Digital and real farmer...

My latest craze over my mobile phone is a game called ‘Hay Day’! I think I’ve been playing it nonstop for more than the last month. At first I can’t say I was overly impressed. I found the graphics and theme nice but I didn’t think I could get hooked. I had the impression that I’d be bored easily due to the lack of storyline since the only thing you have to do is produce, harvest and sell your farm's products. But after building and expanding my farm to accommodate new types of livestock and vegetables / fruit, I find myself been drawn to it and keep going back. 

 

I’m not sure which experience level I’ve reached and the moment. I’m still trying to keep up with my ship orders and farm expansions. I can’t say that I have the most beautiful farm, but it’s functional and I although there are some micro transactions in the game to speed things up and buy beautifications for your farm, I haven’t caved in to do it.

On another hand, I’ve been having a very good harvest this year in real life so far. I first planting some vegetables when I moved in with JJ in his old place, some years ago and I got intrigued and kept doing every year since. This year in my new house, it was no different. JJ built a very nice vegetable patch on the right hand side of the garden. There, after seeding the vegetables in pots indoors I’ve transferred some courgettes, beans, lettuces and tomatoes outside.

 

The vegetable patch can be seen here on the left at the back of the house.

That photo was quite early on.

The size of the courgette!

 

One courgette - two trays of lasagne! 

Green salad from the garden to your plate.

 

Green Beans

 

For the time being we’ve tried beans, courgettes and lettuces from the garden and they’ve been amazing. From a single beans plant we got so many pods! We also got some massive courgettes which we’ve used in lasagne twice so far! I can never get bored of lasagne! We’re trying to use whole-wheat pasta, low calorie sauces, cottage cheese instead of ricotta and various vegetables or soya mincemeat instead of the real thing. The output might sound a bit bland, but it’s amazing. Believe me.

 

The tomatoes are still to come



 

I can't say that I completely know what I'm doing while growing the vegetables or tomatoes. I'm just going along trying to keep them slug free, water them regularly and add some extra plant feed to them from time to time. I have lost some of the vegetables because I didn't pay attention to harvest them in time. But overall I'm happy with the results and doing a bit of gardening is quite therapeutic from time to time. 

View from the top

It’s been a while since my last post and I have lots of catching up to do with your blogs. I will get down to it though. I’ve missed doing that. In my part of the world life has been very busy and time just flew by.

In the house front, we undertook the project of creating a new patio (?) in the back of the garden. Do you call that a patio or a deck or what? Instead of going with a wooden deck, we decided it would be easier to put slabs to create a bbq area next to the small shed. JJ had some days off work and he loves working on the garden, so we went for it. After checking YouTube / ‘how to’ videos and things online we went for a quick dry and easy slab layer solution and ordered bags and bags of them. We also got the number of slabs needed. Thank god that JJ’s good at DIY. I was basically the little help boy, but I believe I helped a lot by carrying various stuff around and taking care of the minor details.

The final result is quite good. We didn’t manage to get the exact elevations we wanted but I think that it looks quite decent and functional. JJ is still working on the final touches but we’re almost done. We will order some grass to put on the sides of the path…

On a very different note, it was my beloved ‘JJ’s 40th birthday last week! He insisted on not doing much about it, but I couldn’t help myself. He was working an early shift that morning and finished around noon. So, I did the same. I booked half a day off work and met him at home. I took Penny for a small walk while he rested for half an hour, since waking up at 3:00am can be a mood killer. After that we jumped on the tube and headed to ‘London Bridge’! There we went up the elevator and went outside in the 69th floor to admire the views from the top of the Shard!

Tower Bridge with the Isle of Dogs at the back

The birthday boy and me with the Thames at the back

Facing west

We were really lucky with the weather. It was sunny with some occasional clouds here and there casting beautiful shadows over the buildings. Since it was a weekday the place wasn’t very crowded and we were able to freely walk around and enjoy the experience. Unfortunately the sunny sky meant that we couldn’t take many pictures with us and the background view together because we either came up really dark or the background very bright. We managed to take some photos nonetheless. Overall, the views are breath taking. The building is perfectly situated over the Thames overlooking the whole city. Especially in days with good visibility, you can see for miles.

View of the City

After that we headed to a delicious dim sum restaurant overlooking the Tower Bridge. We were able to sit outside and enjoy the weather. We couldn’t stay long or have lots of alcohol since JJ had to get up the same time the next morning as well. But I hope that he enjoyed the day as much as I did.

And to wrap things up, here’s a few pictures of Penny:

Enjoying a day out in Clapham Common

Going crazy for a tennis ball