She knows her onions

Today’s flowers are dicentra

Another lovely morning and another cycle jaunt round the morning run with Dropscone. There was no wind at all and an excellent time was achieved which made the coffee taste (even) better than usual. It was accompanied by some tasty cold beetroot slices. Dropscone has acquired a new mobile that takes photos and he took one of me. He obviously hasn’t mastered downloading the photos yet or you would see the result on this blog!

After lunch, Mrs Tootlepedal and I had a gentle six mile cycle run up to Wauchope Schoolhouse and back and then we set about putting the onions on frames to dry before storage. She has got some really good looking onions this year and we just hope that they store well. She has been unsettled by reading something about onions with thick necks not storing well in a magazine article. I just hope the article displays the usual journalistic accuracy.

The onions were left out last night to get a bit of preliminary drying but the forecast for tonight is terrible so we have put them in the greenhouse to continue the drying process. When they are ready, we will hang them in ropes in the garage. The wall of onions shown on the left is rumoured to be visible from space. We had to give some away to our neighbours and a passing plumber because we had more than we could cope with (and there are still some in the ground).

On the weather forecasting front, I want to complain about raised expectations. During the last months and weeks we have been told to look out for noctilucent clouds, strange lights in the heavens from solar radiation and showers of Perseids. We have looked out and what have we seen? Nothing. It is most disappointing. Perhaps living tucked in a valley beneath four hills doesn’t help.