General Chat

I'm pleased you had a safe journey Anng. Enjoy your stay and I hope the weathers good for you. Good Charles came and cured the leaks in the garage it will put your mind at rest while you're away.

I wonder how our Vera is today ? I hope she got some well earned zzz's last night.

We have sunshine here and oh is out mowing after cleaning my filter out on my pond and fitting the new uv light in it.My baby fish from last year are growing at a rate of knots as I am feeding them oh's special koi food, they love it.

Charles arrived at 0910, he checked the gutter and then the flat roof. The problem was the edging round the roof which was splitting and a couple of corners where the flashing needed replacing. He had stuff on the van to do it with and it was done by ten thirty. Hopefully that will have cured it.

I am at son’s now, traffic was very heavy but we made reasonable time.

This is what I bought and it was £9.99 I think but you can get bigger sizes its from Amazon..

Judy1980 Garden Insect Protection Net Grow Tunnel Fine Mesh for Vegetable Plant Fruits Greenhouse Flowers Crops,Pesticide Repellent (2.5 * 10 M)

O Island they do in our garden there are a lot of fairies in the garden.

I am going to sow some more short beans as the ones I have in the pot are doing really well. Beetroot are growing but no at a rate I would like but they are in a big pot and a window box thing and they are very thickly planted so I think I need to thin them out a bit to get any of a good size to eat. I grow the cylindrical ones as you geet a nice lot of slices from them.

Courgettes leaves have all gone mouldy but its still producing and if we can't est them the chickens do.

Also Island I bought this very fine white netting this year and its been good for over the silly little plastic greenhouse and over a frame of the blueberries and oh even bought a length to go in the pond filter on my pond as the foam circles in it are very old and it was cheaper than the sponges that go in the filter. He's out there now cleaning it out much to his disgust.

Island put a nice ripe apple under your toms and it will help with the ripening. Ripe fruit givesd off etherlene gas which ripens the toms. Banana skin does the same job.

I wondered if this might be of interest if anyone still has the heart for growing veg after all the bad weather.
I like the idea of sweetcorn shoots. I also so have a packet of kale which I haven't sowed yet but the wretched whit butterflies will still be around for a while.

https://www.bitesizedgardening.co.uk/what-to-sow-in-august-my-25-favourites/how-to-dig-for-victory/?fbclid=IwAR3aU6zuZqIDsR5kTvS6PFaLQfQc7DWEnmP7T1Nxvm2rpSGzIbZWSMCpeQE
.

Cheers Mel :-D
You had me worried, thought I was in a time warp. I've only missed one day LOL

As I'm here...... I've been meaning to ask you Mel, as you have a large garden. Do you or have you ever put down a sheet of corrugated iron in a sunny spot to see if you have any slow worms?

I'm disheartened by the effect the weather is having on my veg - it's all outside - toms seem to have stopped growing with no sign of ripening so that'll be green tomato chutney again. I'm also checking daily for signs blight so I can whip the fruit off before they get it.
Cues not great, I think the leaves are dying off.
Courgettes are a bit slow this year, actually, the peppers indoors on the sunny window sill have slowed down too.
I've found it all quite a battle this year what with white butterflies, mysterious chomping beasties and the dreaded bindweed getting out of hand.
Big re think next year with 'less is more' approach - what grows in rain forests? I'll try that.

Apart from that, I continue with my indoor cull and have had a delighted recipient collect some fabrics which has pleased me no end.

Mel, those fairy babies are very sweet. I didn't know fairies got up to hanky panky :-0 ;-)

Annx I think you are the first person I have known to have a dog cart - intrigued. What a lovely photo to treasure and remember your friend by.

Anng, lovely orchid, I can see a face.

I hope everyone is ok

PS Annx, I've only just seen your email re the dog cart (13.30) so my comment above is a bit behind.

Morning Anng and all,

Dull and a bit windy here don't know what its like outside cos i have only just got up at 11.50am.

Hope Charles can sort out your problem as it would put your mind at rest with going away.

Sending love to Island and Frank I wonder if he is tkaing Ros out to dinner today.

Good morning all, early up as Charles is coming at 9am to check out where the water could be leaking and I didn't want to go back to sleep.

Ann was your first OH a trained carpenter. I am thinking he would have had to know something about working with wood to do what you both did, especially as you mentioned furniture.

Cooking burger for dinner. They will have everything in so we don't need anything else with them just some of my toms I have just picked 9 of them. Nice bottle of Rose' too.

Ann its back thenm we had so much energy to get lots of things done. I cn remember doing all the housework on a Friday morning and going shopping in the afternoon and putting it all away and getting dinner and I had my son very young too..

Evening All,

A mix of dull, rain spits and bright sun today. Apart from watering the GH and picking cues and beans I've had a lazy day.

Glad you liked the pics AnnG. I didn't send them to everyone as some have seen them before. Yes I'm even more glad I have that pic of my friend and I now Vera. I didn't really think about it being an unusual thing to do, as we had already made and fitted bedroom furniture and kitchens in 2 bungalows, built sheds and bird cages, made canoes etc. Yes we both worked full time AnnG and still hadn't finished renovating the house we bought, so a bedroom upstairs we hadn't started on became the place I did the painting in. Hubby worked Saturday mornings then too, so our progress was slow! I don't know now how I managed to do so much then. but I expect everyone else is the same. :-)

Sorry you had another bad night Vera, fingers crossed tonight will be better. I was a bit hot last night and took a while to drop off. I hope your son has gone prepared! I shall never forget wearing our walking boots with socks tucked in to an event once and squelching through mud and seeing some women in strappy sandals!!!!

I too hope you have a good journey and nice stay with yiur son AnnG.

Thank you for the photos ann, you both must have felt really proud of finishing that job. Was it not most unusual for 'ordinary' people to undertake such a task. did it make the newspapers at the time. you and your first other half were very clever, very talented. The painting alone must have been daunting. did you lose sleep worrying about it? Was this done in your spare time both of you, I assume you were working full time.

Raining here now.. Checked the garage and can't see any water coming in on the wall. My feeling is that the really heavy rain we had was driven in the pipe to the boiler, Unfortunately it is not safe to cover it in anyway so I just have to hope that there won't be too many storms from that direction.

Mel please keep the rain down there.

Annx As I said in my email reply to your photos, both carts are lovely and look at you, so young and lovely too. Great photos to treasure. Have you said if you know where the cart and carriage are now? They should be in a museum.

Vera, another bad night, sorry you feel 'zombied'. Never mind the garden, you have done a lot out there this week so far.
I won't worry too much about the wet in the garage as there is nothing I can do until I can get someone to look at it, unusually I have not hear from Charles, seeing that it is school holidays I guess he may be away. I will turn it all off before I go away and hope I don't have to call Oliver out to start it again when I get back.
I don't envy your son in the mud!!

What a lovely photo of you and your friend in the dogcart Ann. That’s one to treasure and will be a reminder of happy days with her. Thank you for sharing it with us. You made a good job of that carriage for her. It must have taken a long while and a lot of elbow grease.

We’ve had heavy rain on and off all night and first thing this morning. It’s stopped at the moment but it looks as though there is plenty more to come. I hope most of it misses you AnnG. You don’t want to be worrying about water in the garage while you’re away. In case I don’t post again before you go tomorrow, have a safe journey and a lovely time with your son.

My son and dil have gone to a music festival this weekend. It’s based on music from the 80s when they would have been in their teens and early twenties. The forecast for where they are is even worse than here so they could be paddling around in inches of mud by tomorrow. Rather them than me.

I got another hour in the garden between showers yesterday but I’m struggling to get myself moving today after another bad night. All I’ve done so far is shower. Think I’ll go and make a CoT and see if that will wake me up a bit.

Have a good day everyone.

Morning Anng and all,

Its chucking it down here but was quite bright when I got up at 6.45 for the loo. I went back to bed and woke to the sound of driving rain. Its running down our road like a river. The onmly good thing is its filling the well up but drenching the garden.

Up the shop this morning for the paper and some bits and pieces and then I don't know what I shall do as I won't be in the garden if it carries on like this.

Good morning, the sun is shining. rain forecast, hoping it won't be heavy, Until I can find the cause of the water in the garage/boiler I will dread heavy rain.

Ann you made a splendid job of the trap for your friend. The pony is lovely. You've been very lucky with Ernie this year that must be about the third time is'nt it?

Glad you liked the fairy babies in their leaf beds.

I don’t have a Cricutte Ann, I have A Gemini Junior.the die is placed in a ‘sandwich’ Consisting of several different plates with the paper or card then run through the machine which is electric. The details are then stamped as you guessed onto the due cut. The stamp matches the die exactly

Evening All,

A blustery/rainy/sunny day here......a bit of everything!

So one thing did lead to another with your boiler AnnG, but what a nuisance if water is getting in. Still, much cheaper to fix than having a new boiler as you say and better the problen now than in winter. That was really good service from M&S wasn't it and now you can use your card. I like your cards you made but don't really know how the dies are used. Do they fit in the cricut machine to press and cut through or do you do it some other way? How do you do the printing on the elephant? Do you use them like a stamp with ink on?

I like your baby fairies Mel, with all the detail on them, and I'm sure little girls would love them if you put them in the next Fayre whenever it will be. Yes those Haflingers are sweet, sturdy ponies and the lady had a chestnut one with flowing flaxen mane and tail. I like the name Little Red and I learned to ride on a strawberry roan pony. My foal I bought was a blue roan. They look different colours as they moult don't they.

I had a zoom meeting with 3 of the beading ladies this morning. They are meeting together at one of the houses now, except for me and another lady both still being cautious, so we joined them on zoom. I thought they we sitting quite close so I was glad I'm still being cautious!

Emails arrived about my bank switch today. More work to do checking pensions etc have my new details. No joy trying DWP so another call to them first thing. Private pension people want everything in writing so more jobs to do. I still have to notify loads of people who don't make regular payments anyway, like ERNIE and all the people who I have subscriptions with and savings with. I must start a list to work through!

Oh Vera I sympathise with your new neighbour and it would be nice to have a studio. It's soul destroying when you have to tidy things away each time. It will be interesting to see some of his painting if he shows you.

Island that was a big cucumber to be hidden away! Are you filling the new shed yet or still at the planning stage? Glad your ankle is feeling better today.

Well ERNIE has been kind again and given me £25 this month. :-)

It never rains but it pour Anng. I have trouble with a flat roof too but mine is over the lounge.