David Montenegro with a rather little Prince George, along with the now Princess of Wales of course. I got a tip off a very short while before this visit happened and was lucky to be able to get myself in position to get some nice shots of their time with the team. 

2019 - Not all grey skies are bad...

Next up the Italian Tornado display aircraft from 2017 - this was an absolute highlight of the show that year and never more than when it took off on day 2 in nasty persistent drizzly rain and produced a sensational display that was worth getting the camera wet for!  Also memorable thanks to weather conditions was the now rather evocative shot of Battle of Britain Memorial flight Spitfire MK356 against heavy grey skies in 2019. I love the way the colour of that cloud brings out the colours of the aircraft, and also that it is being flown by my pal Andy. Sadly this is the aircraft that was lost in the crash at Coningsby in 2024, which also lead to the death of the then pilot, Squadron Leader Mark Long, I still love the photograph but seeing it now certainly makes me think. 

2022 - The Korean Black Eagles

A two year break over Covid in common with most other big events was certainly a blow, but because of the bigger picture was somehow slightly easier to swallow, and of course when we all got back there in 2022 it just felt like the biggest treat!  That year probably the biggest buzz surrounded the Korean Black Eagles who put on some absolutely sensational displays - they are probably the closest display team to the UK's Red Arrows in terms of precision and the dynamic nature of the display and I think pretty much the entire crowd was totally wowed by them. 

2024 - Turkish F-4 Phantom arriving

The 2024 show definitely saw a person highlight for me in the shape of my first sight of flying F-4 Phantoms - the one pictured above being from Turkey but there were also Greek ones attending too. There is just something special about these aircraft - it's far from just me who was excited to see them! The tail art on this one was spectacular too - the Greek aircraft also had tail art but sadly applied by transfers and those didn't survive the stresses of the transit and landing so well!

2025 - Apache pyros

I confess I struggled to choose a favourite shot or moment from the 2025 show - it could easily have been the Spitfire pair from the Aircraft Restoration Company and Rolls Royce, the stunning Danish F-16 solo display in its final ever UK displays, the Reds flypast with the RAF's newest aircraft the Wedgetail or indeed the incredible amount of "Spluff" - the aviation geek's nickname for vapour clouds - produced by several of the fast jet displays. In the end though I settled on the shot above of the Army Air Corps Apache display finale - that year's "Friday special" as it was the only day over the weekend it was performed! That was probably the shot that anyone who was there on the Friday wanted more than any other - and there was a LOT of politics and complaints afterwards about where on the display line it was performed! No complaints from those of us in the FRIAT grandstand though as you can probably tell! 

2023 - sneaky extra F-35 & Harrier shot!

I'm not sure whether that little look back over the years has made me feel better or worse about being stuck at home this year, but at least I know that Alysha, Byron, Marc & Tim are all feeling much the same levels of grumpiness. We're already planning for next year though and looking forward to it - and confirmation from the Air Tattoo team yesterday with the 2027 tickets helped a little perhaps - only a year to wait!

Robyn