Next steps; grip-relaxing bimbling, and avoiding the temptations

Suffolk_lass

Makingabobor2 said:

Are borlotti beans easy to grow? I've never grown beans at all

Yes @Makingabobor2, they are a bit like runner beans. They look exactly the same when growing, so if you do go for some, plant them in a different place. The big difference is that runners will grow when the weather isn't great, the borlottis need sun to ripen properly and they stay on the vine longer until the pods start to dry. The outside of the pods start to go pink, when fully formed, and then characteristically get darker. I try and pick them before they dry out completely - at that point the beans inside can be kept, dried, whereas I want them plump and speckled to freeze. The skins of the long beans go a lovely scarlet colour. If you pick a little early you get white borlotti beans rather than speckled red and white, but they are all good in winter warmings stews and casseroles

Makingabobor2

Suffolk_lass said:

Makingabobor2 said:

Are borlotti beans easy to grow? I've never grown beans at all

Yes @Makingabobor2, they are a bit like runner beans. They look exactly the same when growing, so if you do go for some, plant them in a different place. The big difference is that runners will grow when the weather isn't great, the borlottis need sun to ripen properly and they stay on the vine longer until the pods start to dry. The outside of the pods start to go pink, when fully formed, and then characteristically get darker. I try and pick them before they dry out completely - at that point the beans inside can be kept, dried, whereas I want them plump and speckled to freeze. The skins of the long beans go a lovely scarlet colour. If you pick a little early you get white borlotti beans rather than speckled red and white, but they are all good in winter warmings stews and casseroles

Thanks for that. I might see if Ican find some space for some

greent

Oof - didn't realise that you have a new diary, sl! I've now caught upon all that's been happening and bookmarked you - sorry to hear about both lots of health issues.

Thank you for the motorhome list (many months ago now!) - do you have plans to use yours this year? (I am full of a horrendous cold, so must confess that I may have missed any mention of it...)

Suffolk_lass

Happy Easter to anyone reading.

I sit here, just me and the dog this morning. Mr Sl has gone out on his (motor)bike, and DS & P have just called off from coming to join us because he is clearly coming down with something. She is working tomorrow and needs the car (a nurse) so if he revives, it will be just him for the day. I don't mind. A good catch up with domestic things I put off and some gardening for me.

I have just potted on the first two Guatemalan (blue banana) squashes that have a pair of good strong leaves and have out-grown the tiny seed cell they were in. These are what @foxgloves grows and recommended! I plan two for me and two for either the community garden or to sell. In that vein, I need to put some more beans in pots today. I have breakfast radishes ready to go in somewhere too.

No bees today, I released the five Queens that I introduced on Thursday in cages, yesterday afternoon and I want to leave them to it for a few days to make sure they are laying before I start moving things around.

The diets - he is over 1.5 stones lighter than when this started in February. Me? 13 days in and I have lost 8.4lbs. It's 6 weeks and one day to go on this ultra strict regime. I can do this. I am almost 25% of the way through the initial part! It has been quite hard so far. I only now realise how much I reach for things like a cracker or biscuit, or a packet of crisps when I forget to eat. We both remain in the technically obese/overweight for BMI but it takes no account for muscle or strength. I regularly lift 40K - + when seeing to my bees. He is still built like a prop forward although leaner than the modern ones.

Just had my big dose of caffeine and time to go and tackle some bits I walk past thinking "Ooh, I must do that!" and then I forget

Suffolk_lass

I omitted to press post comment yesterday on what looked like being a bit more of a "What can I do indoors to avoid the pile of underwear I know I need to sort through?" day. Well, I did it. Both drawers were gone through and all bras not the size I am wearing, were put in a plastic box, ready to be deployed as I reduce into them.

Gardening
Saturday, I did some pruning, to keep the archway clear of a vicious berberis (albeit in flower, they are lethal), a hydrangea, the wisteria, where a bit was blocking the path and another shrub on the other side of the walkway (the name escapes me for the moment). Then I attempted to remove some creeping thistle in the veg beds (we think they arrived in some compost. Lastly I attacked the roots of a self-seeded cotoneastor that was almost a tree in our patio gravel garden. I also found new brambles, some lurking just under the surface, while others, with their characteristic brown-orange first shoots, were starting to hide. What with these, the St John's Wort, periwinkle and nettles that are all trying to take over, it is no surprise that some plants have moved into the cracks between the paving slabs! We have long talked about making the patio a bit bigger and doing away with the gravel garden. At the very least, we would like to move the plants we do want up onto the "lawn" at the top of four shallow steps, removing the turves that appear to be mostly moss, with some ajuga, and a smattering of primroses that have self seeded there.

Time for a bit of a conflab with Mr Sl. It's a question of priorities, money and timing. I am still waiting for my new workshop to appear (6 years since I stopped work) I planned some reupholstery as well as hive related products and currently have no dedicated space. We have the permanent building in the garden (the pig shed) but it needs demolishing and rebuilding as rats and rabbits have been mining underneath and the slab is badly cracked. It is full, so preceding this we need to have some sort of storage for the contents (elsewhere in the garden) and have a darned good sort out of what is in there. 

Indoors
We sorted out the washing machine. Having had an engineer out (£60!) who was unable to find the cause a month or three back, he left the machine with a wobble (it's on a brick floor) that has got progressively worse. It was extremely unhappy and so was I. I like to do my towels (white) on a hot wash high spin overnight and have not been able to. Anyway, a cycle just stopped the other day. Completely refused to spin and kept telling me it had around 34 minutes left (for four hours). So enter Mr Sl with a levelling spanner. Who knew there was such a thing, or that it was that thing in the drawer that had appeared next to two mini whisks and some skewers? Well apparently he did. This stopped it walking and clanking, but the screaming was still there. And it sounded as though a belt was slipping or bearings were being stripped. It's quite an old machine. So I decided to drain it after turning everything off and emptying the drum of sopping wet clothes.

Sadly, when we installed the machine, with a shelf above and the tumble dryer on the shelf, drain hole access was not taken into consideration. So a jug, towels and a tray were deployed. I managed to drain the water but I really struggled to remove the thing that gathers felt. Anyway, fast forward 20 minutes of wiggling, wrangling and prising, and it eventually released. It was fair stuffed with fabric, threads and a few bit of 10mm gravel (these bits of gravel are why I no longer wear some of my favourite shoes - the tread is a magnet for this size stone and they make me clack around the house when they are attached, sounding like a child wearing its mother's stilettos, until they release [which is a whole other pain thing, worse than treading on lego, and through my slippers]). Sadly Mr Sl only seems to buy shoes that collect and deploy gravel. Clearly some had been picked up with laundry, and had found its' way into the already gathering debris, held in by the bits of felted fabric. Fortunately, there was no soap scum slime, due to the infinitesimally small quantity of laundry gloop I use. Anyway I cleaned it all out, I flushed the machine through, ran an empty drain and an empty spin cycle. Then I put the sodden laundry back in and rewashed it with no detergent. Perfect!

I know I go on a bit but the details of this successful endeavour (and indeed the underlying cause) may be of use to another person on here. I shall put a BF (brought forward, for those of you too young to have ever done physical filing) in my calendar so I don't leave it for some years before doing this next time. It really is the difficulty getting to it that acts as the deterrent. If I ever move, I shall have a pull out drawer for all the laundry supplied, topped with a pull-out shelf for the basket to sit on, when loading or unloading the machine, under the shelf that has the washing machine and then another shelf with the tumble dryer on. Sadly here, the bottom of the fuse box is only 5cm above the top of the TD and the width is not sufficient. Our only option would be to reverse the white goods. This involves changes to pipes and wastes, or so Mr Sl would have me believe. 

Right, time to post and go... have a good day everyone

Humdinger1

Utterly hilarious @Suffolk_lass! I remember my DD asking for 'just one more clip-clop in your shoes, mummy' and her insisting that my mother had put stilettos under her bed 'for me to find'.  There's something gruesomely fascinating about clearing shower pipes and washing machine cavities, I find.  I really do need to get out more...love Humdinger xx 

Watty1

Great work on the washing machine.   I am entirely unable to find the filter that collects the fluff on mine and  PPH informed me there was not one when i queried it.  I have a horrid feeling the built in machine needs removing and that said filter is very inaccessible - so - I file it under "one day on the never never" to investigate further, then, read your post and think, really should investigate so will quickly skip to next diary 

Suffolk_lass

@Watty1 if you have a front-loading machine, they are normally on the front (a flat plate cover that you touch the edge of (where, varies, but often with the manual drain pipe, so near the bottom)) and it hinges open. On top-loading machines it is often behind or under the agitator, behind a plate of some sort. They all have them. If you can't immediately find it, the manual for your machine (often online) will tell you where and how to clear it. Or, you could ask the audience on here, as we do on this forum...

rtandon27

Suffolk_lass said:

...Or, you could ask the audience on here, as we do on this forum...

So true - in our house, OH often says - why don't you ask your ladies what they think about that? or - you should tell your ladies that, it would come in very handy!

Watty1

Definitely not visible on the front.  Machine is a Miele 2819 according to the front of it.    You are prompting me to investigate google!