Category: Garden

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Decking, Park Run & Robin’s Nest

Pic of the week 3/6/18

So half term draws to a sunny conclusion.

Weatherwise, its been an odd one – started of hot & sunny, but by Tuesday that changed and it has, at times, been wet, wet, wet. But yesterday and today have been scorchio – brilliant azure blue skies.

Midweek I set to building the new (final?) deck and graveling in front of the sitting room French doors. All materials bought from Bradfords, am pleased with the results.

Yesterday I ran my first Park Run. Enjoyed it, running with others was an enjoyable change, and good for my pace. Ran the 5k in 22:49, the fastest I have run since my injury and it did help me run a little quicker today (ran my 7K loop.) Will run the Park Run again in the hols.

And we’ve got a robin nesting in one of the small metal trugs opposite the kitchen door.  Its been flitting in and out all week and now there are eggs in the nest. Hope they survive the attentions of the neighbourhood cats …

On the garden front,  at the start of this week I pulled up the Forget Me Nots and at the end of the week, planted runner bean and pea seeds.

Mini brake warning light came in so booked it in for the pads to be changed. Alas, the anti-rattle spring had corroded into the brake caliper (dis-similar metal corrosion: spring is aluminium, caliper, steel) so had to have a new caliper as well. Ouch! No change from £470. At least the sun has been shining, allowing some top down motoring, which is fun.

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Sunny weather

Pic of the week 20/5/18

The sun has been shining of late.

Not mega hot heat wave temperatures, but pleasant blue skies and bright sunshine. to set of the vivid greens of the new growth on trees and shrubs.

Sam’s GCSEs have started in earnest, he’s not feeling the pressure, Becky is.  Sophie started her A level season by doing Core 1 on Wednesday.  Both can now begin to see the finish line on the horizon.

I’ve managed to get in a couple of runs, but times are slow: the  bounce is still missing from my stride.  Hoping that half term in week or so gives me the chance to get some miles in and get back to old ways.

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Little white box of happiness

Pic of the week 6/5/18

Perhaps not the most artistic of photos but the little white box pictured above has bought unbridled joy this week. I have even caught myself giving it a loving caress on the odd occasion this week.

We had a new boiler fitted on Tuesday. A Logic + 30W, cost £16000 installed, and once again we have hot water on tap. Bliss.

Our wonderful plumber/heating engineer (Kes Tidball) will come back in a month or so and fit zone valves so that the kitchen underfloor heating and the rest of the house are in desperate zones, and can be controlled separately – that will be worth the extra cost to have that done, too.

A couple of bonus pics this week.

The week started cold and wet, but has ended hot and sunny. Wonderful.

Other news: the knee continues to improve, I can walk normally, am tempted to run, but a tentative plod left me in doubt, so no running yet, still just spinning and swimming.

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Maximum Jeff

Same T-shirt, two Jeff’s

Pic of the week 22/4/18

I had plenty to write about today, but (probably I’ve got plenty to write about because I’ve been busy) today’s post will be reduced to a series of bullet points for brevity.

  • What a difference a day five years makes!  Same T-shirt, two different me’s. The first picture was taken in the summer of 2013, the right hand shot yesterday. Becky & I went to see “The Band” at the Bristol Hippodrome and the pic was taken after lunch, en-route to the show, which included my favourite line:
  • “You are looking at maximum Jeff.”  Show was great, but it did continue the tendency to stereotype “Jeff’s” as middle aged, boring, old men. Couldn’t be further from the truth!
  • As this post is, in part, dedicated to my vanity, it is only appropriate that I record my first “waxing” – on Thursday I had my back done, not as painful as I feared!
  • The weather has, at last, been fantastic. From Tuesday we’ve had wall to wall sunshine and, apparently, the hottest April day since the ’70s. After the cold wet Spring we’ve had, the good weather was long overdue.
  • Garden notes: planted up some lobelia, geraniums, hostas.  Gave everywhere a good tidy.  Over seeded the (barren looking) lawn.
  • Boiler – on Friday the boiler annoyingly started playing up, only giving hot water intermittently.  Can trick it into action (turn hot tap on, turn boiler off and then on) and it will (usually) stabilise and maintain hot water. But a pain. My money is on the PCB …
  • My knee continues to improve, but still not able to walk normally.  A lot less painful than it was and I have been able to swim on Friday and today.  Not sure if I’ve just forgotten how to walk!
  • Back to school tomorrow, holidays are over.  Still, the summer term is always the best (and the shortest. Are the two related, I wonder?)
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Broken

Pic of the week 15/4/18

I’m in pain. Again.  Not the tooth this time, but my knee, my right knee which I thought had pretty much got better took a big hit on Friday.

I did a tournament at Kingweston on Friday – good standard, a mix of U15 academy & district FA sides – I ref-ed four 35 min games and lined another. By the end of it my knee was hurting. So much so that I cancelled that night’s spinning.

It’s now Sunday afternoon, and it still hurts. Cancelled yesterday & today’s games (middles) and tomorrows line at Glastonbury U18. My season is over.

The last month has been a painful one – first my tooth, and then my knee.  I need to remember that I am only just shy of fifty years and my body can’t take the hammering it once used to.  This weekend I’ve realised that, and come to some conclusions.  I can’t do everything.  I’ve really enjoyed referee-ing this last week, but I’m really not enjoying the pain and enforced idleness that is the result.

Straight lines – I need to stick to straight lines. That means running, swimming and spinning. My body can cope with that, its the twisting and turning (football, referee-ing) that imparts those loads. Not sure when I shall start to run again. Hope to be able to spin on Tuesday, but will cancel if the knee doesn’t feel right, and swim this week.  Running the Glastonbury 10K may now be in doubt.

In other news, weather has been rubbish, but yesterday the sun came out & I found my spot at the bottom of the  garden. More rain today, but it is forecast to heat up next week.  Here’s hoping …

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Beast from the East

Pic of the week 4/3/18

Wednesday – the last day of February was cold, very cold, but it was not until after lunch on Thursday 1st March that the snow began to fall, heralding the arrival of the Beast from the East.

And that evening and night, it dumped a whole lot of snow.  The first significant snowfall for 5 years. Enough snowfall to result in a snow day (or two) but not for me, being but a five minute walk to school.  (For the first time in over two years I regretted moving from Shepton!)

Snow is dispruptingly exciting and fun, beautiful, and blessedly rare. A rather cool drift was sculptured in our back garden; it was quite interesting to see how the snow swirled and illuminated the eddies and gusts.

Two days on, the beast is now slain. Its cold, white, wet entrails still lie strewn across some patches of ground, but the thaw has been swift. The temperature has risen, the sun has shone, rain has fallen to wash it away. It’ll soon fade into a dim memory as the warm spring sun shines through, announcing the end of winter and the promise of hot days to come.

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1st Daff

Always a significant day in the calendar – the flowering of the first daffodil.

Today was that day, 15th February 2018. Two brave, plucky yellow souls open to the sun that shone today.

It was a warm, dry end to 2017, but has been cold and wet since Christmas. With the daffodils come hope, although just as one swallow doesn’t make a summer, two daffodils don’t make a spring.

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Goals, aims and targets – 2018

2018 has arrived, so now it’s time set my goals, aims and targets for the next twelve months.

  • Run 10 Km in fewer minutes than my age in years. This one is my “biggie” for the year. Its doable, but by no means a given. Am targeting the Glastonbury 10K – conveniently after my birthday – but there are other events if I fail first time round. Will need to average 4 min 53 sec per Km – achievable on the flat, but on in an incline …
  • Run 400 Km. Nearly hit that total in 2017, should be able to do so on 2018, particularly given the goal above.
  • Swim 100 Km (3,000 lengths). An achievable, but not a given. If I swim regularly should be no problem. Swim at least once a week.
  • Spinning. Spin for a total of 2 days (48 hours)
  • Weight. I finished 2017 with a long term established weight of 12 stone 9, and I have allowed it to creep up over the Christmas period into the 13 stone bracket. Need to get that down. 12 stone 6 as my long term established weight is the goal.
  • Garden. Enjoy it! Less construction and landscaping required this year (but some still needed) Grow sunflowers and sweat peas (in addition to some basic veg)
  • My maths blog – keep blogging. Write a new post at least once per month, and write a minimum of 15 posts over the course of the year.
  • Sleep. A somewhat nebulous aim, but when I think about it, sleep – or perhaps I should say tiredness – is the thing I’d like to change most about my life this year. No target, but I shall aim to think about my sleep, my patterns and routines and what I can do to improve it/get more of it/reduce/manage my tiredness.
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2017 – A year in pictures

Some of my favourite pictures from the year just gone, in vague chronological order.

Sophie passed her driving test

I built a new deck

The Nissan Almera died, so we replaced it with a convertible mini. Practical? No. Cool? Yes.

dots and spots closed

I took up yoga (loving it)

Finished fourth in my predictor league

The weather wasn’t always wonderful, but the garden grew

That was then …

Love this picture – but from ’87 not 2017, but came bout because of …

… our 30 year reunion.

A day in the sun at Burton Bradstock with Becky

… and a few days en-famile in Cornwall.

The birthday boy (age 15) is now taller than me

My Legends team finally won a game (and drew another!)

Sophie turned 18

Hard to remember them both as young as this

A warm, dry, colourful autumn …

… and I discovered napping as a new hobby.

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2017 – How did I do?

So how did I do?

At the start of the year, here, I listed my goals, aims and targets for the year. 2016 now draws to a close – time to review how I did …

  • Run 300Km – a much lower target than I set myself last year, but not a target I met, completing 296 Km in 2016.  Should be do-able despite the demands on my time from other physical pursuits (swimming, spinning, referee-ing and who knows what for 2017) Smashed it. Ran 390 Km, running for 1 day 7 hours and 15 minutes. My only disappointment was I didn’t break the 400K mark. Was all set to do so, when on the Friday before Christmas, I tore/pulled/tweaked my hamstring refereeing and I haven’t been able to run since.
  • Run up the Tor. In the summer of 2016, when I was regularly running, I set myself this goal for 2017: to run from home to the tor, run all the way up the tor, and then run back again. This is a tough ask, particularly as I am not running as much as I did last year. Would be a real achievement to do so. If I don’t write it down, it wont happen.  Think I’ll have to target the summer hols to do it, if I’m going to do it. Not even close. Didn’t even contemplate this once during the year. Perhaps a goal to keep on the back burner?
  • Swim 150Km (4,500) lengths.  Toyed with putting in a higher total – I did 200Km, 6000 lengths in 2016, but don’t think I’ll be swimming as much this year as last, so have given myself a very achievable target to ensure that I do make it. Swam much less this year, probably falling into fourth place as activity of choice, after referring, running, and spinning. However, still managed to swim 2244 lengths – 74.8Km – over the course of 1 day, 4 hours and 15 mins.
  • Gardening: 2016 was all about the structure of the garden, this year I hope to focus more on the planting. So this year I want to: plant raspberry canes & rhubarb, grow and eat runner beans, peas, courgette and onions and grow some sweet peas and sunflowers. Raspberry canes and rhubarb planted, along with beans, peas & courgettes which were all grown and eaten. No sweet peas or sunflowers, though.  Need to make them a target for next year. Built the deck where the old summer house was, really enjoyed the garden this year: creating it, tending it and just sitting in it.
  • Refereeing – enter the promotion programme from Level 7 to Level 6.  Promotion year runs from March to Feb so won’t be able to clinch promotion in 2017, but hopefully will be a significant way down the track. Decided against entering the promotion scheme, it would have been difficult to have got in the required 20 Open Age games as I’m not normally available on Saturdays.  Refereed circa 60 games and 7 as Assistant Referee. Did a couple of cup finals.  Have continued to enjoy it, but not so sure I want to give up every term time Sunday to the whistle, have started to limit my availability.
  • Weight: before the Christmas excesses, I would say that my “normal” weight was 12 stone 7 (today its up around 12 stone 12).  I aim to be back at 12 stone 7 within 3 weeks and establish 12 stone 6 as my “normal” weight (normal weight: allows a swing of 3 lbs each way, so range between 12 3 and 12 9 following a festival of feasting) Weight has crept up, and needs to be kept in check.  Quoting my TwiXmas weight as 13 stone 0 and my long term weight in the last few months of the year was 12 stone 9.
  • My maths blog: this was an aim I failed last year, and want to rectify again.  Write at least twice a month on my maths blog – A Maths Teacher Writes Not bad – 15 posts this year, so not twice a month, but a good healthy number of posts.

Another successful year. Other key highlights from 2017 include:

  • Attending school reunion. Hard to believe it was 30 years since we left, was great to reconnect with so many from my formative years. A highlight of the year. Blogged about it here.
  • Sophie passed her driving test in March
  • Becky shut up shop, closing her dots and spots business in April
  • The silver Nissan Almera died, and we replaced it with the soft top Mini – our mid-life crisis car.
  • No mention of spinning in my targets for 2017, but I pushed the pedals for just shy of two days: 1 day 23 hours and 15 mins in the saddle, burning a total of 38,901 calories.
  • YOGA – took up yoga this year. One of the best things I have done in a long while. I’m far more supple than I was this time last year and, despite being a big cynic when I first took to the mat, I’m beginning to see the benefits of its relaxation and mindfulness. Meditate on that!