Now the year has really started.

Yesterday was another indoors day, and I used it to plant up the first seeds of the year. I’ve had the propogators set up for a week now; seed compost in modules, gently watered and plugged in to heat the soil. Yesterday I spent the whole day deciding which varieties I was going to plant, and how many of each. I use seeds from the Real Seeds company, mainly. If I do the right thing, I can harvest seeds from the plants at the end of the year which I can plant the following year. The plants themselves distribute seeds too; I haven’t had to buy or plant parsnips for years, and the main problem is pulling up the surplus parsnip plants. It does mean I have a wide variety of seeds to choose from.

By the evening, I had eighty modules planted up with sweet peppers, chilli peppers, aubergines, cucumbers, tomatoes and melons. No, I don’t have room for all eighty. That doesn’t matter, as I know not all of them will germinate, not all of those germinating will survive to be potted up and not all of the potted plants will thrive in the polytunnel. Last year I planted up eighty sweetcorn seeds and had eleven surviving plants. And three cobs.

Other seeds will come later. Inca berries, a few more tomatoes, squashes and maybe sweetcorn. By March, I’ll be setting up the vegetable plot for carrots, potatoes, parsnips if I need to and onions. It’s a hopeful time of year.

Shouldn’t have looked forward to a rest. A friend passed on news of a writing competition, closing on Friday, and could I read her entry? I did. I read the requirements of the competitions too, to make sure she hadn’t missed a rule or limit, and after I’d read and made comments on her entry I kept thinking about it. Who would I invite to a banquet, if I had no limits as to alive or dead, fact or fictional? I had an idea I couldn’t shake, of a perfect trio of guests at the feast. I started writing. I packed away at 3.50am this morning, and have spent the day cutting words, adding ideas, knocking out typos and checking the presentation requirements. Good luck to everyone who went in for the competition at https://www.thebookcollector.co.uk/banquet – my entry is there too. Anyone who’s interested, skates on, 41 hours left to write, primp and submit. It’s been a cheery day despite the weather, and I’m ready for a decent sleep tonight.