In Which Very Little Happens (With bonus Cauliflower!)

Today has mostly involved running errands. I had to take my car for its MOT test, and to have the repairs from my bump completed - which turned out to be more expensive tha expected, as I needed 2 new tyres, and also the other drivers insurers are being a bit slow so I had to pay the excess. I should get it back, sooner or later, but in the mean time it's another £100 which together with £140 for tyres and balancing and the MOT itself makes quite a big dent in this month's budget.

On a happier note, the car now has a new exhaust pipe instead of the cracked one, and a new reat panel (although this does rather show up how dirty the rest of the car is. Maybe I should consider washing it!)

Also, becasue the people doing the MOT test (who are different to the people fixing the car generally) messed up - having made the booking, for a 10.30 test, over 3 weeks ago, they called yesterday to say they could only do it at 9.30, which meant getting up earlier than I'd planned. Not too happy about that at the time, but it did mean I didn't waste any time today.

I have friends coming over for a meal tomorrow so I have been tidying and cleaning, and buying food.





And when I went out into the garden to cut the grass, I found to my pleasure and surprise that one of my cauliflower plants is making a cauliflower!!





I realise, of course, that there are those who might feel that the appearance of a cauliflower, on a clauliflower-plant, is not, in fact, particularly surprising. However, it was quite surprising to me, for a number of reasons.


For one thing, I did not intend to grow cauliflowers at all. I aquired the seedlings when they were at the slightly pathetic 'two leaves sticking out of a shot-glass sized plant pot' stage, and owing to a combination of poor labelling by the garden centre and poor seedling identification by me, I realised shortly after arriving home that I had bought cauliflowers rather than lettuce. This was probably just as well really, as the slugs ate all the lettuces I did maneage to plant, whereas the cauliflowers are holding their own.


For another thing, I don't think that I have really been nurturing the cauliflowers correctly. I don't think proper gardeners grow cauliflowers in planters on the patio, so they are probably only growing at all because unlike me, they (the calulis, not the the proper gardeners) have not read the Pocket Vegetable Expert which explains that they need deep, rich soil to grow, and to be fed, and hoed, and that they are not easy vegetables. Mine seem fairly relaxed so far, but perhaps they will get more difficult when they are older. Unless I eat them before that.

I also feel that there is something ingerently unlikely about cauliflowers. It doesn't seem as though such a large vegetable could grow from such small beginnings - they look as though they ought to grow on trees, perhaps, instead. Perhaps they do, mostly, but mine haven't had the memo?


I have some tiny corgettes growing, too - mostly only 2'-3' long so far, but with luck they will continue to evade the slugs until they are big enough for me to eat. (they are not growning on the cauliflower plant. They have separate courgette plants which they are growing on)


It makes me happy.