Awful weather - typical Brits talk

pink_poppy

I was going to suggest the salty water too for the pussycat.

The weather forecast for today was light rain/drizzle, so why is it dry and sunny outside?? I could have put some washing out   

I ended up buying a magnolia yesterday in Home Bargains - unfortunately it was a deodrant, not a plant...   

Was anyone having problems with the site again today - I got the Vanilla message and Cloud Flare or something earlier on...

YoungBlueEyes

I appreciate the advice folks (and the snorting laughs Dusty + Farway ) In the absence of instructions from Lovely Neighbour I’ve decided to do as I would if he was my dog - he’s walking on it fine so if he lets me touch it and sort of squidge it firmly about a bit, he’s probably alright to ignore. If anything changes then it’s a salt bath. I’ll try that after lunch. 

I got a bit of that Vanilla nonsense earlier pp but it’s alright now  

If it’s mesh/net curtains/something you’re after kmn9, there was an ad on the car radio earlier for a Dunelm sale. I like their stuff, and with a discount it’s even better  

(Also on the radio was that Dishi Sumak person saying to leave JKR person alone cos she’s not what he was talking about. He went up a tiny bit in my estimation for that tbh. Unless/until he backtracks.) 

I daren’t go back a page now in case it crashes again but someone said about buying plants? I’ve been to Aldi and Lidl and B+M this morning and the latter musta got up late and only got the leavings of the other 2 when they were all at market  

It gave rain and no wind and lots of humidity for today so I put a wash on before I went out and I’ve another quick one on now cos it’s a glorious Spring day here Or do I mean summer now we’re in BST… 

YoungBlueEyes

He’s let me wiggle it about and he’s walking on it so he’s fine *phew*

Anyway. Look what you people made me buy today! The ‘cherry’ still needs a new home, but the Ska can go in its hole, and that leaves me a pot for it. Lidl also had calamondin with fruits and flowers on it, if anybody needs a replacement…. 

Hope you can make it out through all the bad weather and grottiness we’re having 

ArbitraryRandom

Had a quick walk around the garden today and I think spring is finally actually arriving (only a couple of months late ) 

I've got blue bells flowering in the lawn, my medlar is in fine leaf, the quince has a few, and one apple and the pear are just starting to think about blossoming (still no leaves on either) - the other apples, the cherry and fig are buttoned up tight still. Plenty of buds, so they're alive! but not interested in getting out of bed quite yet. 

Farway

Oh YBE, another one fallen for figgy delights . I can't quite see, but does it give the variety name?

With the delphinium, my slugs are their way, smelt it from here.

It was me about buying plants, Home Bargains is my destination, mainly for composty stuff, and some hen, not slug, eggs, but now I want one of them there Hydrangea Paniculata if I spot one. Seen them in the flesh at RHS Wisley and I think one would go very well at the volunteer place, no room in my garden.

Rain held off, so blackberry final pruning, plenty of blackberry blossom buds and same with apples, have to wait a bit before I put the oven on for a crumble.

My other pear blossom is now open, with the bees hopefully getting to work on them

Now the exciting bit, remember when I took fuchsia cuttings early this year? With a bit of question if good or bad timing?

Proof of the pudding time!

Potted three of them on just now, with the other four tomorrow

Ignore the March writing, I blame the clocks &  Brexit

YoungBlueEyes

Aww bluebells Arb, they’re such a joy  

Label Farway - 





Theyre £14.99 if anyone else wants one. So with my apple and pear free from Lovely Neighbour, the Ska being a fiver and this at £14.99, that’s 4 trees at £20. They just need to start producing now 

I’ll leave my delphinium in it’s pot for now then. I’ve not seen them to buy for years. Granny had rows and rows of them, ah she really loved them and called them ‘delfts’ cos that the colour hers were. Hopefully mine are mislabelled 🤞🏻 If I’ve any good karma built up, please let them be delft blue :pray: 

Dustyevsky

ArbitraryRandom said:

Dustyevsky said:

ArbitraryRandom said:

Looking at it, I'd guess it's a small abscess (either a cut or bite that got a bit infected). If that's right, with my cats, I know what I'd do... which I don't think I'm allowed to post on here?

Why on earth not? We aren't supposed to give human health advice beyond, “Mind how you go!” but cats aren't human, even if they think they are!

Not sure, but I remember posts being removed from the pets sub forum on the basis that we're not vets so shouldn't be recommending home treatment. But it's always horrible as well when you're looking after someone else's animal trying to guess what they would do/want you to do.

Ah, the Pet Forum! I remember going there once, when “just looking” a long, long time ago. Say no more!

No, we aren't vets, but like taking responsibility for our own health, we must make judgements over when to seek a professional opinion. With something like a small wound, cleaning and allowing time for the natural healing processes to kick-in is probably what most of us would do. I take your point about it being someone else's animal, because we have 15-30 of those here every winter. Invariably, some go lame or have an 'off' day, but I've learned to observe carefully and give time for recovery. Only on rare occasions does the problem progress, or persist, to the point where intervention is needed.

Dustyevsky

Crikey, this thread is moving quickly!  I turn my back, the Forum goes haywire, Bluey buys a fig and Farway roots fuchsias. We can forget the delphinium, because the slugs will have that for tea. ( Granny could buy slug pellets that worked! ) Oh, I see Farway's already said that!  

I'm jealous, of course. Only one fig last year and my fuchsia's 'Irishman's cuttings' failed. Oooh, self-censorship strikes!

Well, the persons I disrespected this morning were correct, to an extent, but it's not exactly persisting-down like they claimed it would; just wet enough to make a seventy-something come indoors. I'm not sorry, as I've probably done more than my physio would like, trying to locate and dig-up a water pipe I buried in 2010. My memory being as it is, I had to guess where I connected to the main pipe in the central path......and I got it wrong, so I dug out 3-4 metres of pipe before finding the connection, all of it buried a ridiculous 40cm down! At least I don't now have to dig up that amount of path, which has huge amounts of carp and stones in its foundations; I can intercept with a mere metre of digging, and I've enough pipe pulled out now to reach the new polytunnel location.

As for the rest of the polypipe, which goes to the other end of the old site, the bad news is that it passes under some  old deep beds, but the good news is it's longer than I need, so I may just leave it down in the difficult places until the digger arrives.

And speaking of 20mm polypipe, here are the photos of the bird / butterfly /cat proof covers I promised a few days ago. This one is currently keeping the hens out of a boggy place:

The bottom frame is 38x25mm batten, held together at the corners with Lidl galvanised brackets (now rusty.) The pipe is drilled and screwed to the frame, leaving 'legs' sticking down. (length optional) The top bar is a narrower trellis batten, as the 20mm pipe has enough rigidity. Obviously, black pipe would be more aesthetically pleasing, but we inherited a lot of blue.

In the second picture, I've pulled out the movable bottom batten to which the netting's attached with cable ties. It's folded under in Picture 1. This may be moved up and down to give access inside the cover.

Mrs Dusty puts the netting on. It's held with cable ties and some staples....I'm a bit vague about how she does this, but it works! When over a deep bed, the movable batten just hangs down, its weight keeping the netting in place.

Size is about 1m wide and 2m or so long. This one is getting a little old and tatty and needs new netting for the coming season. 

ArbitraryRandom

Thank you - that looks like something my diy skills might just be able to manage (maybe, if we pretend my first attempt doesn't exist) - might wait till the weather warms up a bit though so I don't get sawdust on the carpet  

YoungBlueEyes

Back to autumn today, it's damp and muggy and raining but mild out there (7'). Seems a bit mean when we had such a lovely spring day yesterday. His Holeyness hasn't arrived to demand breakfast yet so I don't know what state he's in, but I did see a jet black cat in the garden earlier. I think 3 cats is enough for any dog person though, so my name needs taking off that list! 

My delphinium has survived the night, not a bite out of it. It was in the conservatory mind but still  

I think your blue pipe is preferable to black Dusty, have you got blue pipe Arb? Your physio is gonna have a fit if you tell them about that work you've done Dusty  

My fuchsia bits didn't do anything in the end, so I binned them. The ones I stabbed in to the garden can stop cos they're good chunky bits so I might use them to hold something up if necessary. Yours look good and healthy Farway, and I'm not jealous at all ha haa!

Forecasts all agree it'll persist it down for most of the day, so I might end up raking out me cupboards. Not a job I like tbh cos it nearly always ends in an argument. How closely should you stick to the sell by dates - himself  "strictly the week before", me "ooh ages after" (That is not medical or veterinarian advice etc).