Bank Holiday Weekend

This weekend is a bank holiday weekend, which means 3 days off. It is also traditional for the weather to be terrible!

It's been very hot over the last couple of days (you know, the days we've been spending in the office) so of course at around 3 a.m. on Saturday morning there was a massive thunderstorm, with torrential rain, and lots of very loud thunder. 

I'm sure that the rain will be good for the garden and fields, but I could have done without being woken at that time of night!

The forecast suggested that we were likely to get more rain over the weekend, but other than a very brief shower, Saturday was dry (although very warm and muggy a lot of the time) so I was able to cut the grass both at the front and back.  

I had turf laid at the back, when I had the gravel removed last year. The front, where I had tarmac removed, was just replaced with topsoil, and I wasn't quick enough to plant it so have an awful lot of docks and nettles and other things I don't really want,but am gradually working on getting rid of the weeds, and getting grass to grow. 

I also planted some young hydrangeas (grown from cuttings from my parents' garden) earlier in the year, which seem to be doing reasonably well. I hope, eventually, that I will have a selection of bushes and flowers - and maybe even a vegetable patch.

The clematis I planted last year is thriving, and has just started to flower, and my tomato plants (in pots and grow bags) and peas (also in pots and grow bags) seem to be doing well; the tomatoes are starting to flower, and the peas have both flowers and little baby mange-tout pods. 

Given that my track record on growing things to eat hasn't been great, and mostly seems to consist of growing things to be eaten by slugs, or to die for no apparent reason, it is very gratifying! I'm really hoping that this year I will get a reasonable crop of tomatoes. The last few years I've grown them, the fruit has't had time to ripen before it gets too cold, but I started the seedlings off earlier this year, and I'm keeping some of them in pots indoors, so hopefully those will ripen, even if the outdoors ones don't!

So, I've been pottering around, doing a bit of weeding and pruning and re-potting, and I also did various bits of housework, because sometimes you run out of excuses not to! 

Garden, and Birds

Those of you who know me on twitter may have seen that I had an unusual visitor to the garden on Monday.

I'm used to seeing a range of small birds - there are lots of sparrows, a couple of robins, a pair of blackbirds, and regular visits by jackdaws and crows.

However, Monday's visitor was a little more impressive! I didn't see it strike, just looked out through the kitchen window and saw it on the lawn.

It's a Sparrowhawk, and, true to its name, appeared to have caught a sparrow. At first we thought it might have got a young jackdaw, as there was a jackdaw on the shed paying a lot of attention, but on inspecting the left-over feathers afterwards I made a tentative sparrow-identification, so perhaps the jackdaw was just hoping for left-overs. (In which case, it will have been disappointed!) 

I shall be keeping a look out to see whether it visits again!

I have been doing a little more in the garden over the last few days, planting out some of my seedling tomato plants, and the Hydrangea and Fuchsia cuttings I took from my parents' garden last autumn, which I've been bringing on in pots. I'm hoping that they will in due course, become a smallish shrubbery inside my front fence, although that will take a few years! 

And my little baby apple tree is coming along nicely, it has quite a few leaves, and its blossom is starting to come out, on all three branches.

Springtime

This weekend, the weather has been lovely, warm sunshine, blue skies - what more could one ask?

I have primroses blooming in the garden, the tulips appear to be on the brink of bursting into flower, and further afield, trees are covered in blossom (and my baby apple tree is going to have blossom any minute now!) 

I cut the grass for the first time this year, on Sunday, and have planted out some of my tomato and pea seedlings, so shall have to hope that the nice weather continues and they all survive!

Oh, and I bought a new washing line and now need to make a deeper whole to put it in, because it turns out the new lie is bigger than the old one, and needs a deeper hole to put the stalk in..!

House and Garden

When I moved in to my house I knew it would need a fair bit of work doing, and last year I got the majority of the indoor work done, with a new boiler, insulation, and lots of redecoration.

This year, it's time for the outside, and on Monday morning, 4 blokes and a JCB turned up to get started.

pre work

At the front, the previous owners had tarmaced over the front garden, leaving it open to the road, and I've wanted to turn that back into a garden, (hence the JCB)

Apparently they took out about 18 tons of tarmac and rubble.

After which they laid topsoil, and built me a fence and a couple of gates.

I am of course partial, but I do think it looks rather nicer now! 

And I shall be starting to plant stuff at the front in the coming months.

At the back of the house, the previous owners had laid patio and gravel over most of the garden, and again, I wanted a bit more garden. In addition, at Christmas, the back fence succumbed to the weather.

The death of the back fence

pre-work back garden

So I decided that I would keep the patio but increase the amount of lawn, and of course replace the back fence.

new back garden

The new turf looks very neat and bright compared to the old grass (or it did..)

Because, having finished the work on Thursday, the heavens opened on Friday evening, and we had phenomenal amounts of rain in a very short space of time, which resulted in a very brief but spectacular flood.

Which was just a bit annoying :( I mean, the turf care instructions I have been given do say to "keep the new turf well watered" for the first couple of weeks, but I suspect this wasn't quite what they had in mind...

In Which There Are Flowers

I guess that after last weekend’s excitement, the rest of the week was always going to be a bit of a anticlimax. It was mostly spent working, and trying to catch up on lost sleep.

There was time, however, to help Cheryl move, on Monday evening, and to enjoy the signs of spring – I drive past woodland on my way to work, and over the past week the bluebells have all come out, as has the wild garlic, although that has not yet reached full strength as you cannot yet smell it as you drive past! The horse-chestnuts are in full flower, and on all the residential streets there are ornamental cherry trees covered with pink or white blossom.

It was wet and windy this morning, so the blossom was falling like snow.

In my own garden, the kingcups in my miniature pond are out in force, the clematis plant I bought last year seems to have woken up and is galloping at speed up the trellis, and the aquilegia is our, although oddly, all of those seem to be purple this year (I’m sure at least one was white, last year…) The rock geraniums are flowering busily (They are a bit pink for me, but seem to be VERY hardy, so I think I shall have them around for a while)

I shall also have an excellent crop of Herb Robert, although as that’s technically a weed, I probably shouldn’t boast about it – it is quite pretty, however, and grows in the cracks of the paving I haven’t been able to take up, yet.

And the lettuce, tomato, cauliflower and herb seedlings which I planted out all seem still to be alive, and growing, and not yet completely devoured by slugs and snails.

Once it stops raining, I shall go out and do a bit of weeding, and meanwhile, as it is a weekend, I think I shall do some baking – I think I feel a poppy seed cake coming on..

Sunshine & Bumble Bees (and Volcanos)

I am sorry for all those people who are standed by the grounding of flights as a result of the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull, but I have to say the lack of noise from flights is rather nice. I don't live under a major flight path, and have never thought of it as being particularly noisy here, but the quiet is VERY noticable. And as natural disasters go, this one is stunningly beautiful. I was watching the news earlier, and they had film showing the ash cloud above the volcano, shot through with crimson lightening caused by the eruption. It's (literally) awesome.

Despite the suggestions on the news that we were all to be buried under drifts of ash, it has in fact been a beautiful clear, bright, sunny dday - borrowed from June, not April. I cut my (postage-stamp sized) lawn, planted the rest of the lettuces and tomato seedlings I bought yesterday, plus some seedds which may, perhaps, one day become spring onions, and tidied up the (also postage-stamp sized patio. and, as I am still not 100%, in between I spent quite a lot of time sitting in the sunshine doing nothing much bar listen to the bumble bees and birdsong.

Although I did leave the house briefly to take the car to Kwikfit to get a new tyre fitted - whie they were doing tht, I wandered into town and ened up buying two new pairs of jeans, and a bag, and i have seen some shoes I may go back & buy, if they fit (I didn't try them on because I have a rather large blister right now, which doesn't seem the optimum condition for trying on shoes)

It's been a good, relaxing weekend. and next Saturday (volcanos and health permitting) I shall be in London fopr the EvelynEvelyn show.

I An't Dead (yet)

So, it turned out that the bacteria (or virii) were just lulling me into a false sense of security, and instead of the worst being over last weekend, ameliorated by having a very good friend for company & tea making, they were just biding their time.
After J left on Sunday I curled up & snoozed, expecting to me more-or-less fit for purpose by Monday. Instead, by Monday morning I was at the stage where I took 3 attempts to succussfully make a cup of tea, (it seems that both tea & hot water play important roles in the process) and was coughing up half a lung every few minutes.

So I decided that I probably wasn't safe to drive a car, and that any advice I might be able to give my clients in between coughing all over them would probably not be very dependable, and went back to bed until Wednesday.

The rest of the week passed in a bit of a blur, as getting to work, getting home, and occasionally eating something took up all of my energy.

However, I do now appear to be on the mend, and I'm hoeful that I shall successfully see off this chest infection on the strength of my own immune system alone, no antibiotics.

Today, the sun is shining, I have spent some time in the garden, alternately sitting in the sun & enjoying the unusual lack of aeroplane noises & vapour trails, and getting my hands dirty planting out baby tomato and cauliflower plants. The fact that aftr planting 3 tomato seedlings I need to sit down and get my breath back is a hint that this bug is still out to get me, but sitting down to rest in the sunshine, with no sound but birdsong and bumbling bees is no hardship.

And tonight there will be a new episode of 'Dr Who', with Daleks & Winston Churchill...

Spring!

I don't wish to tempt fate, especially after the false alarm last week, but it does look as though spring might be on it's way.

I spent some time in the garden this afternoon, clearing away dead leaves and so on. I'm not really a gardener, and I suspect that some of this is stuff which ought to have been done in the autumn, but better late than never...

I have two little clumps of snowdrops, both of which have buds just beginning to open, and some other green shoots which I think may be crocuses when they get around to it. The rosemary bush seems to be thriving.

The sun came out for a little while whilst I was outside, which was lovely, and made everything look more alive - I can start to believe that more things will grow, and reappear.

I also finished off the marmalade, with lids and labels. It And ate some of it for the first time - there was a little bit left over, not enough to fill a jar, which forces me to eat it straight away....It isn't perfect - I think I ought to have let it sit a few more minutes before putting it in jars, as the peel has risen a bit, but only a little, and it tastes OK.

Small things, but satisfying. I think, today, I am happy.

In Which Very Little Happens (With bonus Cauliflower!)

Today has mostly involved running errands. I had to take my car for its MOT test, and to have the repairs from my bump completed - which turned out to be more expensive tha expected, as I needed 2 new tyres, and also the other drivers insurers are being a bit slow so I had to pay the excess. I should get it back, sooner or later, but in the mean time it's another £100 which together with £140 for tyres and balancing and the MOT itself makes quite a big dent in this month's budget.

On a happier note, the car now has a new exhaust pipe instead of the cracked one, and a new reat panel (although this does rather show up how dirty the rest of the car is. Maybe I should consider washing it!)

Also, becasue the people doing the MOT test (who are different to the people fixing the car generally) messed up - having made the booking, for a 10.30 test, over 3 weeks ago, they called yesterday to say they could only do it at 9.30, which meant getting up earlier than I'd planned. Not too happy about that at the time, but it did mean I didn't waste any time today.

I have friends coming over for a meal tomorrow so I have been tidying and cleaning, and buying food.





And when I went out into the garden to cut the grass, I found to my pleasure and surprise that one of my cauliflower plants is making a cauliflower!!





I realise, of course, that there are those who might feel that the appearance of a cauliflower, on a clauliflower-plant, is not, in fact, particularly surprising. However, it was quite surprising to me, for a number of reasons.


For one thing, I did not intend to grow cauliflowers at all. I aquired the seedlings when they were at the slightly pathetic 'two leaves sticking out of a shot-glass sized plant pot' stage, and owing to a combination of poor labelling by the garden centre and poor seedling identification by me, I realised shortly after arriving home that I had bought cauliflowers rather than lettuce. This was probably just as well really, as the slugs ate all the lettuces I did maneage to plant, whereas the cauliflowers are holding their own.


For another thing, I don't think that I have really been nurturing the cauliflowers correctly. I don't think proper gardeners grow cauliflowers in planters on the patio, so they are probably only growing at all because unlike me, they (the calulis, not the the proper gardeners) have not read the Pocket Vegetable Expert which explains that they need deep, rich soil to grow, and to be fed, and hoed, and that they are not easy vegetables. Mine seem fairly relaxed so far, but perhaps they will get more difficult when they are older. Unless I eat them before that.

I also feel that there is something ingerently unlikely about cauliflowers. It doesn't seem as though such a large vegetable could grow from such small beginnings - they look as though they ought to grow on trees, perhaps, instead. Perhaps they do, mostly, but mine haven't had the memo?


I have some tiny corgettes growing, too - mostly only 2'-3' long so far, but with luck they will continue to evade the slugs until they are big enough for me to eat. (they are not growning on the cauliflower plant. They have separate courgette plants which they are growing on)


It makes me happy.

In Which there is Gardening, and DIY

I have been in the process of sorting out my spare room – partly because I have been intending to do so far a while, and partly because I shall be having a houseguest for a few weeks.

I have therefore been dredging through the various cupboards and boxes and deciding what to keep, what to throw away, and where to keep the things I want to keep.

Its amazing how much junk I have. There are some boxes which I have carted around through 2 house moves without ever opening, and decided that a lot of their contents could be thrown out. I did however find some much more interesting things – quite a lot of letters sent to me by friends and relations when I first went to university, for instance.

I also found an old school photo (of which the less said, the better) lots of old photos and negatives (must work out what the best way is to get these onto the computer) my exam certificates, old theatre programmes and tickets from my 6th Form days of visiting the theatre for the stand-by standing room every week – very entertaining seeing the cast notes and pictures of the impossibly young Colin Firth, and Colin Farrell, and the like!

Having cleared the room, it seemed a little empty, so this weekend I have been building a (flat pack) wardrobe. It’s a very basic one – wooden frame with a canvas cover, but the construction was not straight forward.

To start with, there is of course my own cack-handedness and lack of coordination, which means that any such endeavour is bound to be slow and tortuous in the extreme…

In this case, things were exacerbated by the somewhat, how shall I put it, challenging nature of the instructions. In particular, whoever drew the pictures had clearly not yet reached the stage in learning to draw where one learns about scale. Either that or they only had one picture of a screw. Which was a little confusing as I had 5 little bags, each containing screws of different sizes,and no clue anywhere in the instuctions as to which little bag contained screws "L", which was "M" and so on.


The instructions themselves (coming after the scale-less picture showing what was supposed to be in the box, which aslo failed to show the top of the wardrobe at all..) consited of a single exploded diagram which sugegsts that you are supposed to construct the thing by throwing the various screws and bolts at the frame very fast from all directions, somewhat in the stlye of the RAF Advert so as to end up with a complete wardrobe (or fighter plane). I chose to build mine in a slightly more restrained way,and ended up with something which was, indeed, recognisablyy a wardrobe. I am not 100% convinced that it will be very useful - the hanging rail sems a little thin and feeble to me, but We Shall See. In the mean time, i am choosing to belive that the 7 screws which I have left over were spares, and it is not that I have faield to attach some crucial parts of the structure to each other.

After building the wardrobe (and having a nice sit down and a cup of tea) I turned my attention to the gardden, as it was a beautiful sunny day.
The kingcups in my 'pond' (which is all odf 18" x 12") have all come out and the plant is clearly flourishing. I didn't rummage around in the water to see whether there are any tadpoles, or frogspawn yet, but I wouldn't be surprised.


I cut the grass - not a major task, as my back yard is very small, and mostly covered with concrete, so the grass only covers 2 small areas, one about 4' x 5' and the other about 6' x 5', so too small to make it worth my while investing in a lawn mower - I have a pair of shears instead, giving the grass that hand-hewn look after I have cut it. The lavender and rosemary are both flourishing, and have lots of buds, sadly the dead-nettles and bindweed sem to be doing well also.

I planted out seedlings of various vegetables, in the hopes that some of them may survive the ravages of slugs and rain long enough for me to eat. This year, I am trying for courgettes (zucchini), lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber and,due to an identification error at the garden centre my error, not theirs) cauliflower. It's nnot that I have anything against cauliflower, in fact, I rather like them, but as I do all of my vegetable-growing in (smallish) tubs I am not sure that cauliflower is suitable, as I think it may take up rather too much space, but we shall see.

I also planted some pansies, and having come across an old packet of seeds, some marigolds, so hopefully something may survive somewhere along the way.

And Tybalt provided help and support in his own way.