Awful weather - typical Brits talk

YoungBlueEyes

Farway said:

YBE, fabulous book pic there, Although not a great fan of Monty from what I've read he has had an interesting life and hopefully has now settled and content with his gardening.

Well look away now if you have an opinion of Monty and you don't want it challenging. 

I've only read the first few chapters. They were jewellers decades ago in London, and long story short - they ran up huge debts thinking they were right and everyone else was wrong, but it didn't come good so they just walked away from them. Shafted a lot of people in the process. They're/he's more successful now with the gardening. So he's come up smelling of roses (ba dum tsch!) whether he deserved to or not. Hmmm.  I haven't finished the cryptic xword yet and it's chewing at me so I'll leave the book for a bit.

Too hot out there now. Well the sun's too strong for me I have had another taste of the wineberry now it's even riperer and leaving it has definitely made a difference. It tastes the same as it did before but deeper. A general mixed berry sort of flavour, and while it is sweet it now has a bit more creamy flavour in there. Much better, I'd recommend it now

I'll have a look at your friend's website Arb. I really do have to stop buying books. Apparently Funny that rule doesn't apply when I've bought a pile of books for himself eh!

I'll have to corral my 'haul' into something pic-worthy. I've only got toms, but I've a variety of shapes and colours and tastes. There's not a while lot of them but I dun growed them my very self, so I'm chuffed actually :b:blush:

And speaking of picking your own veg, I saw a pic the other day that made me chuckle. I'll find it again and share it here.... 

YoungBlueEyes

          

ArbitraryRandom

I love books, and that smell of yellowed mass market paperbacks but we were flooded a couple of times when I was growing up and losing all of my books each time really upset me; then I moved around a lot (10 places in 6 years) and after that ended up with 'stuff' spread between three houses, or lost/let go on the way... so I've now got 3 boxes of 'special' books (including a box of random old recipe books) that will probably take half a book case when I finally get them all together and the house sorted - and everything else is ebooks. 

Tbf, I couldn't have the (literally) thousands of books on my laptop in a house and ethically I don't see it differently than buying a second hand book (I do actually make a donation to a local charity that sells books) or borrowing books. 

And yes, I completely get the risk of hoping on the puter to check something and losing half a day to the interwebs. 

On topic... weren't we expecting a storm? Did I miss it? It's been a glorious day here - probably the best day in a few weeks with temps in the low 20's and Mediterranean skies. 

Squash update - I can now see two female flowers, but nothing open yet. Question if I may: if the males open first, is it worth gathering some of the pollen and keeping it in a jar in the fridge for a day or two until the females open? Just in case they're not open at the same time. 

YoungBlueEyes

I can't help with your squash Arb, sorry. I've heard of people doing the cross pollinating themselves with a pencil/cotton bud (?) but I don't know about waiting for one lot to open.

Books - I'm without a lot of my books too for various reasons. After daddy died and we had to move out sharpish when we sold the house, the only way I could get my removal van bill down was to give boxes and boxes of books to the nearest charity shop. It pure broke my heart. I've never been flooded though, thank god. I imagine that might be worse actually - thinking there's a possibility of saving some and drying them out, and them still being ruined. Jeez that'd be a torture. And that's a lot of moving you've done! Suggests either military or awful luck with landlords....

The storm doesn't seem to have affect us lot, apart from Dusty seems to have got the rain. When I get speaking to Cissie tonight she'll tell me what it was like. She gets all the bad weather over there. Actually you need an aquaduct from there to yours 2p, you'd never have to water another thing again ha haa!

OT still too hot to be out, hence I'm on here. I need to finish my xword but I also need to watch some more Yellowstone.....

YoungBlueEyes

So here’s my haul. Different groups are from different plants, I’ve kept them separate in case some have blight. Wineberries in the middle. Penny for scale. 

I’ve still my growbag ones coming, but it doesn’t seem a lot when you consider the bladdy forest I had a few months ago! Ah well. 

twopenny

That looks good Bluey. Don't get down on yourself. You've done well in a difficult year that none of us have experienced before. Hope that's not sounding patronising. It's not meant to.

Sheesh, no rain forecast but 3 miles from home it was like having a bucket of water thrown over you for 5mins. Ruined the classic car event and I'd left a newly painted table  out to dry.  
It's going from cold to hot in irregular times and now stuffy and bright. I've had enough tbh.
Needless to say the ground is still dry even though we are wet!

I was going to go out and replant bulbs neighbours cat has dug up to poop but can't be bothered after a weird day.
I did strim the grass edges and took my hedge trimmer to my tiny box hedge while i had the extension out from sanding the table.
Weather 1 - me 1/2

Love books. Found I had 3 large boxes from one bookcase when I moved. 2shelf fulls of novels and stuff laying around.

Dustyevsky

twopenny said:

Weather 1 - me 1/2

I love that! A better result than the football, but we also fared similarly, despite having a polytunnel to retreat into. It's still bucketing straight down as I type, so we've blown the final whistle for today. We did have a few hours of sunshine too; it was a day of two halves. 

I agree with your comment to Bluey. A weird season, and still not finished with us, I feel. Not sure what we'll  have for the September shows, if anything. I often score with courgettes, but 3 of similar proportions from one remaining plant is asking a lot! I don't really care about winning, but I want to take part to keep the tradition going. The thing that cannot be mentioned was responsible for a huge decline in participation when these events started again.

On a positive note, my 'white' aquilegias are up.....and some of them have 'interesting' variations in the seed leaves.

There will be some in the garden too below the original plant, but I'm not expecting to see those yet. None will flower before 2025,maybe before the World Cup over in the US, where they don't even know what shape a football is!

Dustyevsky

YoungBlueEyes said:

          

Love it!  I see lots of trainers are being sold as 'Vegan' now. I know vegans sometimes have a rough time, but I'd consider myself pretty desperate if I had to eat my trainers!

Dustyevsky

YoungBlueEyes said:

Farway said:

YBE, fabulous book pic there, Although not a great fan of Monty from what I've read he has had an interesting life and hopefully has now settled and content with his gardening.

Well look away now if you have an opinion of Monty and you don't want it challenging. 

I've only read the first few chapters. They were jewellers decades ago in London, and long story short - they ran up huge debts thinking they were right and everyone else was wrong, but it didn't come good so they just walked away from them. Shafted a lot of people in the process.

Not an easy business without the right skills and contacts. The standard mark-up is x 2.6, though!! How do I know? In another life, Mrs Dusty was a winter salesperson for a posh jeweller. It beat the rest of the year job, moneywise.

YoungBlueEyes

Not patronising at all 2p It's been a funny year all round I think, and I just struck unlucky that this is my first year having a proper go at stuff. Mind if that's the shape of it, it'll be easier these next few years til we get another weird/blight year. I'ts nice to have it confirmed by a proper person that it's not all ...user error... though Remember the little 3/4 dead primulas I got last month (?) Well I noticed yesterday that one is in the same state, one has huge healthy leaves and no flowers, and one is still small but with good leaves and a load of wee flowers about to come through. I don't know how you're sposed to learn stuff when stuff is doing it wrong :rolleyes: The yellow toms are quite tasty, nothing special though, and the little cherry shaped ones are kinda sweet but bland straight after it (itms). Wineberries are all the better for extra ripening, quite a deep flavour to them  

No movement on my aquilegia seeds, I wonder if I've done it wrong I did find a funny looking seed in the grass last week when I was hunting mare's tails, so I potted it and it's got leaves already. No idea what it is like but it's happy enough. So that's another mystery for the list!

Vegan trainers. Christ sake, some people need more to do in their day! Last summer me n himself stopped for a pub lunch and the guy brought us out menus, one of which was a dedicated wine list for the vegetablists So I asked him why there was a whole list of them, "I mean how much meat is there in a bottle of wine?" He looked at me like I was the source of all the troubles in the world. We didn't eat there for fear he'd spit in it

Years ago my sister and her friend moved to that there Landan tahn, and she got a job in Trumpers (posh barbers/potions+lotions for chaps). The woman who owns it used to triple the price of whatever she paid for her ingredients, so it'd ebb and flow naturally with the market. That's what they'd always done since the year dot and it worked well for them. I was sorry when she moved back up here cos her staff discount made the prices bearable, I used to get everyone's presents there

OT More of the same. Cool morning but heat building already. I think it must've rained a wee bit overnight, but it wasn't forecast. It's a grand drying day - windy and sunny. Again.