Awful weather - typical Brits talk

Farway

A quick visit, my internet went bum up Xmas Eve and is still duff, they're working on it but mean time I'm burning up my mobile phone data on.  Congratulations on the toms making it

Tried and failed to post w pic, struggling to use with the mobile, so see you once normality returns

Dustyevsky

Hope the interweb comes back for you soon, Farway.   We're only a few Shreddies and A Weetabix short of full fibre now, apparently. The guys have been down holes (full of water!) for months now. No one was able to say exactly how it would eventually reach our house, though. 

In other news, I looked, and we do have daisies; lots of them. We also have rosemary blooming, but I seem to remember, that one does in the winter.

No Boxing Day walk.    T'was too grim and grey. Sunshine tomorrow, and warmer.    Alas, I'm in Specsavers! 

Did you cut the lawn 2p?

PS If you want to see  the creature in the photo, you'll probably need to open it full size.  

twopenny

Yes I got into warm layers to cut the lawn, darn difficult on one leg, and deweeded the path and other parts that have been annoying me.
So for a while I can drive up to a house that looks cared for which I hope makes up for the pain.

Now I'm in need of care and about to get into a bath lavender oil, whale music, then feet up and hope that cures it.

And here's today's find 😊



Sorry to hear about the tinternet Farway.
I'd send you a link to make you laugh about it but ..........

Dusty just expanded on the tablet Dusty. It's cute.

Farway

I'm back, the internet returned last night. 

Help lines must be the ultimate oxymoron, call up to report internet down, robot tells me to report and see updates on line. 

Felt very much like Major Major answering the phone.

[IYKYK]

Catch 22 folks

Good to see DGC getting on with some Lego Dusty, and I guess light sabres are the modern equivalent of a tin drum, or some six shooters with rolls of "caps".

If kids today had similar presents to the presents we had, the parents would be inside PDQ.

Christmas pen knives, lethal chemistry sets, even indoor fireworks and radioactive luminous painting sets.

The Big Day went well, nice to see everyone, including DGC + assorted boyfriends. Actually BFs are nice ones,not coarse yoofs

Not quite in own grown fresh tom area, but I had my stored Beurre Alexandre Lucas pear on Boxing Day. Picked hard and green in September, and stored badly in the bottom of the fridge salad drawer

It was superb, just as you'd love a pear, yellow, sweet, dribbling juice, not grainy or rotten

The blurb does say "white melting flesh with highly perfumed flavour". Yep, I second that

Next year I will pick and store them better, wrapped in tissue paper in the salad drawer

While at DD we did a spot of garden design. There is a conifer hedge along the front of her house, which she had cut back to get the kids' cars in. 

Of course, it's a brown, bare, mess now 

She & her gardening bloke had thought about removing brown tree stumps and using trellis with winter jasmine as an open but living dividing fence

I suggested using my old & tasty chum, Merton Thornless blackberry.  

So obvious I thought, alright, passers by may have some, but there should be enough to go round, and the blossom & greenery is much better than jasmine 

My gardening today has been to order one, in 3L pot, as an extra pressie for DD. It's on the way

, due Wednesday onward

When she moved in last year, there was no fruit at all

Her garden now has one fig, two apples, an elder-flower, two blackberries & a loganberry to help with fruit. 

With a tip rooted Boysenberry on the way once I get it dug up, plus a Red Filbert still to go

She'll thank me for the crumbles & jam in future years

DD bought herself a rhubarb and a blackcurrant

Now for my December flower, in a sheltered spot, I give a fuchsia, still flowering

twopenny

Glad to have you back Farway. Indeed you're annoyed already when you ring a help line and them constantly telling you to go online is exasperating because you would if you could 😬

That's a smasher of a flower 🙂 lovely colour for the winter.
Glad to hear you're training the youngsters in mse fruit growing. Wonder why they don't get 'free fruit ' outside the door but think it's easier to drive through traffic, fight for parking and queue to pay then repeat.

My telly has had signal breaking up lately. Air pressure or could be the rough seas, yes
. What it is to live rurally.

No gardening today though it was planned till the warmer temperature promised turned into toe curling bitter wind and 2c. Very strange sea with waves so small and close together over acres of ocean. I looked out from a warm car 😉
Lost a couple of pots to the 40mph winds the other day because I forgot to take them off their perch. I've glued them together but think it will need doing with stronger stuff but will do for now.

What day is it tomorrow? I'm completely lost on what day of the week it is being in and nothing going on outside.

But flowers are coming on apace. The crocus have all their leaves up and the daffs are on the way. All but the black hellebore are in flower.

Dustyevsky

Can't do a fuchsia, Farway, but we have primroses, 2p, and I've been out, snapping 'alternative' catkins to show later.

Farway said:

Good to see DGC getting on with some Lego Dusty, and I guess light sabres are the modern equivalent of a tin drum, or some six shooters with rolls of "caps".

If kids today had similar presents to the presents we had, the parents would be inside PDQ.

Christmas pen knives, lethal chemistry sets, even indoor fireworks and radioactive luminous painting sets.

The Big Day went well, nice to see everyone, including DGC + assorted boyfriends. Actually BFs are nice ones,not coarse yoofs

 Don't forget the Mamod steam engines with real methylated spirit burners.... and the air rifles!  At the Fatstock Show, I saw a card with a reproduction of a 50s or 60s advert. It read, “Go on, Dad, give him a BSA air rifle for Christmas!”  I laughed. That's what my Dad did when I was 10, and he had to pay for the neighbour across the road's window too, shortly afterwards!    

I never had any decent indoor fireworks in crackers. The ones I saw had names like 'Mount Vesuvius' or 'Stromboli,' but all they ever produced was wriggling, grey ash, like a miniature slow worm. 

Good news on your Big Day and the presentable boyfriends. I don't think I'll comment about similar situations in my youth, beyond saying. Mum marked young ladies according to skirt length above the knee, refining the final grading with their score on the Adge Cutler Westcountry accent scale.   

Yesterday, some family members went to a beach not far from you 2p. There was even a little rock-pooling, and two fish were caught. These days, they come home in a phone, not a bucket of seawater.   According to AI, 

one was an eel and the other a Cornish Sucker.(above)  It was obviously on holiday, or lost.

Mrs Dusty and I went to Specsavers, which was empty, and then on to a furniture store, also deserted. There, the very helpful owner told us the item we wanted wasn't in stock, but that he'd found one on his laptop in the local Been & Queued! Was he mad? No, when we need to replace a much more expensive item in about a year's time, we'll head straight to him!   

I might look for some 'gardening guerilla' homes for my spare Merton Thornless, Farway. I've missed a trick, considering the commercial yard next door has an 8' deer fence. No idea what happened to our pears, but good to know your one was superb. Maybe ours are still hanging-on. 

OT: Positively tropical this morning at 6c and with grey cloud forecast to stick around all day. As promised, I looked, and found some 'alternative catkins,' so here they are.

 No hellebores whatsoever yet, 2p

-taff

Was your visitor of the furry long tailed variety Dusty? It's the only thing I can see in there that looks vaguely animal, my eyesight and powers of detection are failing I think, I really had to enlarge it to see

Fancy tomatoes on Christmas Day! I am impressed at your green fingers 2p! 

Lovely fuschias too farway, and all te flowers in general. I have two pinkish flowers on my salvia..

In other news I got a mini chainsaw for a christmas present which I am going to try out on the dead bay trunk out the back later once I've read the intructions and put on the safety gear [ glasses, which I have better ones ad gloves, also which I have better ones but we can't have everything can we? ] 

The cornish sucker  may be cute to people who study them but that's a big fat no from me thank you...

Black hellebores sound lovely, what are they like? My one vey small pot of hellebores are fowering but didn't interest the bee I saw last week, and the prostrate rosemary [ also very small] is flowering a very delicate lavender colour. 

Good on you for providing fruit in perpetuity Farway, much better present than choccies...

Weather is cold, windy and the fire is being lit...

Farway

Dull & grey, but at least it's dry. I keep seeing headlines about ten feet of snow coming soon, but is that a slight exaggeration? My guess is that it will just be hard frost here, if it ever arrives.

Dustyevsky said:

Can't do a fuchsia, Farway, but we have primroses, 2p, and I've been out, snapping 'alternative' catkins to show later.

 Don't forget the Mamod steam engines with real methylated spirit burners.... and the air rifles!  At the Fatstock Show, I saw a card with a reproduction of a 50s or 60s advert. It read, “Go on, Dad, give him a BSA air rifle for Christmas!”  I laughed. That's what my Dad did when I was 10, and he had to pay for the neighbour across the road's window too, shortly afterwards!    

I might look for some 'gardening guerilla' homes for my spare Merton Thornless, Farway. I've missed a trick, considering the commercial yard next door has an 8' deer fence. No idea what happened to our pears, but good to know your one was superb. Maybe ours are still hanging-on. 

OT: Positively tropical this morning at 6c and with grey cloud forecast to stick around all day. As promised, I looked, and found some 'alternative catkins,' so here they are.

I'd forgotten steam engines, I always wanted one but never had one. 

Same goes for Jetex, wanted one of those but never had one

Plus another wish I had was the small diesel engines on model planes, had to be "flick started" with your index finger, wise kids had leather finger guard, non wise had cut bloody fingers

Never had an air rifle either, but I did have, and, whisper, still have, a Daisy Pop Out pistol

Double jeopardy now because it has 1950s Robertson Jam mascots stuck on the grip 

The gardening guerilla home for Merton blackberry on the deer fence sounds a good idea. I was watching a YT yesterday where someone is using similar, metal grid fencing, and weaving the cane through the grids

In fact, for anyone, with a bit of training & trimming it could make a living, green & fruity barrier

Checked my Filbert for catkins, just pimples so far. There's a hazel near the road, so I'll have to check that out soon, but a quick glance out of the window shows nothing much to see there

No gardening today, too grim & grey. I'll stick to harvesting mince pies

twopenny

No mince pies here. Again the supermarkets have decided Christmas is over. Everyone is fed up with the never enjoy the season.

Those pears seem a good bet Farway. I've made a note of the make and slipped it into my gardening books. Yup, still have and use them because t'internet is becoming all advertising and actual information hard to find.

Yes to local traders Dusty. I bought a curtain rail and for a small price they came and put it up. Ditto, buy a freezer and they put it where you want it and take the old one away. Costs a little more but easily covered by having to drag one out, install new and get rid of old. Far too many people can't see beyond the promotion online.

Taff, I've never heard of a mini chain saw. I'm going to have to look that up. When I've looked at moving I despair of the gardens full of overgrown shrubs that I'd want to replace with fruit trees and veg plots. That could be the answer 🙂

Doubt there will be gardening today. The gloom is uninspiring though the wind is less and it's climbed up to 3c.
Having a clear out, may get around to drilling holes in plastic pots and cutting pipes to water what goes in them.
Cleaning and sharpening is on the cards if it stays dry. We'll see.

Dustyevsky

-taff said:

Was your visitor of the furry long tailed variety Dusty? It's the only thing I can see in there that looks vaguely animal, 

In other news I got a mini chainsaw for a christmas present which I am going to try out on the dead bay trunk out the back later once I've read the intructions and put on the safety gear...

Black hellebores sound lovely, what are they like? 

Yes, blink and you miss it. At first, we thought our visitor was a weasel, but subsequent visits show it's just a mouse. It's taking a risk with all the cats we record. 

Do let us know how effective you find the mini-chainsaw. I'm interested.  The one I'm considering is pricey, as it would have to do work normally tackled with a 14" chainsaw. The chainsaw doesn't like fiddly work, and my arms don't like holding it at weird angles, so a much smaller device could be a winner. 

Black hellebores tend not to grow as quickly as their green cousins. It's possibly a lower chlorophyll thing. They're also hard to photograph in a way that truly shows their blackness. I'll have a go in 6 weeks or so, when ours get started. 

Farway said:

I'd forgotten steam engines, I always wanted one but never had one. 

Same goes for Jetex, wanted one of those but never had one

My parents didn't wouldn't give me a steam engine, but I had a couple of well-off pals who'd let me borrow theirs occasionally.  

 None of us owned a Jetex engine, but we used relatively cheap Jetex fuses for the purposes of igniting things remotely. In those days, they hadn't prevented people from making 'rapid combustion products' by doctoring sodium chlorate. I'd better stop there!    Our guardian angels must have worked overtime. However, apart from a friend, who set fire to his trousers trying to make his bike rocket-propelled, I can't think of any mishaps.

As for the Roberson's jam lapel badges, I'd never have guessed how they would one day fall from favour. They were particularly well-made, and it took much jam-eating to get the whole set. Of course, our Mums would sabotage our collecting the paper 'coupons,' by making loads of home-made! 

twopenny said:

No mince pies here. Again the supermarkets have decided Christmas is over.

 You're better off without the mince pies. I seem to be 3 pounds heavier than I was at this time last week, and I've not over-indulged.....much. :'(  It's the enforced sedentary lifestyle.  Hopefully, I can slink away tomorrow and do something constructive. I don't see any snow forecast for this area in theTwixmas period and beyond, but it looks as if 5c to 7c is the most we can look forward to. Time to dig out the long Johns!