Tulip

I've been waiting for ages for this tulip to open. The front garden is looking good- when we moved here it was just scruffy grass, I had the bed dug over and now it's full of spring bulbs (and a single leek, and a mushroom log courtesy of my brother-in-lawish).

Ivy slept beautifully last night. She woke up at around midnight, when I think both Euan and I were pretending to be asleep her hoping the other person would go get her (at least I certainly was, he may have actually been asleep and be a far better person than I am) and then suddenly went back to sleep. It wasn't til 4.45am she woke up and had a feed- meaning she went a whopping 9 hours without a feed. A new record.

This morning she and I went down to our allotment to do some riddling. There was a plan to grow carrots in a raised bed in our garden, but money is a bit tight for buying soil to fill a bed when I already have one mostly filled so it'll have to wait till next year. The upshot of which is I'm going to grow them in our allotment instead so I need to get all the stones out the soil. I tried unsuccesfully to get the Jimmy Riddle to work and eventually gave up and hand ridddled two wheel barrows worth. Aiming to get parsnips and the first sowing of carrots in on Sunday.

We had lunch at Becky's house. Ivy 'helpfully' showed Becky all the mischief a climbing, crawling, full of beans baby can get up to in her living room to help her prepare for when her own daughter Edith -who is 4 months just now- can crawl. Becky suggested 'Ivy the terrible' as a nickname. Euan and I are discussing at what point Ivy can start to learn that some behaviours are less desriable- she knows her name just now, think it's time she started to learn 'no'. Her destructivness is cute just now, it won't be when she's a toddler....

When Euan got home from school I got to go and play in my garden. I'd bought a cheap garden arch from Wilko in the sale to grow sweet peas across, it turned out it was cheap for a reason. It was totally rubbish and fell to pieces halfway through being built. After several protype arches from bamboo canes, I worked out a design that involved frankensteining a broken cloche tunnel frame with some bamboo canes and string. It looked very botched, but it's rather grand walking through a tunnel arch to get to the front door. It'll be even better when it's covered in sweetpeas.

The midges have arrived in Ullapool. I bloody hate midges. Grrrr.