Beatrix Potter I Ain't!

I know very well that being a compost addict brings with it the possibility of vermin. Of course I do!

But when I lift the lid of the compost bin and have a large, audacious rat shake his fist and rattle his sabre at me I think I'm entitled one loud 'eek!' ?

Cheeky so-n-so, better remember to kick the bin before opening it next time as I do really detest rats.

Overheard in the Kitchen

Youngest was cleaning up after a baking session whilst Eldest sat at the kitchen table texting and playing with an iPod...

Youngest: 'Would ya remove the technology, please? I'm trying to wipe the table here...'

Snort-laugh-giggle-snigger...

Of Time Lost

Golly to Goodness but where does Time go? Blink and you miss a week...or two...or three! I know I've been busy but didn't realise I was THAT busy!

School's back and and after a crazy-mad few weeks, everything is beginning to settle into its usual hoppity skippity progress, as in one day you think you've almost got a grip on work and the next two you wonder if you ever will...

Since Middlest moved home at the start of the month I feel as though I'm running a student hostel which leads to some interesting scenarios- I thought I was waking up Middlest the other morning and another girl's head popped out from the duvet!! Poor thing, she didn't want to be woken up at all!

Middlest's man, Car-boy, for future reference, is also around a lot, which is fun as he is a gas character, also he is quite happy to hang out with Youngest, and not every boyfriend would be as easy- going.

Youngest has begun her final year of school, kinda scary, you never think your youngest will actually grow up, do you? Ok, you might, but I didn't! She's had two friends here for the weekend and they have baked, cooked, watched films, gone jogging and talked the hind leg off every donkey in Connaught!

So it goes. The greenhouse progresses not at all, the weather has been unseasonably (and unreasonably) cold, the charity shops have nothing in my (ginormous) size, and four horses broke into the garden a fortnight back and ate all my trees down to the ground.

Things gotta be lookin' up soon....

A Greenhouse?

Yup! A greenhouse!

The Hub has agreed to build me a lean-to greenhouse against his beloved shed:

Site of future greenhouse!

Materials (you may need a magnifying glass!) timber, plastic from skip, perspex.

Tidied up compost heap, courtesy of the Hub- he can't bear a mess not of his creating, and the compost heap is MY mess...

A jungle tamed!!

A nicely weeded and mulched bed- with SUCH a straight edge!

I've started off so many vegetable seeds and they have begun sprouting now so I hope he really does built the greenhouse as promised. I'm going to be the most organised vegetable grower in Ireland come Spring!!

Funny thing a friend said last week about when I told him about the proposed greenhouse: 'The Irish do love their lean-to's, they even build lean-to's onto lean-to's!' And when I thought about it, its true!!


On another note, back to work/school yesterday, although the children don't return until next Monday. I thought it would be a nice gentle ease-in but no such luck- parents wanting second-hand uniforms, phone hopping, returning messages, booking services for office machines, staff trying to get organised, builders problems, Principal catching up on paperwork...and just what does all this have to do with me I ask?

Dunno, but it sure keeps Muggins busy!

Gardening-Oh My!!

What IS it with gardening?

What person in their right mind voluntarily goes out for hours on end in order to get dirty, hot, sweaty, burned (wind, me dears, NOT sun), scratched, bitten, stung, blistered (fingers) and end up aching all over?

And yet here we are in love with and possibly addicted to our gardens...out of all proportion to their beauty or usefulness!

Is there any other sport, hobby or activity which causes such bodily discomfort and damage for so little material gain????

Flowering montbretia on the driveway.

Boring old day lily, but so beautiful while they last.

This has a lovely yellow flower, but I can't remember what it is called, apparently I've been calling it the wrong name for years so of course I cannot get the correct name into my head now!

I've just spent hours on a stint of very satisfying destructive gardening, and the cherry on the cake was discovering a rose I thought was well deaded alive and flowering merrily under all the weeds!

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!!

Blue'n'Yalla Quilt

Finally, after much grumbling and grouching, the Blue'n'Yellow Baby Quilt is done!

The piecing went fine, and the stripes were an experiment with which I was reasonably satisfied, but I think next time I'll have them fanning out in all four directions. But the machine quilting was no joke- it took forever and I kept getting boggles. I just never seem to get the quilting quite the way I want it to look. I know my machine is nigh on twenty five years old, but that shouldn't be a problem...in fact I'm pretty darn sure the problem is Oul' Heckety here! grumble grumble...

I used a kanga cloth for the backing, pure cotton and attractive in itself. The yellows are mostly tie-dyed fabric from awhile back and quicte a lot brighter but I haven't got the knack of my Dad's new camera yet either...basically this post is a compilation of bishes!!

Ah well, c'est la vie en pays, as they do say!