Category: Pic of the week

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Take That!

Pic of the week 9/6/24

Last night, Becky and I went to see Take That at Ashton Gate. It was, not surprisingly, brilliant, we both really enjoyed the evening. The boys seemed comfortable with themselves and indulged in a bit of unembarrassed cheese and brief romp through their history before banging out all the favourites. They didn’t disappoint.

But before we headed off to Bristol, Sam had headed home for the weekend, to attend a party, and pick up the Civic. He’s now returned to Cardiff to start organising his house move, but it was lovely to see him, albeit briefly.

And the garden continues to flourish. We’ve not had much rain this week, and have enjoyed some sunshine, but its not been warm, even in the sun. But the days, and evenings, have been brightened by the blooming of the “Love in the Mist” flowers in the lawn, swathes of colour across a green backdrop, host to an increasing number of bees and other insects. Plus, we’ve had quite a bit of baby bird activity this week – we’ve definitely seen baby robins finding their wings flying around the garden, and salon sparrows and blue tits enjoying our little wildlife haven.

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A bity, busy, week

Pic of the week 2/6/24

So half term week comes to a close. We’ve done a lot – nothing major, but plenty of little things. Except for today – which has been glorious – the weather hasn’t been too good, with most days having some rain.

On Monday evening, Becky and I took a trip to the cinema in Wells to watch “Back in Black”, the biopic of Amy Winehouse. An enjoyable – if a little sad – film, I’m glad I went, a rare night out!

Tuesday and Wednesday saw me visit the dentist twice! Once for a scale and polish, and then the next day to have an old filling re-done. Boring but important stuff, a bit like the Ka going for its MOT on Wednesday – needed a new rear shock absorber, but other than that, its good for another year of motoring.

Still on the boring but important front, I do seem to have spent considerable time (and quite a bit of cash!) buying insurance: renewed the house and travel insurance, Becky’s car insurance, and also sourced insurance for Sam for the Civic. Not the most exciting of stuff, but that’s what half-terms are for, to get the life admin done!

A trip to Lidl on Thursday should have been uneventful, but when picking something up of the floor I “tweaked” my back. It hurt for 24 hours, and I am still “aware” of it now, lying on my back stretcher for 5 minutes really does do it the world of good.  Then, as we emerged into the car park, we saw (and heard – this was a definite bump, not kiss) a young lad bump into the back of the Ka whilst trying to park his car. A quick look showed some chips to the paintwork, but the bumper did its job, deforming to take the load, then springing back into position, so no major damage done. Fearful of his insurance rocketing, he was happy to bung me a few quid for me to repair the car myself, touch up paint ordered and applied (but I will be the first to admit, bodywork is not where my talents lie)

Yesterday we had another day out! It was an open day at Glastonbury Abbey and Becky and I took advantage of the opportunity to wander around the grounds without having to pay to enter. I’m glad I did, a lovely big space, the sun shone (but was not too hot) and its nice to know what is behind the walls in our neighbouring town.

After leaving, we wandered up the high street in Glastonbury to see the Delilah mural, which was impressive

And so half term comes to a close. Four weeks of work, then Kalimera to Greece!

 

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Wet, wet, wet

Pic of the week 26/5/24

Half-term began late lunchtime yesterday, a sunnyish day, possibly the best of the last week (which has been, in turns, cold and wet) and this morning was pleasantly sunny, I enjoyed a run beneath warm, blue skies (although big puddles evidenced the rain I heard in the night) and I managed to get all my geraniums planted up before I felt the first spots of rain at noon. Then the heavens opened, and although we have had some dry spells this afternoon, the rain, when it has fallen, has been of biblical proportions. And, sadly, I think its going to be a wet week to come.

Last Sunday I listed the 205 for sale; on Tuesday – after a lot of interest (and a few time wasters) I sold it for £700. Sold it via Facebook Marketplace – once listed it became an almost fulltime job (not really!) keeping on top of, and replying to, all the messages. So by Tuesday, when someone came to see it (someone was supposed to becoming at 5pm that evening to take it away for £600, but didn’t show up) I was quite happy to see it gone. The end of a chapter, I’ve enjoyed owning it, but couldn’t justify keeping it, especially as it was due to be re-taxed (for the princely sum of £400!) at the end of July.

A few weeks ago, I spotted a nest in our ivy hedge near where I hang the washing line.  This was from 4th May:

and we have been watching it like concerned parents ever since. Last Sunday, whilst having my breakfast, I saw a cat looking menacing up at the hedge so out I raced shouting and waving to scare the bugger away.

On Tuesday we (well, Becky) were able to snap the young:

and so on Wednesday it was so sad when I found a dead fledgling on the lawn. Closer inspection of the next revealed another two, or possibly three, dead chics in there too.

and so I removed the next to dispose of the bodies in the hedge across the road. The suspect? Possibly magpies? The birds appear to have been killed, but with no real attempt to consume them. The circle of life, but sad non-the-less.

Also on Wednesday, Rishi Sunak, in the pouring rain, with “Things can only get better” belting out from a nearby sound system, announced a general election, to be held on 4th July.  At last, an opportunity to rid ourselves of these corrupt crooks that have governed us for too long.

Yesterday, Sophie came home, to spend a few days with us for the Bank Holiday weekend, which is nice.

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Another glorious Sunday

Pic of the week 19/5/24

After last week’s “scorchio” mini-heatwave, this week has been back to another mixed bag of rain, grey skies and the odd bit of sun, but today has been another glorious Sunday (hooray!) – sunny all day, and not as hot as last week, making it much more pleasant.

Four weeks into term, and I’m starting to feel tired, so I deliberately didn’t go for a run today, but that did mean I could get plenty done. Have lifted all the bulbs from the front trugg and have started to dry them off ready for replanting into the lawn in September.  I need to get some more compost to top up the trugg, and then I’ll plant it up with geraniums – a job for the half-term to come in a week’s time.

Have also listed the 205 for sale this evening on Facebook Marketplace – will see what comes of that …

My new glasses arrived in the week and today I’ve been modelling my prescription sunglasses – its amazing the detail you can see when you wear specs, must do so more often!

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Scorchio!

Pic of the week 12/5/24

At last the skies have cleared and the temperature has risen and for the last few days we have enjoyed some wonderful early summer sunshine. On friday we ate outside for the first time this year, I have been wearing shorts (when not at work!) all week, and today I ran without gloves on for the first time. It has been wonderful, and today has been spent in a mix of sitting and chilling, and pottering in the garden, cutting back some mad growth, and planting up some geraniums (still more to do, though.) But alas, it looks like next week is a return to grey skies and rain.

The last couple of nights, the northern lights – aurora borealis – have (reportedly) been seen all the way down here.  Waking up on Saturday morning to social media streams full of photos we decided to see if we could see them on Saturday night.

I couldn’t see them from the back garden, but the moon was spectacular:

I, sensibly, went to bed, but Becky decided to stay up looking out of our window

but to no avail. Although in the early morning, circa 5am, when she got up to go to the loo, the sunrise over the tor didn’t disappoint

Summer – you can’t beat it.

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Plants

Pic of the week 5/5/24

At last, yesterday the sun shone. It has been a very long, wet autumn into winter into spring, the sky has been seemingly permanently leaden grey, with rain constantly tumbling from the skies. And Spring has been cold, too. Yesterday was the first day I wore shorts – and today I’m back in my jeans, after the early promise of an alright early morning gave way to drizzle.

But I do think it has warmed up enough to start introducing my over-wintered geraniums and spider plants to the out doors, to start hardening them off.  I wrote about them here in November: https://aboutstuff.co.uk/garden/indoor-gardening/ – I started with six geraniums and twelve spider plants that I bought of ebay. I’ve learned a  lot about how much or little water and light they have needed over the winter, and I have enjoyed my regime of nurturing and watering.  Five geraniums and eight spider plants have made it through the long, dark, wet winter and will, in the next few weeks, take up their summer residence outside. (I tried to keep a few geraniums alive outside, this was not successful.) The geraniums are looking particularly healthy, with plenty of new green growth – will they flower, that is the next question?

We’ve also purchased a lot of geranium plants – with going away for a month in July we need plants that will be tolerant of neglect in our absence – and they are now waiting for planting up. I won’t be planting lobelia this year, I’m not sure they will survive our absence.  The plan is to sow Cosmos in the front bed/trugs to go with the geranium and spider plants, and to also plant nasturtium seeds which so also, hopefully, survive (thrive) on neglect.

The alliums are now coming into flower and the garden is looking good.

And I’m including this photo (below) as a bit of a guide to see where there will be space to plant some more bulbs into the lawn come September (gave it a mow yesterday)

 

This morning I ran 10K – the first time since January. The weather was still (and dry!) and, although I wasn’t running swiftly, I felt I was cruising comfortably, so it was (relatively) easy to add the extra 3K loop onto the end of my run to make it a 10K run. Ran it 49m 30 sec.

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Return of the Micra

Pic of the week 28/4/24

Yesterday (Saturday – I skived swapped my volleyball so I was free in the afternoon) I went to Cardiff to deliver the Fiat 500 to Sophie – which she loves – and then, crossing all my fingers and toes, drive the Micra back home.  I my confess, I was a tad apprehensive, not so much because I didn’t think I’d get back in the Micra, more because of the mega hassle that would be caused by not bringing it back, or even worse, breaking down en-route.  Anyway, I was wrong to ever doubt her, she drove back without fuss, coping well with steady motorway driving at circa 72 mph, and didn’t flinch when I pushed her a little quicker to pass a lorry, or reach the dizzying high speed of 80mph for the last mile of motorway. Anyway, she’s back home now, I’ll monitor her battery and starting over the next few weeks, but she’s such fun to drive – like a little go-kart – that my current plan is to get rid of the 205 (mid-life crisis averted) and when the Honda Civic goes to Sam, I’ll have the Micra as my little run-about.

The summer term has begun – always the best term: shorter, punctuated with exams and the days longer and lighter.  But the “summer” bit is still missing – it continues to be cold, grey and damp.  I am still wearing jeans after school and at the weekend and, as I glance outside, the rain has started to fall again.  Becky and I did manage an hour or so sat outside circa 2.30pm today in some sun – but the weather is definitely disappointing at the moment. (The garden, however, is beginning to resemble a jungle – lots of green growth and without any warm, dry days/evenings, I’ve not been outside cutting things back.)

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Dad skills

Pic of the week 21/4/2024

On Thursday we came back from a fantastic nine days in Italy. In days of old, my weekly blog post would have been a round up of the trip, but not now. Now I “live blog” whilst away and you can find the blog posts from the trip here: http://hap-pea-travels.co.uk/category/italy/

I really did enjoy the holiday: the weather was great, the food fantastic, the trains ran on time, the culture, the views …it was wonderful.

Perhaps the only fly in the ointment was on our last evening when Sophie contacted us to say her car had made “funny noises from the steering column” whilst on the motorway home, accompanied by a strange burning smell.  She got home OK – in fact she reported that when she came off the motorway and slowed down, the symptoms went away.  Later that evening, she could get the car to start at all, leaving me to do some long distance fault diagnosis.  Anyway, following my guidance and direction (disconnect the battery negative terminal, leave for 30 mins, re-connect and try again) the following morning she got the car started, took it for a short test drive: no further problems.  I am claiming dad skills to be able to fault diagnose and fix a car from one thousand miles away!

Anyway, she has now lost confidence in the Micra and thinks it only good for the scrapheap (I disagree) so on our return to the UK I had to start hunting for a replacement for her. Perhaps it was the influence of a week in Italy, but I ended up buying a 2014 Fiat 500 with 64K on the clock for £3,500 and picked it up from Shepton yesterday. I must admit it does look good, and is a nice drive. Next Sunday I’m taking it up to Cardiff, and driving the Micra back here; hopefully my blog next week will be about a happy Sophie seeing her new car, and an uneventful return trip back with the Micra (both Sophie & Becky don’t think it’ll make it!) rather than a tale of woe as I break down on the motorway …

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Back to normal

Pic of the week 7/4/24

On Wednesday, Becky, Sophie and I journeyed down to Devon – just shy of the Cornish border – to meet with Becky’s mum and dad for lunch. It was a pleasant day out, a journey of about 1hr 45 mins one way, and then on our return to Street Sophie hopped into her car and headed back to Cardiff.

On Monday I had taken Sam to Bridgwater station (in the still then noisy silver dream machine) from where he got the train back to Cardiff.

It was lovely to have them both home for a few days, but now they’ve gone back and the two of us are let rattling around the house again, trying to get all their bedding washed in between the poor weather. It continues to be wet and windy, although we have not had to endure as much rain as I feared. However, it is still definitely not shorts weather – I reckon this must be one of the latest times for donning shorts on record.  Trawling back through my blog, it seems this (when I start wearing shorts again) isn’t something I have recorded, probably because its something I just drift into doing in March or April, but currently it seems a long way away. I can’t see me wearing them before we go to Italy (on Tuesday), hopefully the weather will have turned by the time we come back …

This week I had my eyes tested – must remember to buy some new specs on my return – have run a couple of times, but not really done a huge amount else.  I did enjoy de-mod-ing the Civic (see other post) and have been doing battle with the catepillars that have been devouring the box bush out front (keep meaning to write a separate blog post about that.)  Given the grey skies and lack-lustre temperatures, I am looking forward to our Italian adventure and jetting off on Tuseday.

Ciao!

 

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Birthday boy!

Pic of the week 31/3/24

Its been my birthday week! On Thursday I turned 55 – no getting away from it, I’m definitely mid-fifties now – Sophie and Sam both came home for the start of Easter on Wednesday so it was been nice to have them home for my birthday tea, and it was nice to finish for the Easter hols at lunchtime on my birthday; a couple of tough weeks at the end of term made it a bit of a slog, but now I’m on holiday, all is well with the world.

Its been a busy week. On Wednesday I went for my blood tests and on Thursday I got my results – another nice birthday gift as I have been given the all clear as my levels are all within limits and I’m signed off from the docs “Normal, stable or satisfactory – no further action required” for all test. Here are the numbers:

  • Serum cholesterol 4.6 mmol/L
  • Serum triglycerides: 1.0 mmol/L (normal is range 0.6 to 2.0)
  • Serum cholesterol/HDL ratio: 3.7
  • Se non HDL cholesterol level: 4.1 mmol/L

Wednesday also saw me get absolutely frozen on the football pitch at Kingweston. It has been a wet winter, and rain was forecast for the afternoon, but after a huge downpour that morning, I headed over in sunshine, hoping that we’d escaped. But no, on arrival it started to rain, but by the time I trotted down to pitch 5 it had stopped, and we started the game. 5 mins in, the heavens opened with a biblical hail storm that lasted a good ten minutes. It was painful and cold!  Eventually the storm passed, and the sun even came out, but ten mins from time, the hail returned, I blew for full time early, much to the delight of everyone. A truly miserable experience!

The previous half term ended with the red shed dying at Kingweston, this term ended with me buying its replacement – “the silver dream machine”, “The Beast” or “The Asbo maker” depending on your view – or, more appropriately, hearing.

The Silver Dream Machine, aka The Beast

It is a 2003 Honda Civic – I really like it, drives and stops well, circa 102K miles, some good service history, but it is loud, very LOUD! I think that until 2023 it was well looked after then, for a year, was in the hands of a boy racer who added a “sports” exhaust and external air filter and some big sub-woofers in the boot (the speakers have gone, but the wiring is still there). Even Sam – and the car is earmarked to go to him in August – thinks its too loud.  I have a normal exhaust on order (£61) due to arrive on Thursday – should be a simple replacement fit and I’ll stop terrifying the locals as I cruise the streets of Street.

Saturday was a lovely day and Becky and I grabbed the opportunity to enjoy a few hours sat outside in the sunshine, Sunday remained dry (until the biblical rains returned Sunday night) but grey and cold.  On both days I took the opportunity to do some gardening – Saturday hacking back the box bush out front – it has suffered due to caterpillar action – and on Sunday I cut a lot of the top off the bush on the top deck that continues to grow and grow and, unforgivably, was casting shade when we wanted to make the most of the rare appearance of some spring sunshine. It will grow back, I’m sure, I just hope the same can be said of the box bush.