Today had a very busy first half then a very slothful second. We were up early because the guy from AngloPacific shipping was coming to collect the trunks. These were the shipping trunks that we bought from Camden a month or so ago, which we'd pack full of stained glass panels, tiles and various other things like sheets, fabric for sewing, Dave's t-shirt collection... They've now embarked on the long sea journey to Australia. We decided that even though it's more expensive to ship things in small batches, that's offset by the cost we'd have for storage here in London since our flat is just too small to have a lot of things lying around. With this shipment we've cleared out everything we'd been keeping, so with luck we won't need to send anything back for another year or so as all the things we buy now can go into the recently vacated "hiding spots"! Because of the nature of the things I'm buying, you just have to get them when you see them. Although I'm being very disciplined these days... eg: only buying stained glass that I adore and would regret not buying, rather than just things that I really really like.

After that, we went up to the allotment since it had stopped raining. Our seed potatoes are sprouting in their boxes so we wanted to get them into the ground. Unfortunately, the beds where they're due to go aren't ready yet so we had to do some digging, although that amazing new upside-down spade thing makes it a lot easier. It was so cold though that I got frozen even through my thermal gloves, so we gave up after we got just one bed ready. Tomorrow we have to hope the weather is better. For the potato beds we're just doing a rough job... not attempting to get out all the stones, weeds, etc like we have for the others. Partly this is because of sheer lack of time, but also it's a test to see what a difference it makes in terms of the weed volume. Potatoes are meant to be pretty resilient though so hopefully they'll not have a problem, and at least I know what potatoes look like! We did go stupidly overboard on seed potatoes though, suspect we will end up with 4 beds worth by the time they're all planted. But that's OK, potatoes are good for the soil and it's not like we won't use them.

I got so cold at the alloment on my hands, but so hot with the two scarves I had tightly tied round my neck and head that I started to feel really sick, so when we finally got home I went to bed! Of course, that meant I was asleep by 6pm which is why now at 11pm I'm wide awake. *sigh* Hopefully tomorrow the weather will be a little kinder and we can do some more up there, at least get one lot of them in.