Awful weather - typical Brits talk

pink_poppy

Love the old pic (and hair), Dusty   I used to have a perm years ago and my DD compared me to Brian May when she saw an old photo of me. That's an impressive courgette collection, btw.

YBE, the midges seem to go on forever, but I think it's May/June to September/October time. I've been bitten on my shoulder this morning - no idea how, considering I was covered from top to toe when I was hanging the washing outside. I was bitten on my face and around my eyes when we were waiting to go on the Corryvreckan boat trip last weekend - there were swarms of them   I usually pray for breezy weather as that blows them away    

Those Roselilies look nice and healthy. Not sure I'd pay £9.99 for them though. I'll have a look at the lavenders tomorrow if they have any left. I'm due to get more inherited pots, so it would be nice to get them filled straightaway.

Up to 24 degrees forecast for today, but I'm going to be stuck inside doing interview prep...

twopenny

Probably best inside if the midges get inside clothes 😟
We have the wind Poppy. Very chilly north easterly which is bliss and set to continue the week along with the sun.
Problem here is the insects aren't around for lack of blooms and wind so my beans aren't getting polinated.

Bluey the aubretia was the dead plant overgrowing the pavement. They grow in walls so are used to dry but there is no shade there.

Lillies for sale in Morrisons too. Not quite so much and I thought of Farway, instant blooms with no bugs 😉

Going to try and finish the painting outside today if the hip,back holds out. B'dy nusiance as it's not giving any respite for what seems like forever so I do some chores catch-up and it's back. There's only so much rest you can take 😬

It's gone quiet around here now. Just like pre Covid , a week's quiet before the madness that is Bank holiday.

Can't believe that's summer almost gone. I think I'm still in spring because there's been no fruit or veg.

Dusty you remind me. I must take a drive around and look for roadside stalls. There used to be a lot of surplus veg. Now the townies have taken over the villages they don't do gardening.
Ok coffee done, put some rock music on to keep me up to speed and keep painting 😁

Ps. Must look up a photo from my youth.
Agree with you, I didn't realise I was such a catch back in the day. Love your photo. I'd have been chasing you if I'd seen you then 🤭

twopenny

Oh, anyone seen this?
I'm not the only one thinking it 
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2enmn7j3zjo

YoungBlueEyes

Thanks for Salmon Wellington info Dusty (ye handsome beast), I'll keep my eye out then Look at those courgettes too! I like them meself but I wouldn't know what to do with all them. Well, sell them ha haa.

I can't remember if I've mentioned this before pp but avon do a spray body oil thing called Skin So Soft which is fab as a bud repellent apparently. If that's any use? 

Fingers crossed your innards are holding out and you get your jobs done 2p. We've no roadside stalls or nowt here and I don't know why cos we're rural enough *shrug*  Gawd that link is depressing eh. True though, it's like that all round here. We went out brambling last night and they haven't had chance enough or enough rain to get to full size before being fried to death. I've never seen that before. The fields are all in and muck spread on them already too. In mid-August  

YoungBlueEyes

Not bud repellent, bug repellent. The irony on a gardening thread ha haa! 

Anyway. Wossis..? I’m doing weed clearance and this was one of the things I pulled up. I thought it might be something nice so I’ve stuck it in a pot and sat it in a trug for a good drink of raindrops. Any ideas…? 

Dustyevsky

YoungBlueEyes said:

Anyway. Wossis..? I’m doing weed clearance and this was one of the things I pulled up. I thought it might be something nice so I’ve stuck it in a pot and sat it in a trug for a good drink of raindrops. Any ideas…? 

Looks like  Linaria purpurea....the common sort. It's fine, but if growing the more refined 'Canon Went,' or 'Springside White,' then it's best removed to stop cross-pollination. In other words, it'll take over if you have fancy ones as well. Bees won't care, either way. 

twopenny said:

 Love your photo. I'd have been chasing you if I'd seen you then 🤭

Thanks, but sadly, no one on that trip was of the same mind.   Full of German beer, I certainly wouldn't have run away! 

Pp must have all the biting bugs up there. I noticed very few by the river, and even Mrs Dusty didn't get bitten when we were there. Swallows are doing a fine job here. A walk around the field today, yielded not a single horse fly.

wort

Love the sunlight glowing in the gap where I took out the hebe.

YoungBlueEyes

Ooh that's a bit magical wort, like if you leaned in really quietly there'd be fairies dancing about in the undergrowth  

Morning all. Early start this morning for himself + the lads are working away in Oasis-land this week. The company hasn't sprung for digs so they're driving there and back daily. I said just stop in a premium inn or travelling lodge or summat but he didn't. Too insecure for the kit in the back of the van apparently.

Cissie has a new hobby. There's a big old house in the village that's been bought by a young couple and they're llama farmers. She's beyond giddy cos it's close enough she can walk there, talk to them, go to the shop for the papers and then walk home. "They like bananas but their breath stinks to high heaven", and they're lovely and friendly and soft to stroke apparently. I'm half expecting her to ask for one for xmas  

I got gardening/weeding/deadheading done yesterday and filled my brown bin in time for them coming today. It was a lovely cloudy warm day with just a gentle breeze Same today say the sobers, up to 20'c maybe. 

Pics from brambling then. I'm sorry we were only out and back cos it was a beautiful evening for snuffling about in hedges.

On the way home we went up a wee road that neither of us had been up before to see what was up there, and this was at the end of it. It's the old water tank, from the days when they done stuff proper  

Dustyevsky

Those are very ostentatious gates, Bluey, and they sure don't want anyone getting in at the wrong time. Four padlocks!  The blackberries look somewhat wizened, or had you picked all the good 'uns? 

A spotlight area to grow something new, wort, or a space to spread into? Oh, hang on, Bluey's just rehomed fairies there, and they're worse than Great Crested Newts once they get a toe-hold. Protected species!  Ah, but I see Our Ange and Our Rach are going to get heavy with rare amphibians, 'cos the slimy little beggars are stifling the economy. Hmm, there are others who point out, being rare, they only affect a small % of planning applications:

https://www.cornwallwildlifetrust.org.uk/blog/thewildlifetrusts/economy-vs-nature-protections-building-regulations-bats-and-newts-and-growth

Anyway, it's amazing, but despite having no breeding place anywhere nearby, newts (bog-standard ones, honest!) quickly colonised the old wash coppers in our herb garden.  We're not developing that any time soon.

I'm pleased to announce all our visitors have gone away, so now it's only our DD2 popping in for a shower who might interrupt serious paperwork we I must do prior to visiting our planning advisor tomorrow.  She and her DH had hoped to have a functional bathroom in their new gaff by now, but unsquare walls and 'Devon time' have conspired to slow things down somewhat. 

OT: Apart from boring, legal nonsense, I was hoping to pump vast amounts of magic gel into a leaking gutter joint today, but now I see the Yanks think we'll get rain. This appears to be news to the Exeter alcoholics, who are saying it'll go west of us. Either way, it's cooler, dull and not so windy. 

Still delving into the archives. This was exactly 6 years ago, the last time anyone spread more manure here than the sheep normally provide. It looks like we'd had a much wetter summer, judging by the overall green-ness of things. No global boiling then, of course. 

greenbee

Multiple locks like that are to allow different people to access the same site, so any single lock will unlock it... but they have to remember to put it back properly and not lock the others out!