Yawn Yawn Wakey Wakey 2025

Good evening all. @Ergates it sounds like I had very similar weather to you today. The wind was keen which spoiled a rather sun shiny day. None the less, I enjoyed being outside. How lovely that you have seen some tiny bunnies in your garden.I'm afraid Cricket would probably have done something unspeakable to them. @lizzie27 your chicken in cider sounds scrumptious. @Penny_Forthem I am pleased that Maisie went off on her mini holiday without too much stress. My cat Lily used to get onto my neatly packed clothes in the suitcase and make a comfy bed for herself as I prepared for holidays. It did get to the point where I used to hide the case so that she didn't know I was going away - talk about feeling guilty! I cannot believe that stunning turquoise blue sky - absolutely marvellous.
Your plot is looking very good @Allotment Boy - ready for the next step now. Will you be doing your next lot of digging this weekend @Ante1?
So sorry to read of the damage done to your roses by the deer @Busy-Lizzie.Hopefully they will re-shoot or is the damage too great?

 

Evening everyone.

A proper gardening day today - more pottering and thinking than hefty work, but still rewarding. I have applied for a second garden waste bin! I didn’t realise we could! I’ll be chuffed to bits if that happens.

Have a relaxing evening all, after your ups or downs today.

 

No this weekend @Ladybird4. Probably next one. I still have few things to finish around my windows. And of course around seedlings. At this point I have about 300 little plants on my care.

 

I have two green bins @AuntyRach - one full size and one half size. A man from the council came round to take a look at my garden before my second bin was agreed. I am going to say good night to you all now and am off to read. See you all tomorrow. Enjoy whatever you have got planned for this evening.

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We can apply for up to three green bins, @AuntyRach, we just have to pay for each one.
We find ours a blessing and a curse! They are like hungry beasts that have to be fed! The fortnightly collection seems to come round every six or seven days, and we are forever dashing out at the last minute to generate enough waste to go in them.
However, we no longer have to take any garden waste to the tip, which does save on wear and tear on the car, and not introducing dirt and creepy crawlies into it. No more horrid experiences of having a spider abseiling down from the ceiling onto one’s head while driving!
Also, because we are mean, ( or is it frugal?) we detest not using the service we’ve paid for, so we keep the garden clearing going throughout the winter, rather than strolling out in May when the weather is better, and wondering why it looks like Jurassic Park.

 

Evening all. Just home from double dancing and enjoying a tisane before bed. Paso followed by Bachata is good fun but lots of steps and technique for little brains to absorb and retain.

Spent my morning making my thin tomato, orange and ginger soup, setting off a wash and not managing to cut the cardboard surround for a piece of slow stitching I want to frame. Got distracted by a problem with Excel when trying to update a list of who wants what for an order I need to place. Spent 2 hours struggling with cell formats cos it thought it knew better than me about what format I needed for the cells. Humph! but all fixed now.

No green bins here tho we can buy wooden compost bins. We have 3 of them plus open piles stashed behing the polytunnel - the chooks love those - and more piles out in the general plot. OH wanted to take our Xmas tree to the dump but I've stopped him. It's going along our boundary under some trees to make habitat as it rots down. Manicured we are not.

Shame about your roses @Busy-Lizzie but they should recover well if you can keep out the munchers and browsers.

Set to be warm here tomorrow pm so maybe I'll manage a wee potter in the garden but I have jobs to do indoors before I disappear for the weekend.

Have a good sleep everyone.

 

A very good morning one and all. Looking good outside. This morning I have to make a quick dash to my nearest M&S Food Hall to return some clothing I bought online. Such a faff! Its in the same town I play Canasta, so I will take the bus.

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@Ante1 I hope that you get the jobs around your windows finished today - after work of course. Cricket fed, I'm fed and enjoying my morning tea.

 

Good morning all off to hairdressers and then work which seems like a waste of a good gardening day but cannot be helped. Roll on retirement! Sunny here though cold but I don’t mind that when I have brambles to tackle they make me very hot and bothered. Hoping for a dry weekend but it’s not looking good!

 

Commiserations on your roses @Busy-Lizzie hopefully the new fencing reinforcements will do the trick.

Thanks for all the advice, my Munstead Wood are now settled in a large plastic tub filled with proper garden soil. They should be happy in there whilst I make a final decision on their new home. As said they are a lovely rose and a better site may be all they need. It seems very hard to get properly deep red roses now. I think I know where they are going but I have some alliums planted in that spot and only just showing so don’t want to risk chopping them up. It’s a fairly empty bed as until last summer it was full of shade loving plants. We had an old laurel tree removed and it’s now a very sunny bed, so all change!

Gloriously sunny here so plan is a repeat of yesterday, walk this morning and gardening this afternoon. Weeding planned for today. I have a very relaxed live and let live attitude but need to keep some of thugs in check. Today I will be targeting the wood avens. I had read it was a primary food source for the Grizzled Skipper butterfly so was quite relaxed about it. It’s taken advantage of my kindness and I’ve since read that I am about as likely to see a Grizzled Skipper as a polar bear so enough is enough!

We’re rarely up early @lizzie27 We have a very slow relaxed start, reading the papers, forum and listening to the radio with several cups of tea before we actually get up.

Slow stitching sounds intriguing @Obelix-Vendée ?

Hope everyone enjoys their new green bins, bunny watching, holidays and gardening

 

You sound like us, @Butterfly6. We woke around 8am, and have had breakfast in bed while checking in on here, checking the news headlines, and finishing our coffee. OH is watching ‘Workshop Wednesday’ from an Australian tank museum, this week they are renovating some armoured vehicle. He just loves that sort of thing.
I have made a to-do list for today, a little bit of paperwork, some laundry plus some gardening jobs. I want to start some flower seeds off in my new propagator, a bit scary as I’ve never done it before. I’ve bought seed trays, and compost, and even a small watering can with a proper rose.
I also treated myself to a beautiful blue and white senetti, and I need to do some deadheading. Hope I can keep it alive, it’s in a pot outside the front door.
Had to look up wood avens, I’m pretty sure we have some of those around, I’ll probably leave them as they don’t seem to be a problem in comparison with some of the other stuff out there!

 

I quite like the wood avens @Ergates but they have got the upper hand in one area. Usually I’m quite diligent at snipping off the flowers when go over but was too relaxed last couple of years and they self seeded like mad.

Senetti are wonderful colours. Haven’t had one for some years. I used to have them in our spring window boxes when we were in our city centre flat. They weren’t very long lived for me but I didn’t really have anywhere suitable (or much space) to keep them when it finished flowering. Our balcony space was inset with an overhang so quite shady. We fitted window boxes on the railings at the front of the balcony and on the Juliette balacony railings upstairs widows - all in full sun.

 

Good morning all.

I'm not an early riser either. I wake between 7 and 8am then I go down and put the kettle on. In winter I light the breakfast room wood burning oven, when I'm in France. Then I take coffee upstairs and we sit in bed for up to an hour, sometimes more, and we read the papers, emails etc on our phones. Before I had a Smartphone I used to read a book. I often do Wordle and The Times Quiz in bed too. I find it harder in France to get up as I think I'm always on English time!

I meant to say, @Allotment Boy, congratulations on your plot, it looks really good.

No deer this morning, but I don't like having to have the electric fence. Have to open it every time OH wants to mow or I want to push a wheelbarrow up the garden. Also, it isn't pretty. The canes weren't chewed, just the unfolding leaves and shoots nipped off.

I must get back to the kitchen painting, didn't do any yesterday.

 

Morning all, my chicken in cider was a great success, I'm thankful to say but I think next time I'll slow cook it in the oven, less of a faff than on the stove as I had a job to keep it simmering.
A nice sunny morning so far and forecast to get a tad warmer so as I've mainly finished the loft tidying for the moment, think I'll go out later and feed all the roses and have a potter.

Good luck with the seed sowing @Ergates. I must confess I don't do much of that any more, apart from OH's beans and peas, I haven't got the patience. My friend is going to give me a couple of tomato seedlings so that's sorted.

OH and his friend have already gone down to the garage to continue the car restoration job and I'm keeping well out of the way. My job is to provide coffee and biccies when called for!

That looks a huge allotment in your pic @Allotment Boy, no wonder you needed a man with machine to help out.

 

Gorgeous red sunset last night but today is mostly grey. Dry and feels cold cos of the wind but should get to 18C out of the wind this pm. I have driven OH to physio, bought a ready made picture frame for 22 € - will need to trim my stitching a bit but made to measure would have been 100€. Done a raid on the Vietnamese shop for ground coriander and decent soy sauce and found they had split green peas. Yum. I can feel a pea and ham soup coming on.

I am not a lark by nature and, especially when it's cold or wet, can lie snuggled in bed for hours reading my Kindle. OH usually brings me coffee and juice in bed. I don't do breakfast unless I'm staying in a B&B or hotel and that's rare these days.

@Busy-Lizzie in Belgium we had a variegated holly hedge between us and the Belgian Blancs Bleus in the pasture next door. Every spring they would lean over the barbed wire fence and nibble the tender new shoots and I ended up with a short fat holly hedge. I ended up tying in panels of that rusty iron mesh builders use to reinforce concrete. I cut it to my shoulder height and soon I had a lovely hedge and they still kept the tops trimmed but without pranging their throats on barbs. Win win.

@lizzie27 I do quite a lot of slow cooking in the oven. Works a treat and doesn't need constant checking.

@Butterfly6 slow stitching is simply using scraps of fabric, lace, ribbon, buttons etc and assembling them with simple running stitch - like Sashiko - or more complex embroidery stitches to make a picture. No rules so anything goes. Very restful to do.

Have a happy day everyone, whatever you're doing.