Awful weather - typical Brits talk

Eenymeeny

Sorry YBE but when I see a property for sale in that condition I wonder why they are selling it. Have they run out of money, planning problems? Possibly both!   I'm a lot more practical these days. We've renovated a few properties, and learned a lot from experience! Definitely a nice project though.
Dusty, I am recognising those awful shredded holes on my Solomon's seal now but not many, so worth trying the garlic spray as they first emerge next year? 'Next year will be better' says every gardener. Eternal optimists! 
I heard the King's gardener at Highgrove say that's what they do with the hostas and that garlic is toxic to snails. Works for me!

YoungBlueEyes

Be good if you could ring and get an honest answer about why they're selling it.  It would take some deep pockets to turn it round but I reckon it'd be worth it for that view  

Dustyevsky

Another one here who likes the skirl o' the pipes.....but then I'm 50% Scots. Even so, the Outer Hebrides  would be a bit bleak for me. I've a cousin who ran off with his secretary to a croft on the Sutherland coast about 45 years ago, and he loves it up there, but for me, Oban and below would be better. Dumfries & Galloway is underrated, and cheaper, I think.

I'll bear the garlic in mind, Eeny. Right now I need to guard my garlic like a hawk. SiL used my giant garlic cloves to cook with, but I have a few of my Germidours left!

My photos are mostly done on a Panasonic 'bridge' camera, usually set to auto with a bit of exposure compensation added if it's very bright or dark. I paid £70 for it as 'second-hand,' but like a lot of eBay cameras, it had probably been a demonstrator, or just put in a window. There are some great point 'n shoot size cameras, but after wrecking three by using them in dusty conditions, or with grubby hands, I thought the bigger zoom on the bridge cameras would solve that problem....and it has.

Today's photo is nothing special; just a bed of wild strawberries showing what happens when you let them run amok. This was at Rosemoor!! The label reads 'Cornus canadensis,' but I can't see any!

Farway

YoungBlueEyes said:

Here you go. Needs a bit more than a lick of paint, but I’d have it in a heartbeat  

https://www.auctionhouse.co.uk/scotland/auction/lot/121596

No thanks, I've been to Tarbert [torpedo trials team, so working not a holiday] and as a confirmed Southern Softy I can tell you now it may be nice in the sunshine, but that's about it, OK for hardy folks but not me

Back in Hampshire, another sunny day ahead with bit of a breeze, I made an early start again & have dead headed the Red campion now the seeds have set and presumably distributed around, makes space for the ox eye daises just opening,

My neighbour has yet again dug over the front patch & planted "stuff" including some foxgloves.

Assuming they keep them alive, which so far they have failed to do with most of their plants, our combined front gardens should look nice and a bees' paradise next spring because I have fox gloves in as well

Complete fail on the plum crop, again , not one plum has made it despite loads of blossom, but it was awful bee unfriendly spring so not really surprised

One thing a bit worrying is zero runner bean flowers, not even hint of buds yet despite the beans getting up, the canes relatively slug free.

Can't say same for the tomatoes, loads of flowers and setting fruits, so looking good. Humid weather due so hello blight I expect

I can't see me entering any photo comps YBE, those comps attract people who spend days arranging & composing things. The Country File on was won a bit back with loads of complaints about the photo, all a bit rigged & staged animal and hardly something just taken out walking

Dusty, my posh dahlia, you could be right, It is a named one, but label is AWOL right now

PS, most of my photos are on a second hand Sony A200 DSLR, I chose this because it takes my old [vintage] Minolta lenses from my film days. [PPS, £100 with a lens & all the gubbins, e bay]

Mostly shot on Aperture priority, but with some of the recent Wisley ones I just set the dial to "flowers" and was very pleased that it just worked as intended, a bit of cropping maybe, like this one

pink_poppy

I thought that was one house, YBE, until I read the description. Harris is somewhere I’d love to visit one day.

This pic was taken yesterday, not a million miles from Oban, Dusty.



Lots of Highland coos on the roadside, including a HUGE black bull, so we didn’t hang around.

As you can see from the pic, we are back to lovely wet rain here 🌧 

YoungBlueEyes

Well now we know why that house is so cheap - location location location eh. 

Think I’ll stick with my phone camera. Not swish but gets the job done. Besides, I’ve found a shop that does 5 books for £1, 🥳 I can’t give up all them books for a camera I’ll never use/lose after a week/won’t be able to operate 

RAS

YoungBlueEyes said:

Here you go. Needs a bit more than a lick of paint, but I’d have it in a heartbeat  

https://www.auctionhouse.co.uk/scotland/auction/lot/121596

Makes me very nervous.

It's not clear if your purchase would include vehicular access or parking. Neither seem possible on the plot as sold. So you'd need the right of access and parking on the land to the south. 

My guess is the building is on de-crofted land but it's unclear if the optional land is crofting or no. And I wouldn't buy crofter land at auction. I wouldn't attempt to buy crofter land without talking to the the Crofting Commission and understanding the residential duties. Trying to tie that in with an auction would be fun.

It's attached to a large corrugated iron (weaving) shed or two, which are not included. So you have no way of maintain your eastern gable end. The building only has two windows on each floor, the lower ones obscured by the front lean-to. So it's going to be very dark and you probably want to demolish the lean-to, which includes the bathroom, no photo included and almost certainly draining off site. 

I knew people who bought a house, letting cottage and land. The vendor had no right to sell the crofter land. A crofting neighbour had a right of way over their land and could obstruct access to some of it. They spent a large part of the next three years sorting out the legal messes.

Add the long journeys needed for all materials, the limited number of people who have the skills to renovate the property and the limited options to rent nearby. And the chaos with the ferries, although that might get better in the next two years.

For someone local-ish with the Gaelic and building skills, it could be OK. 

Edit, just to add, the house is cut into a hill side. Even a very nice expensive house I know needed 60cm of litter and soil removing from gullies to stop damp penetration. That has good drains redirecting surface water. 

Read Elizabeth West for the more rural alternatives.

Not saying don't do it; just be aware of the issues.

Murphybear

pink_poppy said:

I thought that was one house, YBE, until I read the description. Harris is somewhere I’d love to visit one day.

This pic was taken yesterday, not a million miles from Oban, Dusty.



Lots of Highland coos on the roadside, including a HUGE black bull, so we didn’t hang around.

As you can see from the pic, we are back to lovely wet rain here 🌧 

I had a wonderful holiday with a friend many years ago.  We spent a week in Northumberland then a week near Loch Ness.  On a trip from Loch Ness, somewhere in the Highlands but cannot remember where, we suddenly came across a herd of these lovely creatures on the road.  They looked at us with baleful stares, we switched off the engine and admired the scenery until they decided to move.  The weather that week was beautiful (even in the Highlands ), blue sky and sunshine.  

Dustyevsky

Farway said:

YoungBlueEyes said:

Here you go. Needs a bit more than a lick of paint, but I’d have it in a heartbeat  

https://www.auctionhouse.co.uk/scotland/auction/lot/121596

Complete fail on the plum crop, again , not one plum has made it despite loads of blossom, but it was awful bee unfriendly spring so not really surprised

  Yesterday, I cut a major chunk from our surviving plum tree. It's the time to do it, though weather-wise 2 weeks ago would have been better. It was unbalanced and likely to break, especially because we've had a good set of fruit this year.   Similarly, I also took action on two apple trees that were prime candidates for failing in the autumn, thanks to our light soil. We've some very large and stable apple trees, but we inherited a number of small eaters that had fallen over, probably when the ground was soggy in winter. Though they still produce, they're hardly an attractive feature, so I'm trying not to create more.

Today's picture is a day-lily I didn't know about, so no idea of the name. Mrs Dusty must've bought it and plonked it in. I'm still getting over the shock! A bit vulgar for me, but it's  filling a space where 'Mrs Yeo,' an old salvia with no style, used to be.An improvement... of sorts.

-taff

I'd be happy with a flower like that. I love oranges, reds, pinks, purple, anything but yellow really, which coincedentally, is the colour of pond iris I have...yuk.

So I hoiked out the blackcurrant bush from the front garden. I had designs of permaculture there as well as the herbs n stuff but it was not be, it didn't like it. Now I have to find somewhere for my just-this-now delivery of perennial kale striplings...Maybe a pot while they grow up a bit. And I feel a gc visit is on the cards. I need some advice about plants for a baby pond [ old water tank to be repurposed] because me and pond plants have not made an aquaintance as yet, except for the pond iris which is way too big and needs splitting [acquired from a garden group] and some oxygenating stuff that died in the water trough..