Awful weather - typical Brits talk

wort

I missed Dusty’s pic, lovely view for chips , rural idyll right there.
Pp hope you get some sun soon, though I have to say I’m under a throw at night now, and yesterday tea time was heading for a walk when it started raining, had to turn round and was soaked when I got back. I had got very far either. It rained most of the night too. Lay awake a couple of hours last night so annoying when you know you’re working early.

2p I hope the blackbird is ok, sometimes if they collide with a window it takes them a while to recover.
Dusty is just showing off with his blue hydrangeas my ones with black stems were bought with blue flowers, and despite them being in pots with ericaceous compost and getting ericaceous feed are now resolutely pink.
I was going to take a pic of my evergreen hydrangea but I’ve just seen the biggest rat run across the garden when I opened the door to call the cat in. Euww. Tbh I reckon it would give the cat a run for his money geez it was ginormous. 

twopenny

Join the, not so exclusive club Wort. 😐
Remember they aren't as bad as we paint them (I think) I'll have to look that up again.

Blackie did eventually start hopping around and could get to the bird table but stayed resoloutly on the ground.  I haven't been up long enough to look but my garden is cat and fox proof.

Just logged in to see if Dusty had had any rain. Forecast 90% all night and nothing. We really are desperate for some.

YoungBlueEyes

Any sign of your blackie this morning 2p? Hopefully he'd only flown into a window and had to sit a wee while to get his breath back. An hour sounds a bit long though.... Injured his wee leg/s or wing/s maybe? I'd have sat with him for a bit too in case any hungry cats/foxes came by looking for an easy supper. 

Anyway, back to the start. Thanks very much for the kind words re my pic folks It doesn't look as good on my phone as it does on here! I was happy it only took me 19 pics to get it - when I took those 2 dragonfly (?) pics a while ago I deleted 116 useless pics! Lol at taff "A Flying Thing example book" - that's as near as I could name it ha haa!

That is one bucolic scene Dusty, absolute heaven I think you and Farway are right about which jobs AI will do. They can have mine in a heartbeat I tell ya. I never heard any more about Universal Payment, is that still being talked about...? "Disporting" - nice. *nodding*

You could've sent me the extra bleeding heart wort, I can't get one to live here. AI's first job needs to be correctly labelling suicidal plants. I don't know what Saturday boys will do for money in that scenario.... they'll probably bring the credit card age down to 16, for equality reasons or summat  

Woohoo for DP border taking shape Farway and lookit your toms too For the grapes, have you tried wagging your finger at them while using a bit of bad language? And then move on to fist-shaking with a bit of bad language using Bad Dog Voice? Then get rid and start again, that'll learn 'em!

Is there a facefook group chat thing for your area pp? The meteor was possibly announced on that. Beloved Cousin is on one and she hardly misses that kinda thing now. Northern Lights and shooting stars n stuff. That's a beggar you not getting any heat up there, I thought you'd have got a bit cos they had some at home. Only low 20's but that's warmer than it should be for up there. Love your fireplace! but booo to needing it on in July.

Woohoo for getting your fountain going 2p How do you thin your apples? I give my (only skinny yet) tree a hefty nudge with my knee and any of them thinking of dropping off are forced into making a decision #Shawshank 

I need to think of something for himself to do to get him out of the house so I can do DomNon. I can't send him food shopping cos he just buys crap! *sigh* All suggestions gratefully received. 

OT lovely out there. Sunny and breezy and 17'c with a high of 23' to come. Perfect weather so leave them dials be now St Fiacre thankyouplease

pink_poppy

Urgh to the rat, wort, not what you want to see in your garden   I'm the same with lack of sleep, although I do have an occasional snooze during the day if I can.

Hopefully Mr Blackbird was just having a wee rest, twopenny. It's worrying when you see them just sitting, but at least your garden is safe from the usual predators and hopefully no sparrowhawks around. I know there's a virus around that affects blackbirds, but fingers crossed it's not that.

DH was whinging about having the fire on, YBE, but I have no regrets, it was lovely. We do have local FB pages here, but the meteor wasn't something that you could post about to have a look at because it was literally here and gone in a flash. Lucky people who just happened to see it.

Another dismal day here with rain forecast pretty much all day. I'm meeting up with a pal from England who's up for a few days - hoping to find somewhere dry and cosy for a wee coffee or hot chocolate.

Farway

Dull & breezy, rain, maybe, due around noon, but even then it's just "showers" . It's mid Channel at the moment, just creeping up on Isle of Widgit.

I want to pop out on Pea Patrol, pick any late stragglers, so will have to engage erse before noon.

Welcome to the Rat Club Wort, not as exclusive as Meteor or Aurora Club

Poppy, fire in July off sets Auroras and your lovely sunsets, hard to know which I'd prefer, been drought here for ages as well, but you're the one with ripe toms. Summat wrong somewhere. 

Hope Blackie is OK 2P

Apart from Pea Patrol I may have another brief spell of apple pruning if the rain fails

Here's my sweet pepper, potted it on yesterday to replace the Cherry Fails tomato in a wall basket

Must be compost related, I have some toms at the front, in older compost, which are thriving

Dustyevsky

twopenny said:

Just logged in to see if Dusty had had any rain. Forecast 90% all night and nothing. We really are desperate for some.

Sorry, we had a lie-in this morning. Our lodgers + baby are at their new house, so it's very quiet here! 

We're experiencing that very fine rain which evaporates almost as fast as it settles. I think some heavy stuff may fall up norf tomorrow, but down here it looks like a damp weekend 'blip,' and then back to scorchio. 

I'll be back later, but must add my praise for Bluey's hoverfly photo.  We really ought to ID it in an insectopedia, but there will be some miniscule detail we can't see on the underside, which will make that impossible, and likely names will be unpronounceable.....but I'll have a go.   

EDIT: I think I've found it:

Credit:

pisyrphus balteatus

Photo: S. Rutherford
This species is known as the Marmalade Hoverfly. Many migrate to Britain each Summer.

Rather good common moniker, though there's also one called The Batman Hoverfly. Told you its formal name would be unpronounceable! 

twopenny

Awww Marmalade Hoverfly sounds just what you want in the garden.

Along with Honey crunch tomatoes 🙂

Farway

twopenny said:

Awww Marmalade Hoverfly sounds just what you want in the garden.

Along with Honey crunch tomatoes 🙂

And Chocolate Cosmos 

But not Plum Moth, or Cabbage whites

YoungBlueEyes

Marmalade hoverfly, I love that. Thanks Dusty I'd be perfectly happy with a lot of Honey Crunch tomatoes too, and chocolate cosmos I've just realised I've no cosmos at all out there this year :puzzled:

I got rid of himself yesterday - packed him off to a Sporty Directy shop for trainers and socks and a lunch bag and told him to take his time. I got DomNon done and went food shopping to Lids cos Aldi carpark was rammed. I treated my self to 2 hydrangeas cos I couldn't decide on a colour. The pinks were not my thing really so I've a white and a bluey/purpley sort of a one. They're a decent size so should be quite hard to kill and only £8 Might have gone over the 90 minutes though cos I d/l'd the app and had to go back in to get my 'free' things - a pastry, and melon, and some pasta. It took soddin' ages to go through the list of which items are included in the offer. That could do with sorting out Lidl if you're reading this. Could you not put a QR thing on the shelf-edge labels of each item so when you scan it it tells you if it's on the free offers list. I nearly went blind trying to read the product codes  

It's about to start raining out there, they say. It's meant to have been raining these last couple of hours but it hasn't. Cool and humid and no breeze, but I'll still take it over all that heat we had. Which, if the long term forecast is to be believed, is coming back next week

Right, I'm off to look up hydrangea care. Please god don't let it say "bright indirect sunlight" cos that's what my azalea said and it's died on me. I was moving it from light shade to slightly sunny, I kept it moist but sometimes let it dry out a bit. I sat it in a dish of water with feed in it sometimes, but it didn't care. Ersehole.

YoungBlueEyes

Hydrangeas. Dead azalea rhododendron for scale - 

I went up to mum + dad yesterday for a long overdue titvate. There's a new ice-cream parlour in town, and the flavours were all Very Swish. I treated myself to a lemon and basil sorbet, and my god it was delicious. Good strong flavours, friendly staff, I'm pleased I went in. This is where I sat and ate it - 

OT still not raining.