Category: Garden

Causing a Fence

We have been meaning to get our half-dead overgrown hedge which brings down the tone of the area removed for ages, even though it is a godsend to wildlife, but we just don’t have the time, tools, skills, energy or chops to look after it. So when a man came to our door offering to change it for a fence we were receptive. Asked him to leave his business card and later found a leaflet from a well-regarded company in the letterbox so told him to go ahead, having also been assured he had a chipper and digger. They were a different company with no machinery except a chainsaw. They ended up hauling away seven tons of trees by hand and we ended up paying three times the estimate. So it goes. Still we do have a fence.

Solitary Passion

Of all the hundreds of flowers that have bloomed on our passiflora (which lives in a small pot and has grown all over the patio, tangled up with the honeysuckles, beans and grapes) this year, only one has developed into a fruit.
September was slightly colder, wetter and sunnier than last year.
Admin1 is reading The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd. Admin2 is reading The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. Both were disappointingly juvenile.

Lavender’s Blue, Lavender’s Green


We missed last week’s family meal so this week we had 2 quizzes to do. We scored 10 on this week’s and a mere 7 on last week’s, even with generous marking, so our running average is now below 10. That bee is definitely cleverer than us.
Admin1 is reading Dead Rich by GW Shaw and Admin2 is reading The Chelsea Murders by Lionel Davidson.

Ten Years After

It has been ten years since we started uploading annual May Day pics of the garden after whatever weather was earlier. During that time the rain and sun have waxed and waned and the tulips and bluebells have slugged it out; tulips in the ascendant this year after an April that was our fourth sunniest April ever and not so showery.
Admin1 is reading A Killing in November by Simon Mason — another unpleasant protagonist whom the author works hard to make sympathetic. Not really successful at humour, and side issues (refugees, jihadists) not explored adequately. But readable.
Admin2 is reading Companion Piece by Ali Smith, which features an imaginary female character who is A Smith.
We had the pleasure of Gez in the flesh for the first time since Mother’s Day and scored, oh dear, worst this year, 7 on the GSQ.

Easter Eggs

Magpies have built a fine nest next to our house (apparently magpies nest next to humans to keep away their crow kin) and today Admin1 sent up the drone to look for blue eggs or fluffy chicks, but they had built a roof and the tree was in leaf so no luck.
Meanwhile Admin1 had his first stab at making a Battenburg cake which turned out extremely well. A lovely meal was had by all and we scored 11 on the GSQ.
Admin1 is reading The Stone Chamber by Kate Ellis and Admin2 is reading Rewind by Catherine Ryan Howard, which was extremely implausible.