Happy Birthday Little Guy

Tomorrow morning our

little man will wake up as a five year old. 
He has always been a handful of a child, he needed resuscitating soon after birth and was colicky and refluxy until he was a year old, He chipped his front tooth aged eighteen months when he was playing with a doll's house of all things! 

I battled with post natal depression all through his infancy and didn't come out of it easily so it was hard for me to enjoy his babyhood. He is a loud person. He has had to be with his chatty brother always at the ready to answer for him and the frustration of not being heard has seen him develop a roaring shout and dissolve into passionate tears at the drop of a hat.

After five years the shouting is starting to subside a little and the small person behind the shout has emerged, growing happily through starting kindergarten this year and becoming a big brother to an adoring baby sister.

He is like a person with no Graphic User Interface, no overlay, he is honestly him and expresses joy, fear, anger and mischief unfettered bubbling to the surface as pure emotion. He is unabashed and curious, asking the questions he wants answered regardless of social norms, particularly fascinated by things that cause suffering to people and seems to be on a mission to find a solution to death and starvation which he find to be unacceptable.

He has great gross motor skills, amazing imagination and mimics beautifully. 
I have never met a person like him. Turning five is the line in the sand where I can no longer refer to him as a baby and I am excited to see how our youngest little guy grows.

It's going to be great!

The Lazy Winter Garden

This is my garden currently. 

It doesn't look like much and truth be told it isn't. 

I could tell you about how I didn't get my beloved purple sprouting broccoli in this year or how my basil won't even survive inside because it is really cold this year, but who wants to read my moaning about vegetables.?
 Instead I want to introduce you to a really Dull Roar Philosophical approach to gardening.

I know it looks like a mass of weeds and that is exactly what it is! I let the wild rocket go to seed self sow, the desiccated plants and those of the scraggly Sweet Alice (Alyssum)  wwent into my mulcher which threw seeds everywhere.I am growing rocket, Sweet Alice(good for attracting beneficial insects and chickweed in abundance. Without planting. I have planted a handful of broad beans I found in the pantry. This is my version of crop rotation as the box they are growing in had broccoli in it last. I have not supported them. My broad beans are au naturale.

Somewhere amongst the rocket and the chickweed is a random mizuna plant and some parsley and spinach I planted to get rid of old past it seeds, and a struggling French sorrel.

I really like leafy greens, they were my number one pregnancy craving and I cannot get enough of them even now so this is working well.

Even in the cracks between pavers. I rather like the look so I am leaving the useful plants put and occasionally pulling out non-useful plants like milky vetch and other latex sappy weeds, fleas bane and the like.

I am enjoying the little patch of wild in the tiny courtyard that serves as a garden. If I want more I am lucky enough to have a new park around the corner which has been planted with lots of leafy vegetables, herbs and brassicas, is tended by the council and supplies the healthier locals with free greens. 

My boys love to snack on the greens when they are scooting around the pocket sized park. Mr 4-nearly-5 is making quite a habit of getting his veggies from municipal gardens- ah well it's very thrifty and healthy I suppose if decidedly odd. I am sure I have mentioned he is a free-spirited individual!