Strawberries, spuds and pelargoniums
I stared at the dinky little pelargonium plants on my mother’s sunny kitchen windowsill. “I will never grow them again,” she announced. “Why on earth not? They’re so cute” “They have taken ages and ages. I’ve got fed up with them.” My Waterloo was growing strawberries from seed this year. Suddenly I understand how she felt. I’ve begun to loathe my five surviving plants (a pack of fifteen seeds cost £4.19). Sown late January they germinated quite quickly in the electric propagator. Since then they have developed their...
read morePosies on the spring gate side stand
Last week I popped into Homebase to see if they had potted up flowering spring bulbs on sale. And they did! At 25%-30% of the usual price these are even cheaper than buying bulbs. They would enable us to start selling posies on the gate side stand and then plant the bulbs in the garden for next year. When I got home I tackled the posies. It was fun looking around the garden for foliage and other flowers. Luckily the winter flowering honeysuckle is blooming so I added some of this to each of the posies – the smell of these tiny creamy...
read moreCanine meningitis
At five yesterday evening the phone rang. “Hello this is Lara. The results have come back from the spinal tap. Inca has meningitis.” My head whirled. People die of meningitis. “Is it treatable?” “Yes but she has bad meningitis. She needs to stay with us.” “Is it contagious?” “No canine meningitis is not infectious. Your other dogs are safe.” It’s been a bit of a roller coaster ride with Inca – she was deteriorating fast. So she was finally referred to the Animal Health Trust yesterday morning. They are running other...
read morePet insurance
No time for tunnelling today as Inca is ill. She wasn’t well yesterday and a lengthy trip to the vet threw up few clues. She was vomiting all night – white bedclothes are great for working out how much this has happened. So it was back to the vet today. Inca is insured but we have to pay the vet’s bills and then claim the money back from the insurance company, which can take months. The balance on my account was sparse so I plucked up the courage to say that I couldn’t actually pay any more bills – yesterday’s was over 60...
read moreA strange discovery
Today I decided to do my digging in the morning. There seemed to be many more bricks this time. Three barrow loads to a square meter. I was day dreaming about digging up buried treasure. Then I dug up some hefty, rotten logs. These uncovered a paving slab. Suddenly things were looking interesting. Why would someone bury a paving slab under a lawn? I prised up the slab with my fork to reveal a brick wall buried under the earth. There was no mortar between the bricks and an old drain pipe was set into the bottom of the wall. Feeling like a...
read moreBuying compost in bulk can save you loads of money
Every day, when it’s not raining or freezing, I spend an hour digging in the garden. Depending on how spritely I feel, I can usually dig a square metre. It is mind numbingly slow. Thank goodeness for my DAB sports radio which I bought to stop myself going mad when I was painting 38 Georgian windows and doors, inside and out. Four coats of paint outside three coats inside. Do the math! The reason why the digging is taking so long is that many years ago a number of pig stys and outhouses were obviously bulldozed, covered with a layer of...
read moreRevisiting oven baked cheese toasties
I was going to write about Darina Allen’s toasties and when I looked the recipe up on the Internet I discovered that I’d written about them before. On Friday, faced with two crusts of bread, a lump of cheese and two bantam eggs I made them again using Andrew this time. They were scrummy. If you are going down the Andrew route put the toasties on the metal tray on the lowest rack and grill for 12-15 mins at 200c. Just enough time to have a shower and dress before brunch! And of course, cheese on toast is the perfect excuse to tuck...
read moreHurray for Google Street View
When I heard that Google Street View had been updated to include 95% of the UK, I immediately fired up the computer. I spent the day visiting all the houses that I’ve lived in, the schools and colleges I’ve attended. I also took a virtual tour of the places where I have worked and the towns where I’ve lived. It’s incredible how much extra one remembers just by looking at a photograph of a place. As Google Street View only goes on roads I was only able to see [art of the park where I played as a child. There was the long...
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