Having missed Community Roots for two weeks while we were on holiday, the growth of everything in the poly-tunnels was wonderful to see.
I spotted a little pollinator where I was working today.
We visited many galleries when in Amsterdam and here are a few of my favourite paintings.
I loved this one as it reminded me of my lovely Dad’s beautiful beard.
Isaac Blessing Jacob by Govert Flink 1615-1660
There’ll be more.
Today’s Redruth Market was lots of fun with the maypole dancing in the Buttermarket being done expertly.
Beginning the maypole dance
All plaited up
Undoing the ribbons
Coffee cake for the cake stall. Thanks to C for the photo.
Flowering Rocket in the Incredible Edibles trough in Fore Street
Today we took a washing up bowl and some toy ‘crockery’ and ‘cutlery’ up to Community Roots as the new mud kitchen was about to be made by one of the volunteers. It really pleases me that the toys used by our children and their children will now have a new life with the children who come to Community Roots. .
And here is the finished kitchen for the youngsters who come to Roots to have fun with.
All the tomatoes are in their poly-tunnel, just waiting for the stringing up.
The onions in their outside plot are coming along nicely.
Some time ago the garden was full of yellow, now it’s full of blue and white. There are Camassia, Bluebells and lots of Forget-me-nots and the white blossom of the Choisya Ternata and the slightly pink tinged whites of apple blossom.
Just look at the first row sown and the others are starting. We love shallots even more than onions.
We’ve had lots of fun and lots of delicious food from our allotment over the years but the time has come to move on. We have four raised beds for veg in our garden and can get fresh veg from Community Roots so at the end of the month we will hand over the plot to a lovely and very enthusiastic young family.
This morning we dug up a lot of our leeks and have spent the day processing them all. At £1 each from the shops, they are a very valuable crop! We now have some pots of leeks in white sauce as a ‘ready’ veg, prepped leeks for the base of a risotto and four bottles of leek and potato soup – a very productive and pretty tiring day. 
The current book from The ShelterBox Book Group is ‘Scattered’ by Aamna Modhin. This is a powerful and gripping story told by a journalist who visited Calais as she was reporting on the refugee crisis and here begins to come to terms with being a refugee herself. It is a wonderful mix of personal history and journalistic detail, all told in a very readable style. I really cared about Aamna and her family and I learned a great deal about the whole refugee situation which the media doesn’t really show. There’s an excellent glossary, notes section and bibliography. It seems a perfect choice for the ShelterBox book group and I’m looking forward to the Q&A with the author next week.
We have hundreds of onion seedlings at Roots and they will be ready for transplanting next week.
Today we transplanted 200+ baby lettuce and pak choi plants and they are now in one of the big poly tunnels as there is no room in the smaller prop tunnel where the propagating takes place. The ingenuity comes in the suspended racks to create more room for the baby plants. 
We are ten days into February so it’s a bit late to share this month’s mantra from The 2026 Almanac but I like it so here it is:
In between jobs at Community Roots today, I walked around all the poly tunnels to see what was growing.
I love seeing random daffodils growing on the verges.
We have just finished one of the jigsaws given to us for Christmas. It was quite a challenge and very satisfying to complete.
There is just one leaf left on the Amanagowa Cherry tree.
The roses we were given two weeks ago are still gorgeous!
We have Rocket and Lolo Blondi growing in the greenhouse.
Another busy day for Roots with lots of volunteers working in the field. Cabbages are looking good.
Forgetting it is half term, we went down to Porthtowan to go to the Blue Bar but it was absolutely stuffed. The sea looked good though, of course.
Porthtowan
I inherited thimbles and thimble cases from my Mum. The thimbles have mostly gone to family but I kept the cases. Somehow they no longer give me joy so I’m thinking they need to move on too.
Another busy morning at Roots for us both. The wonderful pumpkin harvest is in the store room, a gorgeous baby came with his Mum and was entertained by various volunteers and we had Roots soup for our lunch.
After a visit to Penzance hospital for a scan on my ankle in preparation possibly for a new ankle (If I decide to go ahead, they’ll 3D print the parts using the CT scan as a guide!) we took a walk along the front.
A poppy in the car park at the hospital
Looking across to St Michael’s Mount, past the sun lit Jubilee Pool
Birds on the spires
Commentator Award
