The Garden Fence - proper Old Style support and chat!

silvasava

Hester - if you ever come 'darn sarf' the village of Bosham ( pronounced Bosum by locals) featured in Midsommer Murders and the car chase in one of the Poirot episodes.
Agree with your TFT Monna - at least I can still do mental arithmetic faster than DGD can use her calculator!
Have a small amount of washing to do and if it stays dry I'll have a bash at pruning the wisteria at the back of the house. It's a thug but looks so lovely in flower I put up with it, I also need to tackle a few bits of mending.
FPK - thanks for the explanation - I too thought the colour was an indication of infection.

mardatha

I love wisteria, always wanted one. Think maybe it wouldn't thrive up here though - even the Russian Vine died the third winter.

VJsmum

We had wisteria on our old house. I carefully did the pruning two buds back bit every autumn. One year my OH took the hedge cutters to it :eek:

The following year it had never looked more magnificent, people used to stop and comment :rotfl:

I am soaking up sun on the terrace and have just finished my second book of the holiday

ivyleaf

We used to have a beautiful forsythia at the end of the garden. One year OH got a bit carried away with the pruning, assuming confidently that if he "cut it right back" it would reward us with a magnificent display of yellow blossom the following year.

He now knows that doesn't work with forsythia. It died.

silvasava

A little bit of serendipity - I had a visit from our robin while on the steps pruning - about 4 inches from my nose!! He's very cheeky and always hops round in case there's any food going

monnagran

Silvasava, I once had a robin like that. He used to hop around the earth that I was digging in the hope of having first dibs at anything I turned up. It's a miracle that he was never impaled on the prongs of my fork.
He was the one who sat on my kitchen windowsill, tapping on the glass with his beak if I was a bit slow getting the goodies on to the bird table.
On one occasion he hopped through the back door and I found him perched on the edge of the cat's saucer clearing up the leftovers while the cat watched him from the doorway with eyes out like organ stops.

I often wondered what happened when I moved away, he was my constant companion when I was gardening.

silvasava

Oh Monna - wonderful!! Mines not quite that brave but if our cat is in the garden too he hops out of reach and swears at her from a safe place lol

Hard_Up_Hester

So I've bought Billy Elliot, Shaun of the Dead and a boxed set of Rita Heyworth, £2.48 for the lot.
What's the betting CHS sits up late and wants to chat for the next few days.

nannywindow

Hester Shaun of the dead is my "go to " film if I'm really down. It cheers me up no end. It's making me smile even thinking of it now .

MMF007

So today it has been raining for about 3 hours, really tropical rain. We are sheltering on the patio (roof has been repaired).
We thought we would do a couple of scientific experiments to while away the time.
Experiment no.1 involved guessing the amount of boiling water to make a sugar-free jelly. We have no measuring jug and a quick browse of empty bottles (hicc ) provided nothing of use.

I therefore boiled water in the kettle and used the markings on the viewing window as a guide. The jelly set in the fridge. When I say set I mean SET. Soooo, more water was boiled and stirred into the jelly and an hour later it seems fine. Ice cream is on standby for later (it's mid-afternoon as I type).

Experiment no.2 involved rum . It was agreed by all concerned (DH and I) that a blind taste test of 2 different rums at 11.30 am was perfectly legitimate. The 2 rums smelt quite distinct and did indeed taste different. Of course I prefer one and DH the other. That's OK, saves sharing!

We then moved seemlessly on to testing the choclates I brought with me, an xmas gift from a client. Can't claim any science went into this part of the late morning, we just randomly scoffed 3 each!

So, a pretty good day so far :rotfl:

In my defence, Your Honour, we did walk a 3 mile round trip early this morning, returning loaded with food (and, if the truth be told, drink ).

And there was me saying we never drink. And it's cocktails with the PM tonight. Hicc :beer:

ETA - I like maths and don't mind our alphabet being involved, where I do get anxious is when the Greek alphabet gets involved, too !