And now we go again...

PennysIntoPounds

Bah to the soil stack, but at least you found out before Very Rainy Season in spring. Fingers crossed for you it won't be too pricy to sort, reassuring to have a recommended tradesperson to ask too

foxgloves

Oh what a nuisance about the leak, although much better to have found it than for it to carry on undiagnosed. Water ingress always annoying & potentially expensive, but much worse if it isn't spotted early so at least you are onto it now.
Well done on resisting plants. If I do buy any these days, I am like my Mum & inspect a good few to find one with a crown which I know I will easily be able to split the following year for an extra free one. I have found with my borders (quite a big garden but not huge) that it works best to have a few signature plants which are easy to divide & repeat around the rest of the garden. I do fill in gaps with other things, but it's surprising how much of the heavy lifting a few old cottage garden faithfuls can do. Growing from seed saves lots of money too, but does require the space to do it.
F x

EssexHebridean

PiP - getting it sorted before spring is very definitely on my "must do" list now. Not heard from MrEH if he's heard from Steve The Roof Man  - so will see where we're at when I get back tonight. 

Foxgloves that makes sense about the plants - there were a few bits I knew I definitely wanted once we had a garden to put them in - the Hydrangea was one, and as I think you know I did buy that a while back, and it's now potted up and out the front. There is already a winter jasmine peeping through the fence from one side, and a regular (non-winter!) one planted in on the other, and we also have a Clematis - I've not traced that back as yet to work out whether that is coming through from the Neighbours with the Big Extension or actually in our own garden. Where we've taken stuff out that was there when we moved in we have also tried to save as much as possible - some bits are already potted up and out the front, some more campanula will be getting split out to go there in due course as well. we also have plentiful bulbs springing up all over the place now - we planted 3 or 4 small packs ourselves, but there are a lot more coming up now than we had anything to do with, so the plan is to let them do their thing this year and plant our veggies around them where needed, then we'll dig them up once they've flowered and relocate at that stage once we have a better idea of what everything is. 

Having just agreed with SA over on her thread that some form of housework plan is needed, that has prompted me to liberate the extendable window cleaning pole from the office - I've been threatening to do so for a while, so will hang onto it at home until we've had a chance to clean the skylights and suck other upstairs windows as we can reach with it, and will then bring it back. 

In other news, I realised that I was being over enthusiastic with getting my MoT Test and service done tomorrow - I would have been far earlier than I am really happy to be with it, so instead lovely Neil the Mechanic will be taking it next week instead. I don't mind a few days early, but TEN days early is just too much! 

girlatplay

Good that you have spotted the leak now and can get that sorted out.

It will be nice to see what comes up in your garden. Ours is a second hand new build so very little done in the way of planting. We (me) are going to be the ones to plant things for people to enjoy in years to come. I'm really looking forward to growing season.

jwil

Hope the leak is an easy fix

savingholmes

Hope the roofer comes up trumps for you and it's an easy fix as Jwil wrote.

Enjoy your evening of peace!

I'm looking forward to seeing what comes up in my garden. I've already found a potted heuchera and agapanthus they left presumably due to running out of time and energy. There are quite a few heucheras in my back border - and a huge plant that I think is bay - although I had no idea they could get that tall. I may need to give it a trim. I then have a lot of bamboo and grasses that I would want someone to hoik out for me as bamboo tends to spread and I hate most grasses. Hope you find lots of pleasant surprises in yours.  

EssexHebridean

Haha - not only can Bays get tall SH, they can do it at a serious pace as well! One of the "comedy plants" we left planted in front of the flat is a somewhat vigorous Bay tree - it reached the point that it needed regular haircuts as otherwise it got well past the point where 6'+ MrEH could reach to trim it! Allowing that the buyers are unlikely to have any clue what do with it, we're eagerly awaiting the spring to see if it tries to take over the world! Watch for suckers coming up around the base as well - although if you have pals who might want a bay they are easy to dig up, pot up and pass on! We too got rid of some grasses from ours - one good sized one got potted up and is now out the front, but the rest got green-binned I'm afraid! 

Fingers crossed on the leak jwil - we need to let him have some photos of where the stack comes through so that will be a job for MrEH at some stage - I'm not crawling into the corner where it is! Ironically since we realised where it was coming from we've had two days of unforecast drizzly rain...sigh!  

GAP It's so exciting being able to start from scratch effectively with a garden isn't it - I wouldn't have dreamed ours would turn out to have so many bulbs in it so it will be lovely to see what all those are. Because we didn't know, we planted some crocuses, some "mixed woodland" bulbs which I know included fritillaria - the "Snakes Head" variant that was my great Uncle's favourite, and also some Alliums which I'm hoping will give some nice tall focal points. The crocuses are definitely doing well - I reckon they might even flower by the weekend!

MSE Stuff:
- Mid Month lull still ongoing - the broadband DD went today, CT will be tomorrow, and then that should be it for the month. 
- Banks checked and all fine
- Tea last night did end up as the pasta bake that I was thinking about - made enough to sort us for food tomorrow as well so that's good, and means I'll leave the liver and onions I was planning to next week. The bake used up roughly half of the chunk of squash, the last bit of chorizo, half the cauli and I also threw in some broccoli as well although there is still some of that left - I'll probably throw it into tonight's risotto.
- We are proving today that there IS such a thing as a free lunch - the pizza ordering at the rugby club last night was somewhat over enthusiastic so MrEH brought three slices home with him - so we're having a slice and a half each cold for lunch. That will leave a pair of rolls and a filling for another day which will be useful. 
- I need to make the big payment for my airshow ticket today - realised a few days ago that I'd never got the payment link so had to request that, I have it now so will deal with that a bit later. Theoretically I have until the end of the month, but I'd sooner get it done in good time in case I run into any issues I think. 

Other stuff:
- Got the bedding that was washed over the weekend folded and away last night, and transferred the wet load from the WM to the airer.
- Next load sitting in the WM ready - the machine is still clinging on to life...I now feel like we're playing a bizarre game of jeopardy with it as every load brings us closer to the catastrophic failure point! 
- batch 2 of marmalade will be got underway tonight, and finished tomorrow. 
- I need to order more labels. Annoyingly the place we will be on Friday afternoon used to have a watery place store, but it's just closed! Gah!  In fact, I've just broken off posting to make the order from the big river site - as we won't be able to get the jars put away until we have the labels, so this time convenience of Prime's next day delivery trumps wanting to buy them from an actual shop if possible. 2 rolls for £6.49 anyway - a very decent price and that will last us years! we prefer to use nice looking labels for them as well as some jars are always given as gifts. 
- I'm still keeping up with the yoga thing - on Day 20 of the challenge now,. Had one day gap over the weekend largely because there wasn't a practical point I could squeeze it in. will probably have at least 1 day gap while we're away this weekend too - that's fine though. 

MrEH tells me that the new squirrel proof feeder for the fat balls isn't as squirrel proof as it was advertised as being - as they can get their heads in through the gaps! I'll review whether it seems to be any sort of deterrent at all, and if it's not then it might well go back to Lil's for a refund as that does seem to be a pretty major failing, and if it's no cop I'd sooner have my £4.99 back! (If we are taking it back though, I will remember to measure the gaps so we can compare with any others we might buy to replace it). 

girlatplay

I love free food.

So do the squirrels, apparently.

TallGirl

Re Washing machines not sure if you know about Insider https://www.theinsidersnet.com/en-gb/campaigns/info/68224/info.htm but they have a washing machine to test. You buy it and you then get a % back usually 50% when you’ve done the review. Just a thought I’ve done it several times it’s not that much work. 

savingholmes

girlatplay said:

I love free food.

So do the squirrels, apparently.

Made me laugh. 

Check out utubes on squirrel deterrant bird feeders - the squirrels are so intelligent they can even bypass obstacle courses and get the grub. I think that most of such products are therefore doomed to fail. I enjoy watching squirrels - but accept that they can eat/take a lot and that then leaves less for the birds...