Yawn Yawn Wakey Wakey 2025

It mizzled all morning but cleared up at lunchtime so I was able to get a load of washing dried in the breeze.
I managed to get the 4 bags of manure from the car down into the garden then my back was screaming so I retired to my faithful recliner chair.
OMG! I began cleaning my oven. I have to get some more oven cleaner. I cannot remember when I last cleaned it, seems like centuries! I used what cleaner solution I had and left it overnight. Yuck this morning. I wish I had the discipline of my M in L. She would clean her oven every time she used it.
If I can keep my mornings activities under control, I hope to go to club again this afternoon. Much cooler today, sunny with light cloud so ideal gardening weather.

Understatement of the year.
2 bridges collapsed in Russia yesterday, one over a railway line and one over a road.
Official explanation. Illegal activity

 

We had a bright sunny day yesterday, hoping for the same today. Wandered out to open the GH yesterday morning and came back in two hours later having done some more deadheaded, tying in roses and then some weeding. That was it for the day though as a I felt exhausted and just collapsed on the sofa for the rest of the day. Head cold came up to full throttle and I was in bed and asleep by 8pm

Feeling a bit better this morning so might get out into the garden again for a little while. Just pootling no major projects. Am turning a blind eye to the HW so no HW and especially oven cleaning here @Goldenlily26. Will have a blitz tomorrow when OH is out. Luckily for me OH likes to clean the oven. When we moved in it was dreadful, caked in what looked like years of grease which smelt just like roast beef when we turned the oven on. The old chap who had lived here must have lived on it. We were going to get a new oven but OH decided to have a go at cleaning it so we could use it in the meantime. It was quite a project and we didn’t expect much success but it came up sparkling, just like new. Took about three days scrubbing and leaving the stuff on overnight. Since then he’s liked to keep it sparkling.

 

Good morning everyone,
Here we are in June, already. The months seem to whizz by. It’s a bit cooler today than yesterday, and the lovely blue sky of earlier is starting to cloud over. I’m hoping, though, to do a bit of pottering in the garden when I get back from church, just continuing with tidying the borders. Other than that, the day is a fairly quiet one.
Oven cleaning isn’t my favourite pass time either, but every so often the urge strikes me to give it a thorough clean. It doesn’t get used a great deal as I tend to use the stove top a lot, the slow cooker and the air fryer, so it’s not as greasy as it might otherwise be.
Well, I wish you all a good Sunday, whatever your plans for the day are.

 

Morning all. Yet another blustery day here after a scorcher yesterday. So much to do in garden as plants are leaning over and swaying to the music! One spike of ornamental grass, just coming into its own, has snapped at a knuckle and have had to tie up some foxgloves. Plenty,of deep watering is needed but that takes some time so will do it later .
Had GS (23) stay overnight on Friday after looking after him from early doors. He returned home yesterday and OH and I were left as zombie creatures afterwards gawd, it’s so tiring keeping up with a nearly eight year old. Things aren’t much better this morning, feeling shattered so will take it easy today. How @Busy-Lizzie does it I’ll never know!

 

Morning all. June is here! Can we say it’s Summer now??

Oven cleaning is the worst! I have a ‘self-cleaning’ setting but it’s rubbish! Maybe if it was done every week from new it might stay clean but pure hard work is the only way.

Just planning the day here… a few house jobs then off to MIL’s to do a bit of gardening.

Take care and enjoy Sunday everyone.

 

Rough night last night with head cold moving down to lungs but also kept awake by itching round the wasp sting sites so feeling weary today. More weeding and sorting of pots in the nursery in store and some more potting on of seedlings and, I hope, time to start planting up the new strawberry bed.

Cooler today so it should be more comfortable but I'll still get filthy. Don't know how but one patch of stubborn muck on my foot turned out to be a massive bruise which no amount of showering could remove. Not painful, just colourful.

Oven cleaning is for rainy days, especially when I go the whole hog and dismantle the 3 layers of glass in the door to clean them. Not to be undertaken lightly.

Enjoy your Sunday everyone.

 

Flaming June? Not here!
In fact, I'm glad I did so much in the garden yesterday, as it's decidedly cooler today. Alex is coming to cut the grass later, as he's unable to do it this week.
Our herbs have gone crazy, so I made tabbouleh to go with the bbq yesterday. Plenty left for tonight and I can add more parsley and mint to liven it up. We had some Tesco finest sausages with fennel and chilli; neither of us liked either the taste or the texture, so won't be buying those again. Shame, as they sounded promising.
Hope those with lurgies are soon on the mend.

 

Morning all, not so flaming June here either @Penny_Forthem but hoping it might warm up by lunchtime for some garden pottering this afternoon.

My sister and I enjoyed our trip to the GC yesterday which was heaving as you might imagine.
I just bought a some of the tiny bedding begonias to fit my small pots on my kitchen windowsill.
They last for months so good value. I also bought a 5 litre container of Patio Magic which came with a battery operated small sprayer so not sure how that works yet. It's very heavy so I'll have to get OH to lift it onto the worktop so I can read the instructions. We need it to clean the wide back steps and terrace paths which we didn't want to pressure wash last week.

The GC had a Saturday farmer's market on so we bought punnets of scrumptious Cheddar strawberries and enjoyed them with cream after the evening meal.

I don't like oven cleaning either but have found Stovax to be absolutely brilliant and very easy to use on the glass doors. It's intended for woodburners I believe. Expensive but you don't need a lot. I use tin foil a lot to wrap food like roasts and baked salmon, chicken etc to keep the oven cleaner.

Sorry to hear you've both got head colds @Obelix-Vendée and @Butterfly6, hope you get better soon.

 

On the train to Surrey. A very dear friend who lives abroad has arrived back in the UK for a weeks holiday, so I’m having an impromptu trip to visit her. It’s much cloudier today, but still warm when the sun comes out. I was in two minds whether to bring my folding raincoat, but I did. Hoping I won’t need it. Whiling away my time on the journey reading the papers ( not a good idea) and doing Wordle, which I’ve only recently got into. Some lovely scenery to look at too, it still amazes me how much of southern England is lush and green, not all concreted over just yet.
I still haven’t potted on my seedlings, which are getting bigger by the day. Ended up in the garden centre yesterday instead, and have come home with a Red Bumble poppy. Four flowers about to open, OH is very excited, he loves poppies.

 

It's a very comfy 24C here. I have, of course, been distracted by potting on more seedlings but outside, sat on a chair, rather than sweltering in the polytunnel. Lots of watering done too and a 7m x 1.2m veg bed raked ready for planting with radicchio which is asking to be potted on or planted out.

I like tabbouleh @Penny_Forthem and was taught a recipe by a Syrian friend in Belgium. Lots of herbs finely chopped by hand which takes ages and I concluded it was one of those things, like fanning Sushi rice to cool it, invented by men to keep women so busy they don't have time to comment or complain about anything else.

You've reminded me @lizzie27. I sprayed our terrace with patio magic equivalent 10 days ago so now it can be pressure washed. Then I can give the table a final clean and get it back in place before OH disappears for 3 days. He's off to Pornic on Wednesday for a 3 day competition.

I am out all day tomorrow so he has a list of essential jobs....

 

@Obelix-Vendée, have you tried the old fashioned Piriton hayfever tablets for your wasp stings? When I got attacked a couple years ago, the nurse I saw at the minor injuries clinic recommended them. I was already using loratidine for my hayfever, non drowsy but didn’t help the wasp stings at all, but the Piriton was good. Also sent me to sleep!

 

I have some ordinary non sleepy anti histamines @Ergates which I take during the harvest mite season as I always get bitten. No idea what the active ingredient is but I know that, generally speaking, anti histamines are available on prescription here rather than over the counter.

 

Hello all.

@Songbird I would rather babysit for five children than clean the oven!

Babysitting was OK. I read to the 2 smallest after supper, then showers, then they all went to bed. Daniel and Emilie came back around 3.30am but I was asleep. I didn't sleep well though, too hot. Much cooler this morning. I had breakfast with my family then went home.

We visited an open garden, owned by the President of the garden club. We had coffee and cake there. Then OH was stung on the lip by a horrid insect so we went home instead of visiting the other open garden up the road. His lip is very swollen now. He's taken an antihistamine and a painkiller and rubbed on antihistamine gel.

 

That sounds horrid @Busy-Lizzie, hope your OH is ok now. What a pity after visiting an open garden too.

@Obelix-Vendée , I use Patio Magic so I don't have to use the pressure washer!

Enjoy your trip @Ergates.

 

@lizzie27 the version I get here stops all the slippery stuff growing but doesn't remove it once dead and dried so I pressure wash anyway.

Have a great time catching up with your friend @Ergates.

I hope your OH is recovering well @Busy-Lizzie. Nasty thing to happen and painful I'm sure. I have another wasp sting for my pains. What with the bruises and scratches and tears, not to mention filthy feet cos I garden in flip flops, this gardening milarkey is definitely not glamorous.

Fun tho. I have planted out my radicchio and cavolo nero, watered the rhubarb and carried on weeding, trimming, re-potting the nursery. Anout a dozen ash seedling have tried to set up home in there. I do not need any more as we have 2 very mature and sveral young ones elsewhere on the plot and in the hedge/tree row round 3 sides.

Picked some rhunarb to make a cobbler with strawberries and a small serving of new potatoes from the volunteers.

Now to get scrubbed up and clean again before cooking dinner - lemon and mustard chicken with carrots, broccoli and potatoes. All very healthy till OH slathers half a tub of ice cream on his pud. He's worked hard today so I'll let him indulge.

Have a lovely evening everyone and bon appétit for those yet to have dinner.