Billy Young's Blog - Posts Tagged "peas"

My work has put me forward for the SVQ (Scottish Vocational Qualification) in Food Handling. It is a job related qualification that you do in your own time which means I have some homework, feels a bit like school, this weekend. I have the first two modules to read through and fill in the answers, all pretty straight forwards really. The whole thing is over the next year and at the end I get a certificate to show for the effort. One thing that it seems to show is that I should be working this time next year as well as the time in between as until now I haven’t been told or even given a contract of employment. Not that every job I’ve had came with a contract but it does give you a more settled feeling. Saying that the place I work isn’t that bad, in fact it is rather relaxed which I enjoy. The work isn’t really that hard either unless your doing Dave’s job of loading the baskets, a right back-breaker that job is. Most of the other jobs around the factory are easy compared to that. Well at least doing the SVQ gives me some security in these uncertain times.
My peas are flowering again so I’m looking forwards to a second crop in a month or so. I’m glad I put netting over my blueberries this year as the wife saw a bird trying hard to get at them. I don’t think I’ll have as good a crop as last year but there’s a month or two before they’ll be ready so who knows. While my potatoes are now pushing up out of the soil in the sacks I’ve got them growing in, so they’re promising a bumper crop this year. All this talk of the garden reminds me I need to get my hedges trimmed tomorrow if the weather is with me. I also need to get more weeding done around my strawberries and fruit trees. It shouldn’t take me long, of course that all depends on the weather which it’s looking like rain from where I’m sitting just now. Hopefully it won’t come to anything.

Finally it's the weekend again. This week has seen some long days at work. I had to work on to look after the retort. On Wednesday and Thursday that meant almost three hours unpaid overtime. I'll get the hours back though that might be harder than it sounds. Today wasn't as bad only an hour roughly more onto the day but it is good to finally see this week out. The reason for all the extra work is because the main boiler is being repaired so we are working off of the smaller back up boiler. Unfortunately that is not really up to the job. It can take about an hour to get the retorts up to full pressure where it usually only take about twenty minutes at most normally. As you can tell that will add a lot of time to the process over the full day. Jim the other retort operator worked on last week and at the start of this week so it was about time I took a turn and things look set for more next week for both of us as it might be the end of the week before the work is complete. It wouldn't be so bad if it were a little cooler or at least a breath of air, sadly no.
I still haven't had a chance to try Magz's jam though I'm sure to get some on toast this weekend which I'm really looking forwards to. I will also be out into the garden to feed my plants and see how they are doing. I haven't had much time for the garden during the week though I'm sure the rain we had has helped my plants. I did notice last week that my peas are growing pods. I was tempted to pick some for Sunday dinner but left them for the peas later on. It was good to see how well everything is doing. There should also be some time for a bit of Skyrim, hehehe.

The grass at the front needs another cut. I noticed it yesterday as I came home from work. I was surprised with how quick it has grown in over a week but I shouldn't have been with the sun shining most of this week and some light rain over the nights. Nothing like that to help the grass grow as well as the weeds, hehehe. Which is something else for me to do this weekend. I did enjoy some of the fruits of my labours last weekend. Magz made up the peas, carrots, and peppers that I pick for Sunday dinner. She made them with a honey and butter coating which added a wonderful sweetness to them. As you can tell they were a delight to eat. There might be more peas this weekend, yum.
Work as expected has been hard this week. As you know I was the one working late to cover the retorts. It was made all the more frustrating as the head supervisor likes to push production to the limit. It wasn't so bad a t the start of the week as we were still using the back-up boiler but on Wednesday the main one was back up and running. That seemed to put the wee man, as the head is known, into overdrive. I should be grateful that the large boiler was up and running or I could have been working till a lot later than I did. In the end it wasn't as bad as the mood I seemed to find myself merited. Yes I was a moody so and so it goes with the pressure I felt under.
Well this week is over now so I have some time to lose in Skyrim again.