Sophie has returned to uni, Sam is at work (& when he’s not, he’s out with his pals or hidden away in his room.)
As a family, we have transitioned into a new normal, a new phase of all of our lives.
Not necessarily good, not necessarily bad, just different – one has the definite sense that a milestone, a marker, has been passed.
Perhaps symbolic of this new phase, I spent 20 mins outside today, tidying away the geraniums that have finally succumbed to the frosts of late, and getting the daff pots from the bottom of the garden and back into prominence ready for the Spring that is, hopefully, not now too far away.
Green shoots – the knowledge that warmer, brighter times are ahead, both in the garden and metaphorically.
Becky met Sophie in London yesterday, they both had a lovely day.
It was a beautiful day yesterday – its getting “November” cold, but it was a bright sunny afternoon, and today has been much the same, but with a brisker wind to chill the bones further. The temperature is set to plummet in the coming weeks so, …
… today I mowed the lawn for hopefully the last time this side of spring. It has recovered well from it’s summer difficulties and I think it is growing better now than at any time since we’ve lived here.
The moss has pretty much all gone, and I think the hard scarifying I did in September took out all the old, dead thatch, giving the grass light and air to grow. Although things looked bad a couple of months ago, it seems to have paid off.
Time to batten down the hatches, winter is coming!
Today is Sophie’s (19th) birthday, her first away from home. But the wonders of FaceTime (still a pipe dream when she was born a mere nineteen years ago) meant that we were able to join her as she opened her pressies at uni.
In other news, half term has drawn to its inevitable conclusion. Its been a good week and half; seems a long time since we went to visit Sophie last week, and not done too much since then, but that’s always nice. Have slept a lot, read, ref-ed a couple of times, run, swum … so perhaps I did do quite a bit!
Friday morning was sunny and warm (up till then it had been sunny but cold, since then its been grey & damp, but warm) so spent some time in the garden, putting it to bed for the winter. Pulled up the runner beans and self seeded tomatoes, the sweet peas had definetly flowered their last, so they came out too, all going on the “new” compost heap – have decided that the time is right to leave the other one to cook over winter ready for the new season. The geraniums (or more correctly, perlagoniums ) survived the light frosts of last week and are still flowering, so left them untouched.
Back to work tomorrow – it seems like a dangerously short five weeks, but I’m sure in a couple of weeks time the half term just gone will seem a distant memory yet the Christmas holidays still a long way away!
The lawn wasn’t in a good state in Spring. And then the long hot summer happened. It got worse.
We’ve had sporadic rain of late, enough to see the lawn begin to green up – I’ve been mowing it for the last few weeks, but there were still some bare patches, particularly along the edge furthest from the house, where it had been moss, which has died ( a good thing) leaving baked hard earth ( a bad thing.)
So I figured I need to do some lawn maintenance.
I mowed the lawn today, then scarified it – raking out a whole pink trug of dead grass and thatch. I then applied a top dressing, of my own concoction: roughly 3 parts top soil to 1 part sharp sand. (I used two 35 litre bags of top soil and one “large” bag of sharp sand.)
Inevitably, it looks worse now than when I began, but hopefully it’ll help in the long term, and I have some grass seed arriving tomorrow or Tuesday and I’ll over seed the lawn. Hopefully the weather (& soil) will remain warm enough for fertilisation to take place – and I’m sure we’ll have enough rain to keep it moist, even if it needs the odd refreshing from the hose pipe.
Hopefully in a few weeks I’ll be posting pictures of a glorious green sward ….
In other news, Sam started work today at Millfield Prep School as a general kitchen assistant: hope it went well, of to collect him in a mo.
Its been the best I can remember, so much done, so much to enjoy.
Its been hot, perhaps the hottest and driest since ’76. Whilst the lawn and plants may have suffered, the weather has been brilliant.
Parched lawn
The hols began on a high note with the World Cup …
… England making it to the semi-finals and making us believe again,
… and a day out with Sam to Yeovilton Air show (but coming back in the afternoon to watch England beat Sweeden 2-0 in the World Cup Quarter final)
Yeovilton Airshow
We had a few days in Cornwall, and the sun continued to shine …
Cornwall July ’18
… and then of to Majorca for the main event. A fantastic week in Pouerto Pollensa …
Majorca July ’18
Each and every day was brilliant, it would be hard to pick out a highlight. Me and Sam climbing Puig de Maria was great, Formentor was stunningly beautiful (although overcrowded), pool time, evening meals, catching up with “Tappers” (for 10 years we lived less than 10 miles from each other but never met up, but put us on an island in the med and we’ll make the effort!), but perhaps the highlight was …
Cala Boquer
We come home to rain, but only for a day or so, and then the sun came back out.
Sam turned 16 …
Sam’s 16th
… and they both got the grades they needed and deserved in GCSE and A level …
I did plenty of exercise, regularly running 10K (as well as spinning, swimming and refereeing) …
See front run, Puerto Pollensa, July ’18
… and amongst all that, I also found time to tidy up the front drive, and add a bit of gravel …
And so tomorrow, its back to school and work. It really has been a great summer holiday. Thanks for the memories!
The above photo was taken on 13th July, but I’ve been very remiss in posting of late – largely because the summer has been so wonderful, weather wise: wall to wall sunshine.
Alas, after rain today and yesterday, it seems that the heatwave is over, although their are hints that the long hot summer is not quite done yet and good weather – even if not as hot – may return.
The pic above shows the lawn as a brown and dusty barren patch. What it doesn’t show is all the dead branches and leaves in the smoke tree. That can be seen in the pic below (taken today)
We’ll have to wait ’till next year to see how it turns out.
It’s been a wonderful summer, lets hope theirs still more to come.
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.
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.
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.
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?)
