Thought For The Day

In 30 days time it will be Christmas Day 2015  and people will be starting asking you, 'Are you ready for Christmas?' ..... Yes??

How To Park

For the last few months O/H has been a bit under the weather and one of the things I've had to do is to take over the driving. I frequently have  'whether I'm going to be able to park when we get there, biting finger nails', syndrome. You know how it is.



Love this video.

Karaoke

Had a quiet, poorly pussy cat this morning. Not touched her food and went missing for most of the day.

Anyway, she turned up again later this afternoon, drank a little of the water I gave her, had a few cuddles and then she  went to sleep in a warm, shaded spot in the poly tunnel. I also found quite a large very dead rat under the van. Looked as if they'd been doing battle, so whether that was the reason, I don't know.  I just hope that nobody had been putting poison down. She seems a bit better tonight.

Hope you like the video.

Tractors and things

It's been pouring down here all day today.

 But here's a picture of our next door neighbour's little Massey. She's looking good for her age.

We bought our little tractor 37 years ago. She's a 1961 B275 International and she's had a lifetime of hard work. Just recently she needed a new clutch thrust fork.

Hubs & Son dismantled the engine and propped the bits up on jacks,  a milk bucket and a few strategically placed bits of wood. Off we went to the tractor man at Abermule and hey he found the very bit we needed on another tractor in the nettles. £20.00 changed hands quick. The part needed machining so he told us about Phil the Drill a bit up the road near the Anchor pub. I don't suppose many of you have been up to the top of the Kerry Hills. The views across the valley were absolutely fantastic and we seemed to be going up forever. Somebody said that there was a bend in the road for every day of the year. You can say that again! The hedges don't get cut very often and you have to sort of squint around the corners and pray you don't meet anything. The nice thing is, that there isn't one scrap of litter in the hedgerows. As we got higher up, we had to call at a couple of places to make sure we were heading in the right direction. The women grow masses of flowers to try and  hide all the scrap crap machinery entranklements their menfolk bring home from the frequent sales. A lot like here. We eventually found the Anchor pub. I went round to the door to ask the directions to Phil the Drill. They weren't open until 7 pm but the landlord was very helpful and poked his head through the window. 'Bit further up and take care as you go across a very bad bend.' 
'Cheers'.
Apparently they used to hold all the horse sales up at the Anchor, don't know whether they still do.
We got there. We found it ...... and - not a soul about - he was out.
We got home OK. Bit by bit, O/H managed to machine the piece himself. He's had a real battle with his health and I'm really proud of him. Anyway tractor all back together again and rearing to go.
John and Mary in New Zealand, I wrote this for you. John get well really soon and get back in that tractor seat.  Hope you like the video xx

July already

 Been out weeding in the garden today. There's a weed mountain at the top of the garden.
All these grew on their own.

The clematis is scrambling over anything that gets in its way

The hardy geraniums have gone berserk

Oxe eye daisies and Geums quite happy amongst the Cranesbill and the odd nettle.

Hemerocallis just poised to burst forth. They should be out by tomorrow. I bought the first one from a church fete for ten pence, five or six years ago.

And the lilies I left in the clay pot are doing their thing, like they did last year. Nothing ever stands still does it!

Darling Buds of May Bank Holiday (2015)

The mini summer we had in April has evaporated and the last couple of days have been cold, grey and damp. So much so that for a couple of nights I've lit the Rayburn again. But then, if you didn't have a drop of rain, nothing would grow.

The blossom on the fruit trees seems to have appeared almost over night. Everything looks so much fresher after the rain. A little bit of joy amongst the scrabble of branches - a cherry tree weighed down with pink blossom. It was more left there, than planted there and has certainly come into its own this year. We'll be lucky if we get any cherries - the birds usually get there first, but the flowers are stunning.

That's a Crab Apple (Malus)  tree from down at 'the Mill'

 I love it when all the wild flowers grow where they will. Nobody can design a garden like that.

Stitchwort, wild strawberries and violets in the hedgerow.

And a bank of wild primrose.

I found this fungi growing at the top of the garden. It's got a thick cream coloured stem and a black sort of net toadstool head. Does anybody know what it might be? Looks a bit sinister?

A quick tour round my veggies (for John & Mary in New Zealand)
Rocket new potatoes are just starting to come into flower.

The cabbages the munchkins bit off earlier have grown again, sometimes with two little heads so ... 'It's an ill wind .... ' as they say.

 My broad beans are in flower. I sifted a little dressing of lime on them. They seem to like it OK. Well at least they haven't died so that's a bonus.

Runner beans are starting to go up the sticks.

Five Shirley tomatoes have got yellow trusses. Got fleece wrapped around them to keep out the wind.

A square of Little Gem lettuce.

Bye for now. Have a good week. x

Total Eclipse

On Friday 20th March, early morning, the sun shone to dazzling. By 9 am here it started to get darker and the shadows longer. By 9.30 am the birds stopped singing, the sheep stood rock still in the field over the way and I had to switch the light on. For a little while, the eerie silence of it all almost overwhelmed me and then a little while later, the sun came back, the birds sang and everything was OK again.



I love this song. Thank you for letting me share it with you. Have a good week.

A good day for planting potatoes

Yep, John and Cro, it's been great here too. Had my trays of new potato seeds chitting (waiting for the green shoots to spurt) on a back windowsill since the beginning of February. According to legend, setting them out in trays like that for about 3 or 4 weeks will (hopefully) bring a crop of freshly dug new potatoes on about a month earlier. We'll see.

Chitted Rocket Potatoes

Forked over a patch of ground where last years leeks had grown. Made a line of green string between two forks and dug a trench a spade  deep all along. A handful of GroMore fert along the row. Hoed it in and then scattered a tub of chicken manure pellets over the soil, hoeing that in as well.

Spaced each potato about a foot apart from each other and planted them, green eye up.

Marked the rows with bamboo canes, raked over and job done. Peter Rabbit polished off nearly all my cauliflowers early on. I covered up the cabbages with  garden fleece. He didn't like that and left them alone, so hopefully, still might get a few spring greens yet.

Blue sky and sunshine all day. The cherry blossom's really come out today. it's lovely.

My hellebore's out.

And the miniature daffies are out in the front border.

A few weeks ago I bought quite a few packets of end of season bargain bulbs from Coedy. They were only 20p each, far too cheap to leave there. Anyway, they seem to be growing OK. I covered them with wire baskets to stop the pesky cats digging them up which they did without fail practically every morning. They've not yet figured how to get around that one. Molly 1 - Cats 0.

'Would we ever?'

Have a good week.

A life in the day.

I woke up this morning to find that a pesky rabbit(s) had nibbled all the centres out of my prize cauliflower plants and the pesky cats instead of discouraging them had scratched up half my prize daffodil bulbs.


My darling horse mad daughter shared this video on her Facebook page. Now I feel really old. But it did make me smile a bit though. Please excuse the naughty bits.

Colours

You can see this painting on the west wall of the Lingen Davies Centre in Shrewsbury.  My darling O/H is not too well at the moment and like so may other people,  we're having to make a few more trips there.  Don't know who the artist is, but the picture's been donated.  The position of the fishing boats, vibrancy of the colours of each one, the myriad of shades and splashes on the beach and in the water. I don't even pretend to know anything about art but I really love looking at this one. My skew whiff camera doesn't do it justice - sorry.

Camellias are out in bloom all around the hospital grounds. The colours are gorgeous. Mine at home, are just starting to come into bud.

Some wool samples in a glass display case in Hereford Cathedral

I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to do in the long Winter nights. I bought a heap of wool, myself, from 'Coedy' and have started knitting a multi coloured throw. Got it all wrapped round me while I'm typing this.

It's freezing outside. Imagine a world without colour. Wouldn't it be horrible.

Going Bananas

Banana Cake

We've got 3 leftover ripe bananas in the fruit bowl so I made this cake today:~

100 grms (4oz) soft margarine
100 grms (4oz) sugar
150 grms (6oz) self raising flour
tsp cinnamon
tsp mixed spice
1 ripe banana
2 medium eggs
100 grms (4oz) sultanas
7 chopped glace cherries

Set the oven temperature moderately hot to about 180 degrees Celsius
Mix together margarine and sugar
Add the mashed banana and mix well
Add eggs and beat well
Sieve flour and spices and fold in to the mixture
Add sultanas and glace cherries
Spoon mixture into a 1lb loaf tin
Bake for about an hour - test the cake by inserting the sharp point of a knife through the centre. If the knife comes out clean - it's done.,

Allow it to cool and enjoy ~ ~

Epiphany

Have just been reading Elizabeth at Welsh Hills Again 's reflective blog. The weather in this little part of the world as well was pretty cold last night. Ground rock hard and parts of the single track road, a sheet of glass. And a feeling as though the winter could well go on for ever. But the sun shone today and in a sheltered part, I noticed we had some daffodil bulbs struggling through. Even when you can't see a lot, it's still all going on there under the frozen earth and some day soon .......