I remember the pain of returning to work after a vacation.  The numbness of arriving to my desk and the energy it required to talk to lots of other people.  The exhaustion that sets in from mid morning and the overwhelming feeling to lay my head on the desk and hope that no-one would notice if I had 40 winks. So, I know how MT has been feeling as he headed back to the office this week.

The bassets and I have lost our momentum too.  Our holiday routine has gone and with it our home companion. I’m not sure if it was this or the cold snap in the weather but  it’s been an uphill struggle to the start of this week.

To blow the cloud away I thought about all the great things we’ve done this holiday.  Without a doubt getting the kitchen garden open for business has to be a highlight for me. Instead of the usual Sunday roast at the weekend we went for something fresh from our own backyard pantry.  There was something heart warming, if not feet and hand warming, about wrapping up and putting on the waterproofs to harvest something to eat.

We eat heaps of leaves and at $4 a throw from the supermarket growing our own will be a huge saving over the year.  Pity that so far my salad growing efforts have not been that successful.  Despite sowing several rows of difference kinds of lettuce and leaves we only have two small lettuces to show for it.  The only success has been in pots in the cold frame and the seedlings I planted out in the potager.  They were delicious – they had a depth of flavour that is lost from the bagged salads you buy which are probably washed in some sort of preservative I try not to think about.

There is nothing better than eggs fresh from your own chickens and these made the perfect fritata accompaniment to our home grown leaves.  I wouldn’t go back from keeping hens if I can help it.  Apart from the flavour and the colour of the yolks, I love the natural formation of the eggs which often includes nobbley bits of shell.  The brown eggs come from the latest edition to the Kaitoke Acres flock.  She’s a manky old hen who I rescued from the road one night after nearly running her over.  She is very tame and clearly escaped (or let out) from someone else’s chicken house.  After asking the neighbours if she was an escapee of theirs we’ve adopted her and she is now producing a lovely brown egg every couple of days.

Whilst it’s a bummer that we didn’t win the lotto so MT has to endure the return to work pain I’ll be knuckling down to some serious planting so we can continue to reap the benefits of growing our own.  I know who has the easier part of this deal.  Well at least for another week or two when I’ll be having to get back into the swing of working again.

It may be slow going here at Domestic Executive HQ but hopefully the sun will come out later in the week and I’ll warm up enough to get going again.