Awful weather - typical Brits talk

YoungBlueEyes

Moth - 

Forgive the muck 😟

Dustyevsky

YoungBlueEyes said:

Has cleaner been in? Lack of Dust about the place...

See above!   

I had to let the hens out. 

Continuing from last post.....GC1 was intent on pursuing American crayfish and becoming an expert at that, like his Mum. Being sociable, he soon cadged a lift to quieter waters. They look like they're off up the Amazon!  

"Paddle harder, Diego!"  

However, the crayfish were not playing fair, so after an hour Grandpa decided to have a go. No net, just bare hands.....and perhaps, some smelly bacon.   

Eventually, after some tuition, GC1 managed to net a crayfish, and another fell to the bacon trick. So, 3 bagged, but not enough for a generous sandwich.    Back they went! Apparently, it's illegal to release captured American crayfish, but God told me to do it. 

The sun nearly appeared at tea time when it hit about 21c. We were almost the last to leave. As GC1 had a quick swim in the pool below the bridge before we left, I looked around......not one piece of litter and no one had cried. Good stuff! 

Today, there's dew on the grass, it's 17c currently, there's a 50:50 chance of a shower, and we get back to 22c again. That's good, because we hand back the GC today and start frantically cleaning. Old friends have invited themselves here, camping, from tomorrow pm.   

greenbee

YBE - Stinky is sending holiday photos and is clearly having a fabulous time. I’m very envious. The cats keep looking for him, but I can’t tell if they miss him or are pleased!

one of my cucumber pots had ants in it, so I’m going to go back to sticking the pots in gravel trays next year, not on the ground. That way they have a moat round them.

Dustyevsky

Fantastic moth pictures wort and Bluey. I've the GCs to feed now, but here's the best site I know for moth ID:

https://butterfly-conservation.org/moths/identify-a-moth

twopenny

Isn't that an Old Lady moth?
Just guessing. They are more interesting than they look.

Suns out on one side and march charcoal skies on the other.
Fairly strong northly wind.
It's cool though and got a half decent night's sleep 🙂

I've tried the V thing Greenbee. I have half their products in my bedside drawer!
But the bowl of water seems to be helping.

Dusty is that Landacre? It looks more lush than I remember and no to garden plants on the moor. Some people don't know or understand about wildflowers.
Do you know about the swimming pool just up the road from there? Bit of a hike though.

Dustyevsky

twopenny said:

Dusty is that Landacre? It looks more lush than I remember and no to garden plants on the moor. Some people don't know or understand about wildflowers.
Do you know about the swimming pool just up the road from there? Bit of a hike though.

Yes, spot-on.  I don't recall seeing the crocosmia when I was a young man, but I was probably looking at other things in those days.  I remember a group of us teenagers once trekked upstream to Cow Castle, but not why. It wasn't wild swimming! 

I only 'hiked' about 400m to reach a quiet spot for crayfish baiting yesterday. Few people move more than 200m from their cars. The land there is quite boggy, with the usual rushes, meadowsweet etc, but also a few less common wildflowers. I could've been in another world.   

pink_poppy

Feeling a bit sick this morning after deciding to scoff leftover guest biccies for breakfast...

I'm wondering if the Vulcan aeroplanes were modelled on moths?? Wort and YBE's excellent pics reminded me of them.

Lovely 'summer days' pics, Dusty, it looks really nice there. Your bridge looks like a wee viaduct.

greenbee, I think at least one of my tattie bags has got ants in. One plant has completely died back and I'm bracing myself for emptying it out. I might have said before, ants make my skin crawl

Thanks for the fingers crossed, wort, I submitted another job application yesterday. I hope I get offered a job soon because I'm sick of applying for them now    

It was hot and sticky last night, but we're forecast a coolish day today. It was quite misty/hazy first thing.

Farway

Cooler at last and sun due out later. Had a reasonable night's kip, mainly from exhaustion, I reckon.

My back is back to “OK if I don't go daft” so did a bit of watering this morning, but stopped before it was too much.

The Iso gel worked for me, I had a look at my oinkment & it’s Iso based. I can't have Iso internally for similar reasons as 2P. 

A friend died from tummy ache, Still hard to believe Gav is gone

I'm hooked on Fisherman's Friend for froat & nose.

Info for Dusty GC, A lorry load of Vicks overturned on the motorway, no congestion though. 

YoungBlueEyes said:

 Farway grrr to the rats. Are they living there or just shopping there passing through?

They live around here, large gardens at rear, people putting bird food out, etc etc. We also have foxes & cats so that keeps them in check I guess. 

With all my windfalls I'm hoping they will leave the fruit on the trees alone for the  time being, easier pickings on the ground

What an idyllic looking spot Dusty. Shame about the voices in your head telling you to chuck the crayfish back.

Until I knew otherwise, I thought crocosmia were wild flowers  They grew in abundance around my childhood haunts

Found another nearly ripe tom outside, I may yet get a reasonable, and unexpected, crop from the outsiders

I only poked them in as an afterthought, left over from the Tom Forest.

Binned the remaining courgette, the tasty one I had photographed the other day  , it went manky and got end rot along with mildew

Yet again, a bumper zero crop of courgettes. 

pink_poppy said:

Feeling a bit sick this morning after deciding to scoff leftover guest biccies for breakfast...

I'm wondering if the Vulcan aeroplanes were modelled on moths?? Wort and YBE's excellent pics reminded me of them.

Thanks for the fingers crossed, wort, I submitted another job application yesterday. I hope I get offered a job soon because I'm sick of applying for them now    

Hope the biscuits wear off, probably a moral tale in there somewhere

How odd, I was thinking about the Vulcan once I saw the moths. Maybe they were, the best aerodynamic design?

It was said Nuclear sub design shape were based on porpoises. Teardrop design.

Another set of job fingers crossed here

YoungBlueEyes

Up early, even for me - 3 hours broken sleep. And I'm in work today. She might regret asking me... I did see a fox though when I was opening the curtains though, nonchalantly strolling through The Oracle’s garden s/he was  

I missed your pics cos I forgot to refresh Dusty! That looks like a corner of heaven Even to my eyes those crocosmia stand out so they're deffo wrong. Nooo to releasing the yanqui crayfish - isn't it them that are ripping up and down our rivers and eating/killing everything in sight? I'd have fed them to the hens   You and MrsD are a social whirl, do you ever get a minute's peace?  

Holiday snaps, I love it gb Are cats strutting about the place pleased or have they moved on to someone else to terrorise? I keep reading ants are pure wonders but everyone is trying to mitigate against them   

Biscuits for breakfast pp I think I've read ...somewhere... that a lot of the things we invent are just lifted from nature. Why reinvent the wheel?  Applying for jobs is a full time job, in the end you're pleased to get one just to get a break from it ha haa! Extra fingers crossed here you get whichever one you want  

Good to hear your back's improving Farway Booo to the tasty courgette turning against you though Those jokes are very punny I’ll remember them for Big Boss Man, he likes a joke.

Here is this week's absolutely made-up etc story. A fellah rang yesterday - he wants to sue water butt makers cos they're inhumane and evil, and are causing the water shortages cos people are stopping the water from going into the rivers and that's why we're having hose pipe bans. There wouldn't be a problem if they didn't exist, he said. He was properly angry about it! I'm pleased he rang instead of coming in though cos then the Big People can have a listen to it too Thank you for calling crazies, you're the reason I go to work  

OT cooler currently, and not as hot today, they say. I'm beyond this heat now. 16'c currently and a high of 25' to come. I'd the windows all open but I really was just letting the sticky damp in  

Dustyevsky

-taff said:

Beautiful photos, from all of you, and just to say I'm taking a break from posting, no bad stuff,I just can't keep up  

 Neither can I.    I'm sitting here, deleting old emails and videos as fast as I can go, reducing the load on The Cloud and saving the water supply. Sadly, The Cloud has my old Japanese heavy metal albums in it. They've probably gone rusty and polluted the rain.  Never mind, they'll soon be gone now.....  I'll own none and be happy. 

We live in crazy times, eh? Enjoy your break.  We'll struggle without an allotment correspondent, but I promise, you won't be replaced by AI while you're gone, despite Farway's recent dalliance with ChatGPT. 

People hoarding water; that's an interesting conspiracy theory I've not encountered before, Bluey! Crikey, your caller could be onto something there, what with local gubmint handing out butts at cheap prices.   But there's worse! Look at folk like GB, with their multiple IBC containers. Now, there's a story for the Grauniad! 

Mind you, even the multi-linked barrels our horsey neighbour has, eventually run out. I see she's lugging one of those roll-along camping containers up the hill daily. It's possibly crossed her mind by now, how useful our unmetered tap used to be, before she reported us to the authorities for things that were entirely legal, and cost us £thousands. Unlike the yanqui crayfish, she had choices. Crayfish can only be what they are. End of sermon. 

You folk can probably tell by now, I've no news. Much of yesterday was spent on the M5 returning GCs to their rightful owners. It did look rather more parched than here as we headed up-country.  #gratefulforsmallmercies..

Now we have folks camping, but they'll want feeding. That's only for 2 nights.  They don't eat fish, so Lidl Salmon Wellington, our staple fall-back, is off the table. 

I haven't mentioned the Bishop's Children dahlias for a while. They turned out mostly red or orange, with one purple and a couple borderline yellow. Ruling out the ones with untidy habits....the floppers...we are left with 4 or 5 nice ones, including this red, which is upright, outward facing and taller than the rest. It's a keeper. 

OT: Scorchio today again, after a brief respite yesterday, appreciated for travelling. 27c Factor 50.