Another week trying to get into the garden- the weather is pants
Conflict with the neighbours
For the past couple of mornings our gardening and love of wildlife has come into conflict. Over the lockdown we have been busy trying to turn a building site into some semblance of a garden. And it hasn’t been easy. The earth is compacted clay embedded with stone. Not just small shingle, damn great chunks of stone. We reverted to raised beds and a Japanese garden which is in fact a glorified rockery. After all there are only so many walls you can build with stone. So, on this theme l erected a mountain range using a few massive stones and raised the earth at the base and covered it with moss. Now for the past couple of mornings we came down to find it removed and scattered across the mud. Last night just prior to heading up for a shower and dinner l quickly rested stones on the moss, only to find that they have managed to scrape in between the stones. Must be the pheasants. Perhaps it’s a brace of scrawny pheasants for Christmas lunch. Don’t think so. Will have to think up another solution for the long term.
The deer decided to get in on the garden attack and eat all the buds off one of our new rose bushes. It was doing so well. More wire baskets to be made. Although initially, we thought that being in the far corner of the hidden garden next to the house the deer may miss it. Wrong. But they are lovely to see. The deer l mean.
The weather continues to be changeable. You wake up to glorious sunshine, only to have your hopes of a beautiful day dashed as the clouds roll in. It’s a roller coaster of weather as it changes from sunny and hot, overcast with slight drizzle and downright black and thundery. Makes working on the garden rather frustrating, especially laying stone slabs for the paths. Nevertheless, it’s taking shape. More materials delivered, including a ton of slate chips for the Japanese garden, and 5 ton of 20 mm gravel for around the paths. First three layers of the pond completed, so next is the liner then capping layer, before lime rendering the outside.
Enjoyment comes in many forms
Our new phones arrived yesterday. The contract was up so managed to get a superb deal with 3. The iPhone 11 for me, with its improved camera and larger screen. As you get older you need larger print, either that or more magnification in your glasses, with them looking more like Guinness bottles. They say setting up is simple. But even though they say it's easy to transfer everything from your old to your new phone. Don’t believe them. Just put them together and let them migrate. Whatever migrate is in telephone tech is. Expected my new phone to disappear for the winter. Like most of my belongings do. Or is that just misplacing them.
In fact it did work reasonably well, but you still have to go into virtually every app and add a new password, or confirm the old. The latter is the problem. Who remembers their passwords? Your device always asks if you want to save. Which is great, just put your thumbprint on the button and it opens automatically. Until you need to recover the password. Most of the day was spent waiting for codes to come in to allow me to reset the password. And as always, getting impatient and resending the request only to have the first number arrive and then not work. Frustrating to say the least. It is now working perfectly, and the old one has been reset to factory setting and ready to be put up for sale. Although l will drop it into a draw and forget all about it.
Dinner washed down with my last bottle of Rioja. Thank goodness we will be heading out to France soon to replenish the supplies. Then its coffee with a digestive. Feet up and watch a movie. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. A truly magnificent film, dark moody with quite a few bits of humour dotted amongst the sadness.
Crawl into bed in the evening, and get excited about ordering a new pair of steel toe capped boots from Toolstation, before settling down to a chapter of my latest CJ Box novel on kindle. A Joe Pickett series, set around the exploits of a game warden in Wyoming.
Another day looms on the horizon
Wake early as usual. Difficult to stay in bed after 6am. Slip out of bed, not to disturb Judith, collect my cloths and head out into the kitchen for my well deserved first cup of tea. The sun is shining, but it's raining. Once again. Although the various weather apps show that it's going to be dry all day. Yet the storm radar is showing storms approaching from the North, arriving mid afternoon. But we are in Scotland, and we are used to having four seasons in one day. It is what makes the country side so green and lush, and my limbs ache and squeak.
Our friends in the south keep enticing us to move back to sunnier climbs, but realistically l love the area we are in. Beautiful sea views, glorious walks in the hills and mountains and the close proximity to the major city of Glasgow. Unfortunately, this horrendous undetectable bug has curtailed our regular visits to the shows, cinema, theatres, museums, art galleries, pubs and restaurants. It's sad. But at least we are alive. But it seems that they are relaxing the lockdown. The they being the Scottish poisoned dwarf of independence fame. Yet we are keeping our head down for the time being.
After over a month our face masks are still elusive. Judith has now made us four each out of various pieces of material she had in her glory hole up in the loft. Very attractive they are to. So cancelled the two ordered from Vistaprint which were going to cost us £47. Great saving. If we ever get our money back. Their customer service is nonexistent. A little like jet line cruise’s, Cunard and Tesco credit card refunds. But l won't go there. Hanky is already too moist.
Still enjoying the sourdough baking, more importantly, the eating. Toasting on our French toaster. It enables you to toast really thick slices of bread.Soft inner, crusty outer, loaded with butter and ginger preserve. Just the ticket after my bowl of porridge.
Our cruise buddies who live on the Isle of White sent us details of a possible project that they felt would kill two birds with one shot. Get us into the sun and give me something to get my teeth into.
Its a hotel and shop development coming up for auction, located in the centre of of Freshwater. Seemed to have real potential, offers in excess of £431,000. Downside is that it had only been partially refurbished and it would take at least another £400k to complete. Plus business in this climate is still very up in the air.
Nevertheless, it was worth investigating. Pity l am not 20 years younger.
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