Daydream fund challenge part 4

Davesnave

We are the same as you Dafty, only worse, 'cos we are up a hill!
No storms and nothing one could call rain for a couple of months. There is some hope on the horizon for next week though......

Off to market this morning , so no time now..... Catch you later.

DaftyDuck

Thought you got briefly wetted at the beginning of the month. Anyway... I am up a hill - Norfolk - style! Must be five feet higher than the river at least! Gets me well out of breath!:D

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Been awake since [strike]first Sparrowfart[/strike] blasted builders started their 6.30am shouted conversations in the Portacabin Site Office they have dumped on the street directly outside my house. They aren't allowed to start working until 8am, but that doesn't stop them turning up early and making more of a racket than if they'd gone onto the site and started work.

It's now a fortnight since my graceful spill and I'm still using a stick for work. I resent this immensely, but the culture at work is such that if I stopped using it and tried to manage (in reality, it's the hill first thing and after about 2pm that I'm feeling discomfort - and walking home is a struggle), they'd assume everything is fixed and have me shifting heavy loads again. So I'm going to have to keep with it for the last week of term.

The aesthetics of the thing and the fact I need it at all is severely damaging my limited sense of dignity. But strangely, the kids seem to be incredibly sensitive about it - which is pleasantly surprising when they can be rotten little so and sos a lot of the time - one kid, who has the dubious honour of being only the second ever to tell me very loudly and publicly what he thought of me/my appearance in the winter, hurriedly cleared up some spilled water when he saw it so I wouldn't slip and has asked me how I am at least twice.


Garden is looking crispy and faded. I'm just not going out there - and getting Himself to water the windowboxes is a task in itself. He's managed it once after asking him to do it three times. Just as well they have some trailing geraniums in them, so they're relatively tolerant of such neglect.


Watching news of rail strikes with narrowed eyes. It's Southwest trains so far, which is inconvenient, as it makes getting to and from Dartmoor/Plymouth/Beautiful Days/our plans for the entire six weeks entirely dependent upon the largesse of Great Western union officials. They've already ruined almost all plans since Christmas in conjunction with Railtrack; I don't think I can remain sympathetic forever, despite generally agreeing with their issues.


Anyhow, I'm going to veg out this weekend, hopefully, and once we get to the end of next week, I shall be free for August. Expect copious amounts of rain as a result.

choille

We had a little rain which I was pleased about as the place has been bone dry.

I am trying to catch the garden but it has run away with itself & I just dash about madly trying to pick fruit before it rots or the birds get it.

The neighbour seems even more muddled and is getting quite crotchety some days. I didn't go for a few days when I wasn't well & she got rather cross about that. She seems to expect me to do more but I am feeling a bit snowed under just managing my own stuff - or rather - not managing my own stuff.

Very humid this evening & went for a walk I've never been - amazingly old trees & quite a magical place but those cleggs were there ahead of me - the nasty green eyed ones & had a right feast off me. I think it's the heat, there seems to be loads of them about this year.

Borage I bought the other week looks all yellowing & half dead - don't know what I've done wrong.

tori.k

Think its time I can finally Join you guys we've actually downsized from a 5 acre plot to a neglected overgrown just over half acre garden, so this has to be a productive space.
This was a probate property of a once keen gardener so I had the joy of inheriting thousands of pounds worth of mature plants and a blinking berberis.
Leaving Hubby get on with the household DIY I started tackling the garden 3 months ago and so far ending up with a very eclectic design with a journey through time with the front housing my collection of more architectural plants leading round the side of the house that's more traditional the further you travel the gradient leads you down into a somewhat wild permaculture garden as it will be. Its really quite bonkers but oddly seems to work due to the gradient.
I do have some heavy landscaping work biggest job is building a new workshop but can't start that until September as there is birds nesting in the boundary trees and I have to take out a overgrown aucuba and brambles.
I've designed big, but need to start small to keep the momentum going I've already spent 8hrs sorting out strawberry runners and watering at work so find especially with the current heat im losing motivation to start again once home.
Im sure you guys will give me a kick up the backside

DaftyDuck

Welcome to the madness! All those plants to track down...:D

Davesnave

:wave:Hi tori, we've met elsewhere, but this is where I hang out and grumble, most days.:o

I'm tempted at times like this to go the way you have: sell off the 5 acres and keep 0.5, but we might find it hard living next door to what we once owned. Oh to inherit a real garden ...hasn't happened yet.

First grumble of the day is that some richardhead threw 3 glass bottles over the hedge just prior to haymaking. Found the evidence while field checking and it took 90 mins in the blistering heat to find all the bits.:mad: Don't think much went into the bales, judging by the weight of what I have. I'm also not sure if the usual culprit was entirely to blame, as I doubt he drinks soft stuff, but I re-loaded the very smelly comfrey barrel down by his boundary just in case!

Do I tell Pete? Doubt if it will be practical for him to check, as he won't know which bales. Think I will just carry on hedge laying next winter and we'll skip the odd 1/4 acre alongside next time.

In other news, HW2's noisiest, 'untrainable' dog passed over rainbow bridge suddenly, probably to cheering and flag-waving from next door, who have a 2nd viewing at last.;)

The new dog is coming along really well, so hats off to HW2 for sorting a situation that was absolute chaos only a few weeks back. Perhaps she isn't a lightweight after all.....ah, but she's just ordered windows from Anglian! :eek:

Meanwhile, friend who bought the dodgy dog last month has it up for sale... :silenced:

And to continue on the doggy theme, BiL went to the other end of the country to buy one out of the blue, again in strange circumstances, then got very upset when it started biting him and DW emailed to the effect of, 'Don't bring it here!'

His beloved probably thinks it will be great to accompany them on their long walks, which it will, but they've forgotten that they'll be out at least 7 hours in the working day, and sight hounds don't exactly relish hanging around, doing nowt. It began destroying their house, so now they have a cage for it......

Don't get me wrong, my BiL's a lovely chap but he can be such an idiot.

Gosh that's a long list of grumbles, even for me! We like dogs and we've had dogs, but when the last one went at the age of 14, we agreed not to replace her because the plants took up so much time and it wouldn't have been fair to a young one. Nothing's changed.

Yes, you're right Dafty, we did have a few hours of rain, not that it made the slightest difference, or that what we're promised will either. I am so glad we're not a 'real' nursery, everything seems to have spider mites....:o

Glad to see you're still with us, choille. I may have said it already, but I'm finding cleg bites not much bother now. Painful, but don't seem to have a lasting effect like they used to....or am I just getting quicker at whacking them?

alfie_1

hi all..
I would love to have a big plot [about 5 acres would be nice] of my own BUT have the run of the neighbours 20 acres for horses so cant grumble...
I KNOW I would be doing a "dafty" if I did have it tho !
back in the 80s/90s I had a big paddock full of rescue stuff. I built a long row of mini stables / shelters against a wall and everything was free range... chickens,geese,a turkey!, rabbits, guinea pigs, molly the goat and Alfie the foxes enclosure in the middle ... [so he had all the animogs running around him !! ]
I used to get home and find another animog joined them and a "note" on the gate telling me "thank you" .....
I could happily become reclusive surrounded by fur and feather.


today is lymington carnival and im picking up mum and going , my sister and OH are staying in a friends empty house there for a long weekend so will all meet up ...then having a nice meal all together in a local pub.


correction it is NOT an ESSE cooker but an EVERHOT .. it is sat on my drive waiting to be put in tomorrow... how and which entrance door to manouver a ton weight through is another story !!


right id better get my butt in gear and get sorted to leave !


I am filling 2 water troughs via a hose over the fence for the 2 horses [not mine but a local farmers sisters daughters ? ] ...I offered as I was worried her daily fill of one container was not adequate ... well I think they are camels ! topped up twice daily !! been doing this for 2 weeks now [normally nothing ever in this field ,just overgrown] and not so much as a thankyou !


we had about 6 drops of rain 2 days ago...


have a good day y'all xx

tori.k

Thanks for the welcome.
Its definitely is the fun part of a new garden finding what herbaceous perennials pop up DD, this year is just bramble/ weed clearance and hard cutting back in the main garden, lucky most of the hedging is mixed camellias and we moved in just as the flower started dropping so could could make a start from the off.
I don't recommend moving Dave, I almost didn't leave the last house only because I wouldn't of wanted them to find DH body The air was blue during the whole process. and it was easy move for us as half our stuff is still in the old house as a immediate family member now resides there.
Glad im not the only one having issues with horsefly's this year as much as I don't react anymore, I've been the lunch time special for so long I was beginning to take it personal, On a brighter note we are due rain in Cornwall tomorrow we can but hope the dancing pays off

choille

Welcome tori.k - seems that you have a great adventure ahead. Although a lot of work it sounds like you know where you are going with it.

I just run around like a headless chicken firefighting.

Dave - the dog stories are interesting & you will be glad about the neighbours one - the dear departed.
That is terrible about the glass - there are some very stoopid people out there.

In all of the chaos here & ill health one orpington went broody & didn't hatch anything but was still sitting. I went and bought chicks & thought I could get her to take them on board so to speak. The place I went was like the equivalent of a feathery puppy farm. A council flat coated on the inside with chick poop. The smell was incredible. I was dumb struck. The chicks all died. It was a disaster. Like something you see on one of these RSPCA documentaries.
Very humid today & midgied.

The cleggs don't seem to flare up on me either Dave as much as they did however it depends what they've been on previously & injected you with I suppose. I am on steroids again so that probably helps keep them in check - I don't know.

I just must pick the blackcurrants sometime soon.