Garden Girl Blog

I got out in the garden for a while yesterday and sorted out a few bits in the green house, it is starting to get really full so I am looking forward to when the frost has passed and I can plant things out.  Lots of plants are coming on now and there are quite a few flowers around.  All the Narcissus are out in flower and they smell wonderful.  Some things are being eaten by slugs but the hard winter does seem to mean their numbers are down.

They are saying we are going to have heavy rain today but for now the sky is blue and looking very nice.  My apple trees are about to come into flower so I need to make something to protect the flower in case we get a frost.

Here are a few photos, including the new veg patch.

Click to make big.

As already mentioned, my friend and I went to see Joan Armatrading last night.  We arrived when the doors opened and went a got a bottle of beer, they were very big so we decided to share it.  We then went to hear the support act, which was a girl called Lisbee Stainton, very nice voice.  Our view was a little blocked by a pillar in the building but the seat next to us was empty so we moved up.  Half way through the support act the girl who owned the seat showed up but she did not ask us to move so we stayed where we were.

Half time came and we pottered off to a drink.  Discussing what we were going to get, we settled on a drink of water, for me and a cup of tea for me friend, we must be getting old!  After our drinks we went back to our seats only to find that the late arrival had not claimed her rightful seat and stayed where she was.  We discussed if we should tell her we nicked her seat but decided she must know so we just sat.

The concert started and was very good, a mix of old and new, a bit of singing along, clapping and hands in the air.  We had a great time.

In case you happen to be interested, radio 2 are playing a recording of the concert from Bristol at 9am this evening.  I am sure it will be available on listen again at some point.  Enjoy if you are interested.

But this time from clapping.  I went to see Joan Armatrading in concert yesterday, it was really good and a very late night.

I have not decided what to do today as yet.

While I was busy digging in the garden over the last few days I forgot about the web cam thing on the greenhouse.  The husband has just been going through all the recent photos to delete the rubbish ones and now he seems to have a nice set of photos of me in my t-shirt digging and lots of cleavage shots.  I never thought of that!

He seems happy!

It was back to work today for a rest, but I have managed to swap my days off so I only have to work Wednesday this week and that is me done.  I do have to do a few more days than planned next week but that is okay.

I hurt all over from my arms, ot my back and right down my legs.  It is not pain, as in, I have broken something, just pain in that muscles have worked that normally live in not being used slumber.  Oh well maybe back out doing a bit in the garden tomorrow.

Well the veg patch has been dig, stones and boulders removed and soil put back and leveled.  It is done!

The last bit was back breaking and I did it on my own, but it is done and it is now ready for my compost mush and some proper compost to be dug in and I can plant in it.  However no more digging for me today, I am off for a shower.  I will also save the numerous dump runs to get rid of all the hardcore for another day.

Photo to follow but I am off for a shower.

I have just been to the dump to take the stones that we have dug out of the garden.  They are in bags and I am happy to empty them into the hardcore recycling area, and am really happy that they will get recycled.  I park up and get my first bag out, the area they should go is coned off, I go and ask the man where I should put it, still carrying the quite heavy bag.  He says 'oh just chuck it in the normal waste', I say 'but it is hardcore and can be recycled', he replies, 'but it is full'.

I get really fed up with this as we are all encouraged to recycle and we do our bit, but then the council let us down.  Our local dump seems particularly bad. I also see a man with a van taking out loads of wood and cardboard and putting that in the general waste, again all that should be recycled.  Makes me mad.

I will ask the husband, but I might write to the council as I do feel it is very out of order, and it is not the first time this has happened at my local dump.

We did some more digging of the new veg patch yesterday but sadly have not finished.  We still have a small bit to go, but we needed a break yesterday and to have some tea so stopped.  My hands are a bit sore today but I really want to get on and do the last bit.  Then I need to take all the rubble we have got out to the dump, that might take a few trips.

I have just noticed it is raining, I hope it does not last long.

I was in M&S this morning and saw a rather nice looking wiper blade to clear the tiles of water after a shower, had a nice hook and everything.  It came with a suction pad thing and looked very nice.  Of course I got it and brought it home, hubs and I put it up together saying how fab it was that it did not need screws.  We stood back and admired it and went off to do other stuff.

Five minutes later a bang, the stupid thing had fallen off the wall and into the bath.  Worse still it has made a chip in the bath.  I will be returning the offending item back to M&S and have ordered a chip repair thing off the internet. Bugger!

It has been a busy week, but I am not quite sure where my time went.  We have had rain, which has been good for the grass but not so good for getting the veg patch finished.  Sadly I have got no further forward.  This weekend regardless if it is sun or rain I need to get on with it, we do not quite seem to be getting the wonderful sunshine that is being enjoyed down south.

Right off to the shops and then out in the garden.

The hole, that will one day be a little veg patch in our garden, has grown but is still unusable as a veg patch.  There is another load of bags full of rubble that need to go to the dump.  Today I will do a little more digging and maybe we will have it finished after the weekend.

The sky is a wonderful blue today but quite cold at the moment, while I wait for it to warm up out there I will get on with the house work.

I was due to go to London to visit some friends at the end of last week.   On Thursday morning at 4am I got a text message saying my flight was cancelled because of volcanic ash.  I thought it was a joke so got up to check email.

The husband and I had lots of discussions about should I get a train and go anyway, thinking the ash would just be the on day, so that is what I did.  Me, and lots of other people had the same idea, I managed to get a seat but some did not.  The lady in the seat behind talked to anyone who sat next to her and on her phone the whole way.  She was very upset and stressed as she was trying to get to India and was prone to outbreaks of tears.  The first few times I felt sorry for her but it got a bit much after that.  She really could talk but she was a bit loud and all I wanted to do was get a bit of sleep.

I arrived in London and was met by a friend, the afternoon was spent going walking and then out for dinner and a trip to the theatre.  When we got home I was alarmed to hear that the flights were still not running.  I was now starting to worry about getting back home and this was not eased by the husband saying that the trains were getting full.  By the next morning my worry was turning to mild panic, I really regretted coming and was not enjoying my trip.  In the end I booked a train home.  I was able to relax after this, at last I had a way of getting back. I was able to get a booked seat and it was cheaper than on the way down.  Once I get my flight refund it would have not cost that much extra.

That day was spent going off to visit other friends.  The evening was going to be a girls evening out with a friend that I have not spent time with for years.  I really enjoyed it and felt it is good to have friends that time apart does not seem to changed things with. I had a fab time.

Yesterday I was up early for a trip to London to get back on the train, I arrived at Kings Cross early so went for a wander round the  Eurostar station.  It was very nice, very French and very busy.

My train was on time and got to my seat.  A very posh lady, but a heavy smoker was sitting next to me.  She apologised if she got a bit twitchy after a while but she was not good without her fags.  She did get up and pace quite a bit towards the end of the journey but that did not bother me.  There was also a chap with a cat, he was taking it home as his daughter was going abroad for a year.  The cat slept most of the journey and was very good.

I got home with no problems at all, and was glad to be back.  I guess in hindsight I should not have bothered to go but we did not know it would go on for days.  Also I enjoyed the train ride and would be much more willing to maybe try that again in the future.

It was my day off today.  I did not get any more digging done, but I did take all the stones and turf to the dump, three trips in the new car, and brushed down the paths after.  There were also a few other bits going on so it was a busy day for me.

My standard Forsythia is out in flower and looks wonderful, I saw some last week down by the coast, but at that time, mine was not showing any sign of flowers.  However a few days of sun and it is now in full flower.

I am away for a few days after tomorrow so will be back after the weekend.

... dig dig dig dig dig dig dig in our mine the whole day through
To dig dig dig dig dig dig dig is what we really like to do...

Okay it is not what we like to do and it is not a mine, but what we did for many hours today.  We dug down quite a bit in our new veg bed and out came more and more stones.  All sizes and shapes.  I could not get a pick-axe, so got a sledge hammer instead and a little hand pick instead.  The husband has been very good at using them.  We worked together for hours and got... well about a third of the area done.

At some point we also need to get rid of the grass we took up and all the stones we have dug out.  A few trips to the dump I think.

It does not look much but here is the hole we are currently working on, we have done the bit to the left and the growing pile of stones.

Click to make them a bit bigger.

Photo of the flowers I received today.

Yesterday I saw the first bumble bee around here and today a butterfly.  The flowers are starting to come on and the husband and I spent most of the day doing stuff in the garden.

One of our projects was to dig a new bed for veg.  It is just in front of the greenhouse, so today we lifted the turf and started to dig.  Before long we hit something hard.  It seems that under our garden there is quite a bit of stone/concrete.  We had to decide what to do, fill it back in and relay the grass or try to remove it.  We have opted for removing it and I am off to purchase a pickaxe tomorrow.

A few photos of the flowers currently in the garden.

Click to make them big.

Lovely blue sky today.  The husband and I will be off for a trip to look at stuff for our en-suite and then back to potter in the garden and maybe even have an early dinner out there.

...you don't get.

When we ordered our new car, they told us it would be ready towards the end of May.  We booked our holiday around these dates to try and make sure we had our new car by the time we go.

They then got in touch a few weeks ago and said the car is ready and will be here in a week and could we sort a few things by the end of March.  We think this was so that it went through on their sales figures for March.  They said there would be something in it for us if we got it all sorted to their timescales.  We did our bit and got it all sorted and picked it up this week.

I was thinking the 'little something' would be some flowers and was somewhat disappointed to find the 'little something' seemed to be a bottle of oil.  Being me, I said to the chap that oil was not quite what I had in mind but thank you anyway.  He smiled and said something would be coming, we left with the new car and forgot about something coming.

This morning the husband let the cat in and there on the door step were some flowers and they were beautiful.  The husband said, I wish I could tell you they are from me, but they are not!  There was a card and they were from the garage. I will be ringing up to say thank you very soon.

It is my day off so I am back to painting the stairs and hall, I have to cover over the 'wrong' paint that I put on the other day.  I am going to give the edge of the stairs a good sand first, such energy first thing in the morning!

There was some cloud around but it seems to be clearing so it also looks like a good day for doing the washing.  I have loads so will be getting on with that as well.

Have a good day.

in the tummy of the little fat mouse.  Rotten thing has come into the greenhouse and eating what ever he fancies including my onions.  Since when do mice eat onions!

He even went to the bird feeder and had a little look around and smiled at the camera.  Little devil!

...to go to work tomorrow, it has been nice having such a long weekend, and the weather should be nice tomorrow, and the snow has gone from the garden.   Oh well fingers crossed the sun will still be around at the weekend.

On a different note, we picked up our new car today.  The husband was so fed up of having to be pushed up the hill in the snow all winter, or him having to push me up the hill that we have got a 4 x 4 car.   It is an Audi A3 so not a big car, but it does have drive to all 4 wheels.  The ride is much better than our old car and it has 5 doors which will be easier when our parents come to visit.

So that should now guarantee we never get snow again!

... I got busy early, got my brush and roller out and off I went.  I worked out the paint required is as follows -

> Front room and dining room are Matt.
> Bathroom is Soft Sheen.
> Kitchen is Soft Sheen.
> Hall was wrong last time so must be Soft Sheen.

Off I pottered getting on with the painting.  The final bit was the stairs where we get a crack that runs all along the board where the wall meets it.  So painted it all, then I stood back and looked down the stairs and it does not look good.  The new paint reflects the light more than the old, the husband said it just needs to dry, so I left it to it.

Several hours later... it looks the same.  So I ring up the painter who painted it last time to ask what he used and he said Matt he thought.  However he used a different brand to me.  Get the same brand he says, he even offered to give me some, nice chap that he is.  So sometime soon I will be off to get the alternate brand of paint and be doing the hall and landing again. B*gger!

It is blowing a gale... well maybe not quite a gale but it is very windy.  Several bits from the garden have been moved around, but they are still in the garden.  I will go and fetch them back to their correct place a bit later on.  The trees and broom behind the garden look like they are involved in a mad dance swinging their heads (well branches) from side to side.

I hope the wind stops soon.

...and I am not afraid to use it.

I got the other two bedrooms filled and even finished the painting in them.  Then I thought that maybe I would just go and fill every other crack I could find in the house.  So I did!  I got very carried away with my sealant cartridge gun and think I have done everything.

Tomorrow I will have to do a bit of light sanding, having just read the instructions on the flexible decorating filler it says it cannot be sanded... I have already sanded quite a bit of the stuff I put in over the last few days and it was fine.  So I will not worry about that.

Anyway a bit of sanding and then get out the white paint.

That could be when the fun starts.  You would think white paint is white paint, however we seem to have used a mix of 'soft sheen' and nornal 'matt' and maybe even some 'eggshell' or 'satin'.  However I have not kept a note of what is where.  Often I touch up a room and then notice a few weeks later that the finish is different and have to do it again.  I only have soft sheen and matt in the garage so hope that is all we have ever used.   First thing tomorrow morning I will be doing a bit of working out what is where and fingers crossed I get it right!

The husband and I got one Easter egg between us yesterday which lasted all of 5 minutes.  This morning we popped out to a local supermarket and noticed that all the eggs were half price.  In the spirit of starting the diet tomorrow... yes tomorrow never comes... we brought a smarties egg, three cream eggs (three for a pound!) and a bag of mini eggs.   Chocolate overload here we come.

Well we have to eat them all today as the diet starts tomorrow.

...well they said it would be and it is, so a day inside today.  Later we have someone coming to quote for the en-suite so best I get the house tidy before they come.

The garden is rather waterlogged at the moment and we still have a big pile of snow close to the house, but it is going.  I hope that within the next few weeks we will be able to get out and start looking after the grass.  It is looking less than its best after the winter so we have a bit of work to do.  However the flowers are starting to show their faces in the beds. 

... when I invited my husband to join me in a bit of the above he was very excited, however he soon realised I was talking about the walls of the rooms in our house and lost interested, I am not sure what he had in mind. So I did it today while he sorted out his motorbike. 

The end result, we were both very pleased with what we did.  I got three rooms sorted, two bedrooms and the bathroom and all the cracks are gone and fresh paint is covering them.  Maybe I will get another two bedrooms done tomorrow.  I got some flexible decorator's filler and it seems to work really well.  Fingers crossed the cracks will stay away for a while.  The real test will be when I do the wall next to the stairs, the crack there always comes back within a few months.

Had a lovely roast turkey dinner, cooked in my clean oven, with foil over the turey so no new mess in the oven.  Off to do the ironing now.

I got what I thought would be a nice pork thing from M&S for our dinner last night.  I put it in a hot oven as instructed and within 10 minutes it was popping and spitting and making a huge mess of my oven.  So first job this morning is to go and clean the oven.  I had forgotten about that!

Note to self, don't get that M&S Pork thing again.

Yesterday I got round to painting the metal bars outside our bedroom window.  That sounds a bit odd, but the window is quite low so there are bars running along the outside to protect you from falling out.  They came out okay, not the best job ever but it is done and they have paint all over them now so they won't rust.

Today I am going to start filling some of the cracks in the plaster joins that have appeared over this winter and then do some painting.  I think every room has some cracks in it so this is going to be an on going job for a few weeks.  There are also a few bits of harling that have come off that need sorting, but I hope to persuade the people the house builder sends to do the chimney to help me with them.

I get a bit worried by all the bits that need doing and it seems so much worse this year.  The husband says it is still just settlement and normal expansion because of the house heating up etc.  It is still a pain but it does look like stuff we can sort out.  Well most of it.

Have a good Easter Sunday what ever you are doing.

I saw this label on a bottle of wine in a shop yesterday and just had to buy it.  I think it is fab.

On the blurb at the back of the bottle they encourage you to send any 'catty' comments to their email address.  Nice to see some people still have a sense of humour. Just in case you are wondering, yes I only brought it because of the label.

...no not that scary 1980's TV gameshow.  A Bullfinch has returned to our garden and a very impressive chap he is.  He is enjoying the sunflower hearts in one of the feeders and sits holding court while munching.  The other birds keep their distance from him and just try to sneak in now and then to get some seeds.  He must be near the top of the pecking order.

I am looking forward to seeing lots more of him.

Super, smashing, great.

By the time I got out in the greenhouse it was glorious in there.  The sun was beating down and warming the air, I put the radio on and got on with some potting up.  I also check most of the plants that were in there and they seem okay.  The only ones that have really had it are the ones the slug ate.

I have not had much luck with my beans, maybe I over watered them.  I will give it a few weeks and try again.

Think we are going to do some painting in the house tomorrow... unless we find something more interesting to distract us.... like eating Easter eggs.

Looking out the window this morning it looks beautiful.  Snow is lying on the ground and the sky is clear and crisp, the sun is high and bright making the snow sparkle like it is full of diamonds.

Rather different from just a few days ago.

The day of our snow storm we woke early for work and could see straight away that we would not be able to get the car out. The three foot pile of snow in front of the garage door, where it had come off the roof and half foot deep stuff everywhere else was something of a give away.

It was still coming down thick and fast so we decided not to even try for the bus and went back to bed for a hour.  The first neighbour out was one with a 4x4 and he drove out no issues at all.  We are quite certain he goes out feeling smug at being able to get out.  The next neighbour trying to get out had no such luck.  They go stuck just off their drive and could not go anywhere, after that a few more tried and failed.  We were very glad to have not bothered.

We worked from home so were able to get on.  At lunch time we went up the road to see how it looked in the town.  It was madness up there.  Lorries were stuck and traffic was not moving at all.  The roads in and out of the town we live in were closed and nothing was moving.  There was a big tractor trying to get the lorries going, but they did not have a very good rope and it just broke every time, the lorries were well stuck.

On our way back we saw one lorry try to undertake the one stuck at the front, but instead of going forward it went sideways and just missed a house.  Lucky there was no one on the path as its back end was right over the path after he finished his bit of stupid driving.  Madness!

We walked back via the river path to see the ducks, they were not impressed that we had forgotten bread.  The path was blocked in several places by trees and bushes that had come down.   At one point we had to walk backwards through a bush that had come down.  I think the council are going to be busy getting the path reopen.

Here are a few photos of it all.

Click to make big.

Two things have happened.

There was a very small slug in one of the trays where I had some very small plants that I had grown from seed in.  The rotten slug ate the plants so they are gone.

Then this morning when we got up it was -5.3 in the garden and the greenhouse was well below freezing.  Although all the plants do have plastic propagator lids over them I am not sure they will cope with it that cold.

Will go out a bit later and see how they are doing.