Yawn Yawn Wakey Wakey 2025

Good afternoon everyone. Pleased to read you had a more restful night @Penny_Forthem and you must be looking forward to seeing your friend from Oz. A major catch up must be on the cards. Loving the donkey picture @Ergates. I had a phone call from my friend who has a heritage orchard in his garden. A group of people who have rescued ancient fruit trees from old and run down orchards all over the country use the space he has in his garden to preserve these old fruits. They do a lot of genetic identification to name the trees and much grafting and propagation is carried out. Anyway, the call today was to tell me that the apple blossom is looking stunning at the moment and he has invited me up to see it. Fingers crossed tomorrow stays fine and sunny.

 

I am going to wish you all a good evening now and I'll see you tomorrow. Enjoy whatever you have planned. I've got an early date with my bed!

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Good morning. I can hear the robin and blackbird singing their delightful tunes, and the occasional seagull squawking in the distance. Other than that, absolute silence!!

How lovely!

I hope others of you can wake up so gently,.

 

I hear rain!! What a beautiful sound, when the ground is so dry.

 

Good morning @Fourmerkland and all dropping by soonish.

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It is looking promising outside for my trip to see the apple blossom. I think it has rained in the night here @Fourmerkland because Cricket was a bit damp when he leapt on my head first thing this morning. I took the hint and got up to give him his breakfast. Going to have mine now.

 

Good morning to you all!

Sunny and bright so far. Lovely!!

I wake up to the birds too @Fourmerkland - such a lovely sound. At the moment, they are nesting and sometimes there are disagreements!!

This is the first year I seem to be allergic to pollen @lizzie27 I am not taking anything except eye drops. Thank you for asking.

I hope today being St George's Day is exceptional for everyone!!

 

Good morning all.

It was a busy day yesterday, forgot I hadn't posted yesterday.

It has rained a bit in the night, but not the forecast heavy rain.

We went for a walk in a bluebell wood yesterday, nearly an hour away. It's in an ancient protected forest owned by the Wildlife Trust.The wood was lovely but there was a bit of a walk to get to the bluebells. The path was made in a circuit but you couldn't walk right in. There were notices about protecting plants and wildlife. The walk took about an hour. I'll put more photos on the pretty places visits thread.

After that we had lunch in a pub. I had looked up some pubs but when we got there 2 were closed as they had been open on the bank holiday and the road to the 3rd one was closed. We found one in the end.

Then we went to Tesco and did a huge shop as Daughter 1 is coming this afternoon with her OH and 3 teenage boys. They eat a lot!

 

Fabulous pictures @Tui34 and @Busy-Lizzie. I remember my 3 brothers being food magnets! We called the middle one the ' Human Dustbin' because he consumed everything - except cauliflower which he loathed. Luckily I love it so any spare I was quite happy to consume.

 

Morning everybody, unusually for me, I woke up at 5 ish, made a cup of tea and went back to bed. Had another and some cereal about 7ish and am still in bed waiting for OH to wake up in the other bedroom. My fresh clothes and the shower room are in there so I'm a bit stuck!

It has been raining but now just looks damp and very overcast. May walk to fetch our paper later, OH struggled a bit yesterday and then may just have to do the ironing. Trying to decide whether or not to cancel daughter's visit over the weekend. It's a shame as it's her birthday but she's asthmatic so I wouldn't like her to catch the bugs we've got.

 

Good morning all. Lovely garden day yesterday and it’s grey and damp this morning which is fine because I am at work later. It’s been so nice having a proper few days break once again I am hankering after retirement but not feasible at the moment.
Happy St George’s Day everyone

 

Morning. I can confirm we've had rain.
Much fresher.
I did sleep better last night. I have bought myself a tube of 'Ice storm' gel with arnica. I find that it does give me relief, especially at night, though of course, it doesn't 'heal'. At least the stabbing pains are subsiding now.
Wonder when I can drive again?
I am about to go outside to see if the gardener has planted the bearded iris correctly, or if he has buried them. He did know for a few days what he was going to plant, so there's always google.

 

Greetings. It has been very wet in the night and was supposed to stop by about 9am but has carried on with lighter rain - all very good for soaking in all the compost OH barrowed over for the dahlia bed and there's enough compost left to do the potatoes which are now showing. We're down to 2 chooks now and they had a fine time helping OH with the compost heap.

I'm still very tired with this stupid bug and broken sleeps so contented myself with potting on 2 magnolias that need nurturing - Butterflies and Soulangea - and then pricking out more squashes and some of the California poppies. These are Mikado so should be a fiery red rather than just that neon orange.

I love a good bluebell wood @Busy-Lizzie. There was one local to us in Belgium and a famous one at Halle but here I've only found them in hedgerows and woodland edges cos the middle of our local woods is a bit too wet and boggy.

Patience @Penny_Forthem and wait for the surgeon's OK or you'll risk your insurance.

Glad you're feeling better @lizzie27 and hope OH recovers soon. Might not be infectious by the weekend? Round here there are two types of flu circulating and a bit of Covid. Pity we can't vaccinate against the common cold in all its forms.

Enjoy your day everyone. Hope the blossom's good @Ladybird4.

 

Morning all, wet overnight here too plus we just had another shower. I had a delivery of green Calibrese plants. Wasn't expecting them so soon so I have potted them up for now as I haven't repositioned the cage on the plots yet. I'm expecting the main delivery in May, when they can go straight out. I know it's a bit lazy but I've bought them as plants the past few years rather than raising from seed. I only want 6-8 plants of each, and the company I buy from does a club root resistant selection that's just right. TBH, by the time you've bought seed, raised them potted on etc , buying plants isn't that much more expensive. That's my excuse anyway.

 

Good afternoon all.

I don't think it's lazy, @Allotment Boy , to buy veg plants rather than raising them yourself from seed. If you only need a few, it's often more cost effective than seed, especially if you need heat for germination. When I grew tomatoes (nowhere to put them here!) I used to buy young plants, because I wanted several different varieties.

Interesting, @Ladybird4 , re the old apple varieties. Hope you enjoy your visit. We have a couple of Irish-bred apple trees in our garden, propagated by Irish Seed Savers, who preserve and sell traditional Irish vegetable varieties as well as grafting heritage varieties of apple trees. We have "McCann" and "Haddock's Favourite". McCann has beautiful flowers, just coming out now.



It's good to hear your arm is becoming less painful, @Penny_Forthem . Breaks take their time to heal... best wishes too, to those battling through viruses, @Obelix-Vendée and @lizzie27 in particular.

Best wishes for your family visit, @Busy-Lizzie !

 

@Allotment Boy I sow my veg seeds because they're varieties I don't find here eg Crown prince squash, Italian Lungi courgettes (pale green but tastier than the dark greens), PSB, cavolo nero but I do buy plugs of things like Savoy cabbage and OH's horrid Brussels sprouts.