I WorkWorkWorkWork...

....work the whole day long...

Isn't that the dwarfs song from Sleeping Beauty?

Well believe it or not, there have actually been enough dry spells in the last ten days for me to get some work done in the garden! A few drenchings too when I had my head down amongst the weeds and didn't notice the growing blackness of the sky, but maybe if I stand in the rain often enough I'll grow.....? Faint chance at this stage!

Firstly I weeded all along the montbretias, front and back, and was a bit disappointed when I realised how much of the growth was weed, not flower! Oooops! However in the last five days they have come along beautifully and are now just about flowering.

The grass and weeds along our verge were almost waist height as the strimmer is banjaxed. I took out the good old 'slasher' and hacked them down to a reasonable size. Its still all weeds, but its tidy weeds- a step in the right direction!!

 The blackberries are flowering ever so late; if we don't have an Indian summer nothing will ripen, but if we do we'll be inundated. Last year's crop was very patchy so we could do with plenty for jam!

 And I detest pulling up thistles even worse than nettles as they always seem to get me. Mind you, I was plenty stung too- anyone would think I was growing a nettle farm here. I lined the thistles up to put on the fire in the hopes of killing off any potential seeds, so alas alack but this fella is no more!

It doesn't look much does it, but the growth this summer has been something else with the wet and warm temperatures. I've done a fair bit of work around the patio and the beds along the walls but you can't really tell.

Oh well, I know everything is a bit tidier!!

State of the Jungle

Many years ago in my youth (summer 2010) I got really into gardening blogs, looking at the photos, reading them, drawing plot layouts, noting beautiful plants and yadda yadda yadda. Then I grew up (spring 2011) and realised that none of those people lived in the boggy, exposed hills of Leitrim and that there was no way in this life that I would ever transform my weedy stony hillside into a lush paradise. After that I turned old (summer 2012) and decided that if it doesn't grow happily in a movable pot, stuff it, I'm not even going to consider it.
That's the theory, but as you know, hope springs eternal along with the rain and gale force winds so although my head says 'forget it', my heart still says 'maybe if I...'

So I still have two raised veg beds, although one is rampant with triffid raspberries and one very brave rhubarb! The other has self seeded garlic at one end with gone-to-seed-cabbage-that-never-grew and some fabulous specimens of dock leaves at the other.

And then there are the pots...and pots...and more pots...oh and look I do believe that's a thistle come to join the pot party!

So much for the idealistic planning...ah me...sigh...


BTW, the idyll is over, with Youngest and the Hub back home. The Hub didn't seem too happy with his week's work in Holland, but Youngest had an 'amazingly awesome' (quote herself) week with her sister in Dublin. A lot of time was spent working in Theaters alongside Eldest but she also got to do some shopping and walking around Dublin, which is good. It is a lovely place alright.

I didn't get a girl's night in, but my parents had visitors, relations who are great fun, so I had that instead last night. This evening Youngest is taking Middlest's boyfriend to see the play Middlest is working on and the Hub is holed up in the office writing tomorrow's sermon.

Modom, your taxi awaits!!!

Of Computer Scans (lost) and Head-Days...

Onyhoos…as the aunt from Belfast used to say…

I was over at the folks on Friday using their scanner to copy some crochet patterns before passing on my old magazines, and found I’d forgotten how to file the scans once done. As a result, I had to hunt through Dad’s documents to recover everything, and even now I know I didn’t get them all.

I did warn him to watch out for stray crochet patterns, and he promised to check any reports in progress before emailing them off…can you imagine some big corporation mogul somewhere opening the latest report on European Medical Devices and finding a couple of crochet patterns included. Would that count as a twoferone d’you suppose?


On a good head-day I can get in the car for three destinations: the folks’ house, our Church, and ‘my’ School.
On a very good day I can teach in School, and I can also do the grocery shopping. So far this year I haven’t been able to teach which is a bummer as I do so enjoy the children; all I’ve done is play the piano once a week for Assembly, and many weeks, not even that. Playing the Organ on Sundays is mostly possible as well as a lifeline, as people come round and chat to me, whereas I could not go to them.
Also on a good head-day I can go out to the garden and do stuff, or even sit outside. Unless you’ve ever had the problem of going through a door, you wouldn’t believe the sheer frustration of watching all the weeds in the flowerbeds wave and snigger at you while at the same time growing taller and taller…

Mind you, if you’d had our weather lately you’d be thinking it was still winter! Not only has it rained constantly, and sometimes hail too, but it’s a rare day when the temperature gets to even 10 degrees! I’ve had the fire in for days in a row- and this is JUNE! And to add insult to injury, the Hub’s Aunt rang and was saying that where she is (in Surrey, I think) they are about to be having a hosepipe ban! I offered to post her a bucket of water, but like all of our extended family, she refused to accept any post from yours truly here…Spoil sport…