Picked my first serving of purple broccoli yesterday.  Just enough for a spoonful each.  Unfortunately, I lost most of the plants during the winter, they rotted in the middle of the stems  - but three plants survived, so we will be able to feast on them for a few dinners at least.  If we were totally reliant on what we grow the whole year round we would have starved by now.

Looked out of the bedroom window this morning to a grey sky and drizzly rain - but what stood out was my Damson tree.  The blossom has appeared all of a sudden and looks like a low-flying cloud.  Just hope it all turns in damsons.  Keeping my fingers crossed that we don't have a late frost.

Once cleaned and ready, I packed up and took the Show at approx 6pm for staging. When I entered the tent, to be honest, I was like a rabbit in the headlights and in awe of it all. I was petrified in the presence of all the top showers which were already there and staging their exhibits. Fortunately for me I had mentor Bob Brown to explain things and see me through. To be honest, this was the easiest part of everything to date and it went quite well. First of all, I staged the Long Carrots. I had taken 4 with me and selected what I thought was the best 3. I then covered, filled out my cultivator card and moved on to the Cabbages. These I grew at my allotment and it was only when Bob visited and said to me "they are huge, you have to enter these for sure", that I decided to do exactly that. I was lucky to have my mate Damo assist me with these as they were too heavy to carry on my own, so we got a sheet, lifted them into the car and then back out and on the show bench. A bit of tidying up and prep and these were done.

We left the show tent at approx 9:30pm but will admit that the experience of being there at that time staging with the rest was a real buzz.

I re-attended on the morning of the show early to stage my Parsnips. These were kept dry and in the dark at home until this point.

We were all kicked out the tent whilst the judges began. We were told to return and 10:15 for the results. Therefore at 10:15, you had a load of showers queuing up expecting to find out the results but the tension was added to by the Judges still going. We were told another approx. 30mins to and hour still to go. By this point, I was a bag of nerves. I didn't really expect to get anything in my first ever show and was still questioning myself if I actually had a right to be showing at this level in my first show. I just thought if I could just do myself some justice and hold my own without being embarrassed I would be happy. I just didn't want to let myself down or more importantly Bob as he had put a lot of time and effort into me.