Awful weather - typical Brits talk

goldfinches

Waves hello to everyone and a special welcome back to @Davesnave.

I'm currently exhausted after spending the day in some glorious local gardens that were open under the NGS yellow book scheme today and taking loads of photos as well as challenging another visitor to a game of croquet. We decided, among other things, that having a perfect lawn was a prerequisite for a successful game and that neither of us would ever be able to achieve the necessary degree of perfection in our own gardens without substantial paid help. 

Here is a small glimpse of a lovely little niche in one of the gardens which made a great place to rest on a bench for a while.

Davesnave

Farway said:

A welcome return Dave, now I'm not a chicken expert but is the lady the one without a red face? [The profanity filter used to prevents me saying cocks comb]

Hope the world improves a bit at least with getting out, I'm still confined to barracks regarding garden visits, even without Covid restrictions I just don't have enough "puff" to walk around large gardens until my ticker gets fixed, if it ever does of course.

  You got it right first time, Farway, and I love your solution to the swear filter!   I acknowledge I have nothing much to complain about re health and I'm extremely grateful. That anyone should be waiting a long time for heart procedures in 6th richest country in the world is something we should all think long and hard about. Is it a new phenomenon, or a problem that some of the £32 billion reserved for something else could have been better spent on?

twopenny said:

Hi Dave, I tried to pluck you some seeds from the Echiums but they stick to the plant and their seed pod. I'm not sure they're worth the effort of sending.

Current desired plants are the coffee coloured geranium and the chocolate coloured Vervain I saw in the Brewers garden today. I have the common one but the purple one is just beautiful with darker flowers. I may have to get another tea there when the seed heads are ripening.

Don't worry about the echiums twopenny; our old mate and rival Derry Watkins will have some, I'm sure.

If you want seed of semi-perennial white stocks (Mattiola incana) I can send you some and I might be able to collect seed from Verbena 'Bampton' if that's the 'purple' vervain you mean. It doesn't come true every time, but there are enough that look dark and metallic in every lot I sow. Let me know; it self seeds here too.

Synchronicity is an interesting idea. No sooner had I made my post yesterday than I saw a lady being far more eloquent than me by simply talking into her phone! Having a smallholding, I sometimes look on You Tube at  people in a similar position who might have tips and ideas I can steal. Across the pond, they call smallholdings homesteads and no doubt many of them are much larger than ours, but similar principles apply. They also use odd words for things, like 'canning' for putting food in Kilner jars etc.

Anyway, rather than put up a link, I'm  suggesting anyone interested in growing their own might usefully look at this lady's site because she is a modern-day sage IMO as well as a very practical soul. She's called Patara and her site is 'Appaliachia's Homestead.'

The video that resonated the most with me is the one entitled "You can't Make Them Understand" Seeing that made me realise I've wasted much energy this year trying to wake others up..... and over the last 10 years by focusing on stuff that isn't going to help us one iota in the future. For example, we should have solar panels on our roof now, not a luxury en-suite! Also, those 200 other trees we didn't plant in 2010 would be looking pretty good for firewood by now.

Have a good Sunday folks.

Farway

'morning, sunny & mild again so far

I may trim back self sown buddlia at the front now it's flowers are over, it's nothing spectacular but fills a gap & helps bees etc which is why I left it alone, by trimming back it'll let a bit of sunshine through to some late dahlias

Davesnave said:

Farway said:

A welcome return Dave, now I'm not a chicken expert but is the lady the one without a red face? [The profanity filter used to prevents me saying cocks comb]

Hope the world improves a bit at least with getting out, I'm still confined to barracks regarding garden visits, even without Covid restrictions I just don't have enough "puff" to walk around large gardens until my ticker gets fixed, if it ever does of course.

  You got it right first time, Farway, and I love your solution to the swear filter!   I acknowledge I have nothing much to complain about re health and I'm extremely grateful. That anyone should be waiting a long time for heart procedures in 6th richest country in the world is something we should all think long and hard about. Is it a new phenomenon, or a problem that some of the £32 billion reserved for something else could have been better spent on?

Good spot on my part then, one of the things I picked up on my way through life, I knew it'd come in handy one day

My ticker is ongoing, found myself with Atrial fibrillation in middle of the Covid pandemic, which then put me on Beta blockers among other drugs, once the winter & second lock down ended I went to have my ticker reset, Cardiaoversion, but it failed to reset [20% failure rate apparently and I'm one of the 20%], but on the brighter side instead of fibrillation I now have Flutter and a normal pulse, same symptoms & pills, , breathlessness etc but slightly reduced chance of strokes or heart failure

That was about two months and another lock down back, I'm on a sort of wait & see list, will the flutter vanish or slip back to fibrillation? In the meantime I puff & pant just crossing the road which means walking even from a car into say Wisley would have me knackered before I went through the turnstiles, very frustrating

Next step may be Catheter ablation with 90% success rate but that could be some way off

Synchronicity is an interesting idea. No sooner had I made my post yesterday than I saw a lady being far more eloquent than me by simply talking into her phone! Having a smallholding, I sometimes look on You Tube at  people in a similar position who might have tips and ideas I can steal. Across the pond, they call smallholdings homesteads and no doubt many of them are much larger than ours, but similar principles apply. They also use odd words for things, like 'canning' for putting food in Kilner jars etc.

Anyway, rather than put up a link, I'm  suggesting anyone interested in growing their own might usefully look at this lady's site because she is a modern-day sage IMO as well as a very practical soul. She's called Patara and her site is 'Appaliachia's Homestead.'

The video that resonated the most with me is the one entitled "You can't Make Them Understand" Seeing that made me realise I've wasted much energy this year trying to wake others up..... and over the last 10 years by focusing on stuff that isn't going to help us one iota in the future. For example, we should have solar panels on our roof now, not a luxury en-suite! Also, those 200 other trees we didn't plant in 2010 would be looking pretty good for firewood by now.

Have a good Sunday folks.

Thanks, had a quick look and seems plenty of interest so I've subscribed and will browse through, she does seem a very busy person, how on earth some You Tubers fit a life in as well I just don't know, just editing videos takes time

Davesnave

goldfinches said:

Waves hello to everyone and a special welcome back to @Davesnave.

I'm currently exhausted after spending the day in some glorious local gardens that were open under the NGS yellow book scheme today and taking loads of photos as well as challenging another visitor to a game of croquet. We decided, among other things, that having a perfect lawn was a prerequisite for a successful game and that neither of us would ever be able to achieve the necessary degree of perfection in our own gardens without substantial paid help. 

Here is a small glimpse of a lovely little niche in one of the gardens which made a great place to rest on a bench for a while.

I missed this one earlier, goldfinches . Wow a big Tetrapanax, a Foxglove tree(?) and some others I can't ID.

Just the sort of garden we can't have here (they'd be shredded) but I can plan for it in the courtyard of my dotage!

greenbee

@Davesnave - I think the last couple of years have made a lot of people reprioritise. You can probably see it in Devon with the number of people moving out of the cities in search of a better lifestyle (and some of them already moving back realising that it's not quite what they thought it would be!).

I've always been pretty risk averse, while trying not to get to the point of catastrophising, and have always planned that the house I want to be in by the time I'm looking at slowing down work needs to be one that will have minimal and predictable running costs. 

Neighbours here were building an eco-house when I moved in (they've since finished it and sold up for a very good price). Even without solar PV it had minimal running costs as it was built to passivhaus standards, and had solar thermal and an air-source heat pump providing the heating/hot water, rainwater and grey water systems. It cost them around £1k/year in water/energy (including running the sewage treatment). With PV, depending on the size/orientation of the roof you might even be in profit! And I'd certainly be looking at battery storage now that the prices are dropping - more important than FIT payments.

Just make sure that the courtyard of your dotage has room to grow a few bits of veg so you can avoid scurvy!

Davesnave

greenbee said:

@Davesnave - I think the last couple of years have made a lot of people reprioritise. You can probably see it in Devon with the number of people moving out of the cities in search of a better lifestyle (and some of them already moving back realising that it's not quite what they thought it would be!).
With PV, depending on the size/orientation of the roof you might even be in profit! And I'd certainly be looking at battery storage now that the prices are dropping - more important than FIT payments.

Almost everything is selling here quickly at present, but as you say, we'll see in a year or two how many can cope with the lack of convenience, the muddy, rutted roads in winter and the surprising periods of activity accompanied by noise and/or smells!

To be fair to ourselves, we couldn't have done PV before we re-roofed in 2016. It's a no-brainer; the main roof at the back facing due south. We did have the foresight to put in a heat store and immersion coils etc.

Half of me still wants to plant those 200m trees as well. We'll be thinning in winter, and some of those we  only put in 7 years ago.

Farway

Davesnave said:

greenbee said:

@Davesnave - I think the last couple of years have made a lot of people reprioritise. You can probably see it in Devon with the number of people moving out of the cities in search of a better lifestyle (and some of them already moving back realising that it's not quite what they thought it would be!).
With PV, depending on the size/orientation of the roof you might even be in profit! And I'd certainly be looking at battery storage now that the prices are dropping - more important than FIT payments.

Half of me still wants to plant those 200m trees as well. We'll be thinning in winter, and some of those we  only put in 7 years ago.

With all this Eco stuff and a small holding any chance of a tree planting grant or some kind of carbon capture?

Sell them to some rich person who uses private jets to go to environmental conferences for instance

greenbee

Great idea @Farway - 'Dave's Carbon Offset', plant a tree, offset your carbon, Dave gets free firewood in a few years' time (just charge them enough to pay for the trees to be turned into logs at a later date). This also means you get space cleared for ongoing planting... and if you run out, I can probably fit a couple more in

twopenny

Thanks Dave. I'd love some seeds of both. A mild early autumn and I'm planning on growing some seeds on for flowering next year while it's like this.

I'll be in touch in a couple of days as I'm shattered with so called getting back to normal (ish) so please try to stay good .

Bought a 2nd yellow Flower Carpet Rose. The constant bloom and scent from the one I had was worth it's weight in gold. Now I just have to dig out wider beds and if we get some rain then I can move things.

It's rock solid and dust if you try to dig and no sign of rain on the horizon.

I've cleaned the stems of the standard lavender and potted the cuttings, planted some rescue Violas (50p for 10) and the bargain red Geraniums (£1) trying to copy the lovely pot I saw in the garden centre. So a saving of £27 which always feels good.

The really great news is that the lady who does the plants for charity has been nominated for a Pride of Britain award. They are interviewing on Thursday. I'm potting up and taking to her any surplus I have. She has raised something near £8,000 during the Covid crisis.

https://www.wsfp.co.uk/article.cfm?id=124013&headline=The Plant Lady helps the humble Bus&sectionIs=&searchyear=2020

goldfinches

Waves to all above, am going to look at Appalachia as soon as I get a moment to myself too, thanks for the suggestion @Davesnave.

This balloon came over earlier today as for once the weather was living up to its billing and it was a lovely, warm, sunny and still afternoon here.



I couldn't see the people in the basket clearly enough to tell whether Richard B was with them or not but I expect he was busy with his spacecraft anyway.