Cheery's path to fulfilment - finishing the DIY, looking after myself, appreciating the garden 🌻

EssexHebridean

Oh Cheery, your poor Mum - just goes to show how easy it is to do something like that, doesn't it! Hopefully she's now got to grips with the crutches and is finding getting about a bit easier now!

Absolutely right to strim or mow where you need to to make thing accessible too! I don't believe that No Mow May was ever intended to be everyone allowing every patch of grass out there to grow wild for a month if it wasn't practical to do so - just getting people to focus on maybe not mowing just from habit!

rtandon27

Cheery - we planned on no mow May bit the inclement weather dictated we did so a month early - as soon as our bog of a backyard is relatively dry, we shall give it a haircut and then do some pruning.
I take great delight in knowing that the plastic grass neighbours have got their collective backs up over the foot high grass!

Fortune_Smiles

We've mown our lawn and orchard but left the meadow apart from an access track.  So 4/5s left unmown.  Not just for May either as the meadow won't be cut now until September/October.  Some wildflowers prefer low sward.  So, unless you're keeping a manicured, single species lawn, mowing can be good for the environment too.  We have common mouse-ear chickweed growing in the orchard and on the access track in the meadow and that prefers low sward.  Its seeds provide food for the small yellow underwing moth caterpillar.  We've seen the moth in the meadow for the first time this spring.  Germander Speedwell too - the favourite food of the Heath Fritillary Butterfly, one of our rarest butterflies.

No Mow May is important for pollinators and helping spring flowers to set seed but, as you know, our most threatened habit (wildflower meadows) need a whole spring and summer without mowing.

Fortune x

Cheery_Daff

Thank you all for your kind thoughts for my mum, and your comments about no mow May 😊 Mum is doing ok (although she's still off work and learned today that the walk in centre forgot to refer her to the fracture clinic 🙄). A friend fell this week too and broke her arm! Be careful out there folks 😱

I have had a rather busy but productive working week, and am glad it is now over 😁 We have been on an adventure this evening - Mr Cheery doing a small musical performance in a rather cheerful little late night cafe thing in the outskirts of Manchester. It's a kind of club night, and I was one of just two audience members not performing 😂 At least it wasn't difficult to get a chair! 😂 I always find an event on a Thursday is a useful punctuation at the end of the week for me - and a good reason to make me stop work on time and not work into the evening. 

Tomorrow Mr Cheery has a friend coming to stay, and they're going to a musical thing in our local cafe in the evening. Somehow I've got out of it, despite having no other plans 😂 I think Mr Cheery realised tickets were £20 each, and was reluctant for us to spend £40, so he made an excuse for me, which I am quite happy about, as it means I get a few hours alone in the house 😂 (I think he also wanted to give me a break after tonight which, while cheerful, was not exactly peaceful and melodious...).

Anyway, I hope my weekend will be a happy combination of 

* hanging out in the garden
* carrying on with the patio
* pottering and tidying in the house
* flute practice
* bit of batch cooking

😊 Friend is coming over mid afternoon i think, so Mr C will pick her up from town and we can have some tea together before they trot out again 😊

Back at some point with financial news (oh, and did you all catch that the Co-op are removing Everyday Rewards scheme?? It was already downgraded a couple of years ago, but we'll still be losing £2.20 a month. Dont think I've seen it mentioned on here yet)

LadyWithAPlan

Sorry to read about your mum and hope she heals quick 

your garden  sounds lush! 

Tescodealqueen

Yes I knew about the Everyday rewards but since they removed the across the board payment we didn’t get much as I use a “for points” credit card for online purchases, my dad gives me cash for paying his bills for him by direct debit so spend that cash in shops so if we get more than two quid in rewards  recently it was celebration time

Cheery_Daff

Yes, that was a shame. There's been a max of £2.20 anyway for a while. We usually meet it as we have a joint account and tend to buy a few things in small batches from places that don't take the Amex card

Cheery_Daff

Afternoon MSE chums 😊

Well, what an exciting weekend! Did you see the northern lights?? I've never seen them before but was treated to an absolutely glorious show, right over the house, last night 😍😍 Gosh, what an experience. I took hundreds of rather rubbish photographs and was outside for 2 hours, wandering round the field, lying in the drive, balancing on gates, trying to get a good picture. Such a show, I'm so pleased I saw it 😊😊😊



I took that standing on our driveway, just with my phone. Such an experience, I feel so very fortunate to have seen it 😊😊😊

Mr Cheery and our friend enjoyed their gig, and arrived back to find me in a field in the dark 😂 We went out for breakfast this morning, friend has gone home, I've been reading my book on the swing seat, and am now just having a break and a cuppa in the middle of making patio progress.



Plenty still to go, and I won't finish this weekend I don't think, but I am plodding on nicely 😊 I'm going to get some creeping thyme for in the cracks, or else it will just fill with weeds (well, it might do that anyway!) 

Not as warm today but still very pleasant to be outside 😊

FreetodoasIlike

Wow! That photo is amazing. I’ve never seen the northern lights, but I would love to. 

Cheery_Daff

FreetodoasIlike said:

Wow! That photo is amazing. I’ve never seen the northern lights, but I would love to. 

Thank you! Apparently there's likely to be some activity tonight too, so get out there if you can!