Category: Garden

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‘Shrooming

Pic of the week 18/10/20

Saturday saw the start of half-term and Becky and I headed up to Stockhill Woods, Priddy, to do some “‘shrooming”. There was quite an impressive array of colours and shapes to discover and it was a really pleasant way to spend the morning, ferreting around in the woods. We did also emerge from the trees to head over to Priddy Pool – I must admit I like being out in the open – but the pool itself, and surrounding landscape, did seem somewhat devoid of life, making it a little bleak. But I did like the first opportunity to try my technical trousers and walking boots. Given that C-19 has forced us all to change how we use our leisure time (we should have been jetting off to Barcelona on Tuesday) I’m glad I’ve bought this specialist clothing – now just got to get outside and use it.

Harvested my five pumpkins this weekend. I don’t know why, but I do take pride in growing these. They are not that big, the two biggest being self-seeders from my compost heap, the other three were all from plants that we bought from the garden centre on the roundabout during lock down.

Today, I changed the oil in the Micra, although I couldn’t remove the old filter (seized in) so that’s a job still to be done.  Did enjoy doing though.

 

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Poorly

Pic of the week 11/10/20

I’ve been a little bit poorly this week.

Not Covid – I have checked the symptons carefully, I had a sore throat that then became a bit “sinusy”, leaving me feeling tired and with the occasional headache. My temperature has remained normal, I’ve only coughed on occasion (certainly not a new or persistent cough) and my sense of taste and smell has remained undimmed. Just a seasonal bug, probably due to tiredness (and dehydration? Ran on Sunday, spun on Monday, sore throat began on Monday night)

Feel a lot better now, although I did curtail this morning’s run at 7Km, my legs ached, it was hard work (despite lovely weather), I was slow, and I wasn’t really enjoying it.

Have then spent much of the rest of the day pottering in the garden – mowing the lawn, removing the runner beans and their support and planting some daffodils in their place, and general tidying. The sun has shone, and it has been a pleasant temperature – I fell I’ve had a really peaceful day today, which is probably just what I needed.

And the pic of the week?

Well that’s Farrington Gurney Church were we got married nearly 25 years ago. Becky met her sister at the farm shop there (FG) yesterday for coffee and took this pic.

 

 

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Full time?

Pic of the week 27/9/20

So Covid’s making a comeback and, consequently, I’ve made a big decision.

I’ve blown full-time on my refereeing, at least for the time being.

I don’t fear contracting the virus whilst taking charge of a fixture – its quite easy to keep oneself socially distanced and being outdoors I feel pretty safe, but what concerns me is getting a subsequent call from track and trace to say that someone at a game I have refereed has tested positive and that therefore I need to self-isolate for 14 days.

I don’t want to have to do that as it would drive me mad, plus I would feel I was letting down everyone at school. So I fulfilled my commitment to referee today, but other than school games, that’s it for the time being. I’m limiting my exposure to the world to work and home.  I think that is now how things will be until Spring.

On a more cheery note, the pic above shows my pumpkins nicely turning orange. The leaves are  (have!) turning into crisps, it’ll soon be time to harvest them. I have enjoyed watching them grow. With the leaves now a shadow of their former magnificence, the chard plants are once again beginning to thrive, it will be interesting to see how long they last through winter.

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Pumpkins and plans

Pic of the week 26/7/20

Not a lot has happened this week – but unlike the groundhog weeks of earlier, its been quite nice to have had a reasonably chilled week.

Possibly the most exciting thing to happen is the emergence of a couple of baby pumpkins, one each on self seeded plants. Its always a nervous few days to see if the pumpkin has actually been fertilised and grows on to be a big daddy – I’ve had too many disappointments in the past when the swelling “seed” has clearly not been fertilised and then drops off after a few days. But a quick inspection leaves me encouraged, and a least one of them appears to be almost visibly growing.

In other news, Sam went away to Poole for a few days with some pals. He had a nice time.

I had a scare on Thursday.

7 Km into my morning run, I felt tweak at the base of my left hamstring. Kept going, 10 metres later I felt it again. I turned round and jogged gingerly home (0.5 k) I rested for the next two days, this morning embarking on my standard Sunday 10Km which was all good.

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June/July

Pic of the week (I) 5/7/20

(My) hols have begun, but the weather has not been brilliant – quite showery – but on Friday I decided to tackle the box bush out front. It does a look neater, and therefore much better, and I had a bit of a tidy up of one of the adjacent shrubs. Today, I begun moving some of the gravel from the front (although you might be hard pushed to notice) with the view to gravelling the whole area with decorative gravel.

Pic of the week (II)

Many of the plants are now in full flower and looking good, and the veg plants planted are putting on quite a spurt. All is looking green and healthy in the garden (even the lawn looks quite lush right now. Probably indicative of all the rain we have had.)

Pic of the week (III)

Ran my 600th Km this week, on 3rd July.  Ran 125 Km’s total in June.

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Nettles!

Pic of the week 26/4/20

One of the (few) bonuses of lock down has been Boris walks – we are permited to exercise daily – may be a run, a cycle of a walk – and I have begun to join Becky and Sam on their evening perambulations (Sophie rarely leaves the house).

We’ve become more adventurous, ranging further and further from the house and yesterday evening we broke new ground.  We headed down to Pomparles bridge, but crossed the road and followed the Brue to the north.  We’d not been going long before we realised the error of our ways – the path was flanked – swamped – by nettles and I was wearing shorts and, although Becky had leggings on, they didn’t cover her ankles.

We were getting stung. Mercilessly.

Fortunately Sam had had the sense to wear long trousers and so we commanded him to take the lead, and like a land based ice breaker, stomp down all the nettles in our path, to cut a narrow furrow for us to pass through.

We still got stung lots, but we made it through. It turned out to be a beautiful walk, we saw swans and herons and, as we headed home, the sun was setting, a most magnificent ball of red in the sky.  A view worth the pain of a few nettle stings.

During the day on Saturday and Sunday, I spent much time in the garden, swapping the spring bulbs for summer bedding. Much earlier than I normally would – a combination of beautiful weather and a lock-down regime of no Saturday school, and no distractions from beyond our for walls.

The garden is looking much neater, and ready for its summer show. The only downside is that, in lock down, our “green” is not being collected and the tip is shut, so I have an ever increasing pile of clippings and weeds mounting in a corner by the shed.

And two running milestones were met today:

  1. A passed 300 Km for the year
  2. My first sun 48 min 10K – didn’t just creep under, but smashed it. Missed out 47 mins altogether and posted a time of 46 min 48 secs.
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Lawn, swimming and Corvid-19

Pic of the week 8/3/20

We live in unsettling times.

But the weather is trying to improve and we’ve had a couple of spring like days this week, days to lift the soul and lighten one’s load, although they have been the juicy filling between the limp, stale white bread that is the sandwich of the current weather. Still too much rain, still to chilly (not crisp cold, just a cold dampness that permeates to ones bones.)  But today, there where bright spells and I even managed to give the lawn a mow, the first of the season.

It was needed. The lawn is not currently in a healthy state, it seems to be as much moss as grass. And (I think) nesting blackbirds are busy plucking the moss to make their nests, leaving, well, just mud. Anyway, having mowed and raked, hopefully the grass can begin to out-compete the moss and we’ll be rewarded with a beautiful sward come those long summer days …

This morning was a first for me, my first swim in the school pool. I was taking part in a sponsored swim organised by the Lions and my team of 4 had 25 minutes in the pool to swim as much as possible. I must confess I was a little disappointed to find that the pool was split in half – we would be swimming 25m lengths rather than the full 50m, but I’m pleased with the 50 lengths (= 1.25 Km) I managed in the allotted 25 mins.

Becky went to see Sophie in Reading yesterday (hence the pic), Sam continues with his new found work ethic. I head off to Milton Keynes tomorrow to watch the 1st XI in the ISFA Final.

But we live under the question mark of Corvid 19, or the Corona virus. At the moment, nothing tangible has happened – these are teh figures as I write (8 March 20) from the Government’s website:

As of 9am on 8 March 2020, 23,513 people have been tested in the UK, of which 23,240 were confirmed negative and 273 were confirmed as positive. Two patients who tested positive for COVID-19 have died.

So, not sure where and how this is going to end. Will we end up in lock down – or even just more “minor” restrictions such as school closures, or will this all just be yesterday’s news in a few weeks time? I don’t know. I suspect we (the UK) will ride it out for a few weeks and then life will continue as normal.

But I’ve been known to be wrong before …

 

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Stripping

Pic of the week 7/7/19

Its been a busy week – no sitting with my feet up in the first week of the hols!

Fed up with the “Steptoe-esque” state of the top landing, I took it upon myself to strip and paint the top landing, stairs and ceiling. The initial stripping wasn’t too bad, but its all the fiddly bits that frustrate. Anyway, at time of writing, I have now applied 3 coats and its beginning to look like the finished article – another couple of coats tomorrow and I could be done (to then begin the downstairs hall and landing. And then there’s the tilly room to be done …)

The weather has been good, plenty of sunshine and blue skies to enjoy when I have ventured outside in between my stripping. The garden is looking good, first sweet pea flowers just blooming, daisies look magnificent, lawn holding up. I do like the swishy swashy grasses in the front, they help to break up the sea of brick that is the extension. Some pics:

Sam decided to update his computer – which was a little fraught when it didn’t go quite as planned, and wouldn’t boot up. But calmly revisiting the situation the next day, and some good troubleshooting and fault diagnosis on Sam’s part had it all working as planned the next day.

On Thursday I caught up with Marck Radford in Shepton, and then Becky, Sophie and I went to the cinema to see “Yesterday”, which was a good film.

And then on Friday we all went to Cardiff for the day, an open day to see if Sam was/is interested in going to Uni. He was inspired by the Chemistry labs and he definitely wants to continue with Chemistry post sixth form, its just where and how. Will be looking into Chemistry degree apprenticeships this holiday.

And in amongst all this busy-ness I’ve still run, spun and swum. No wonder I’ve had to multi-task whilst having my evening snooze …

 

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Project Scorched Earth

Project Scorched Earth

One of the many beauties of our new (still call it new, despite having been here nearly four years) is the ample parking we have. It may not look beautiful, but it is certainly practical and I reckon we could park up to six cars on our gravel driveways.

Last summer I graveled one side in new gravel and it looks much better, maybe I’ll do the other side this summer?

However, my one concern with gravel is the preponderance of weeds to pop up.

So I’m trying a new scorched earth policy. I’ve bought myself a 5 litre pump sprayer from Amazon (£9.99) and filled it with a mix of vinegar (39p for 1/2 a litre from Tescos), salt and a dash of washing up liquid and have sprayed the gravel. I focused on the weeds, but also sprayed the whole area, the idea being to create an area so hostile to growth that not even the hardiest of weed will survive.

We’ll see how it goes.

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Easter hols

Pic of the week 14/9/19

And so the Easter hols roll on. The weather could be better, but it could be worse.

On the whole it has been dry and we’ve seen some sun, but sometimes, like today, it has been cold. Still, in weather forecaster parlance, there has been some usable weather that has seen me potter in the garden for a bit, sit in the garden for a bit, snooze in the garden a bit …

On Friday, Sam and I went for a walk along the Poldens, but this time we went West instead of East, parking at the YHA car park and then walking along the ridge to the windmill and back. A walk of about an hour or so, with some good views back across Street and to the Tor (above) or looking South across the levels.

On Thursday I tackled the hedge giving it a good trim and getting it back into shape.

It was all going so well until I cut through the cable of the strimmer. No drama, no disaster, no loud bang – it just stopped working. Am a bit annoyed with myself as I am normally quite H&S conscious. Not this time.

Anyway, 30 minutes of repairs later and I was back in action.

Becky & Sophie have been to Cornwall for the weekend for Auntie Avril’s 80th birthday – photo montage below. Looks cold & blowy, but the sea a perfect greeney blue, it would have been nice to see the sea.

Meanwhile, I’ve been busy refereeing this week – line on Monday (Floodlight U18 ), middles Thursday (Y&DL), Saturday (JPL U15) and Sunday (Bridgwater League) including a red on Thursday (dissent x 2) – my first non-school cherry.