March Full Moon and The Garden

 The March Full Moon tonight  seems to have  had lots of names in history- the Plough Moon, Lenten Moon, the Worm moon - when worms emerge, the Sap Moon, Crow moon or Storm moon. We are not in the right place on earth to see  the moon's total eclipse happening, although the moon hasn't been very visible lately with so much cloud every night.

 March weather can be as cold and unsettled  as February, but the sun is rising higher and it's now just 17 days until the Spring equinox and 26 days until the clocks go forward. At this latitude Suffolk gains two more hours of daylight by the end of the month and the week ahead is looking to be fine here in the East of England which is very good news. 

Yesterday was the first mild day of March......I had the patio door open to let the fresh air in....lovely

It is the first mild day of March:

Each minute sweeter than before,

The redbreast sings from the tall larch

That stands beside the door

There is a blessing in the air

Which seems a sense of joy to yield

To the bare trees, and mountains bare,

And grass in the green field.

William Wordsworth.

Last week BiL kindly came and cut the grass for me, it's hardly stopped growing all winter but also hasn't been dry enough to cut with my battery mower for weeks. He also pressure-washed the patio which was getting very slippery. I can get the weeds out of the cracks but the mould remover I tried for the slabs was useless and pressure washing is the best.

I had to move all the pots off the patio for the pressure washing, most things have survived the winter but the few strawberry plants in two planters that were OK last year have almost vanished. I emptied one compost bin onto one of the veg beds, there's still another to empty but I need to do some serious weeding everywhere..

The  summer fruiting raspberry canes didn't get watered enough last summer they haven't put up many new canes, I think it will be a poor year, not sure about the other canes some fruit early and some late, I cut most of them back in the autumn as it's impossible to know which are which.

The slab under one  of my water butts that collects off the greenhouse had tipped backwards so I emptied it in the autumn and need to level the slab before I can put it back. 

So many jobs to do as soon as my gardening mojo returns properly - it always happens -  sometime.

S for Silver Birch?

Way back in 2021 (you can see it here), before I moved here to the bungalow,  I did a post about Silver Birch trees using the pages from the Ogham Tree Alphabet again.

On moving here I found two young birches, one out the front and another, younger, in the back garden but although they have silver white trunks I think they are Himalayan Birch rather than Silver Birch

Himalayan and silver birch both have white bark, but Himalayan birch is distinguished by its consistently bright, smooth, and papery white bark that peels away. In contrast, silver birch bark develops dark, rugged fissures at the base as it matures. Other key differences include the Himalayan birch's more upright, less weeping branches and its larger leaves, compared to the silver birch's more graceful, weeping form and smaller leaves

This is the tree at the front of the bungalow as it's leaves changed colour in October. Silver or Himalayan - either way I'm pleased to have a few trees around me.

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J is for Jasmine

 The very small Winter Jasmine growing on the trellis behind the three Minarette apple trees is flowering - very early, so the flowers are there at the same time as the leaves.

As far as I can remember this is the first place I've lived that's had a Jasmine in the garden, which is odd really considering how many places I've lived in the last 10 years. There are actually two plants in the garden, both planted against bits of trellis, although they aren't really climbers like honeysuckle and roses - both of which the previous owners planted against the same pieces of trellis...Overcrowded so that I have to keep cutting everything back and I've not mentioned the Virginia Creeper which is a vigorous bully!

Jasminium nudiflorum, the winter jasmine, is a deciduous shrub native to China. In China it has the name Yingchun, which means "the flower that welcomes Spring", but we're still in Autumn so it really is far too early.

Here's the Jasmine Flower Fairy from Cecily Mary Barker and her song.

Back Soon

Rushing Through The Month As Usual

Autumn colours. 

We don't get the huge range of oranges and reds that can be seen in the US, usually just yellows and browns as the leaves change but here and there the odd tree stands out. This one below I think I've photographed before as it's at the edge of the Asda car park in Stowmarket.

Outside under the kitchen window is this patch of Michaelmas Daisies that has gradually spread from nothing over my years here. There is another plant with much darker flowers by the path too.

The weather this week has been dull and cloudy, drizzly and murky in Mid-Suffolk, no rain to speak of but no dry out for the washing or for getting the grass cut - it's still not stopped growing.

I've finished the October jigsaw puzzle, all pieces present and correct, thank goodness, after thinking there was a piece missing right to the end.

It's definitely Colin in his blue overalls in the workshop!- we even had a grey Ferguson tractor and a Collie dog although we didn't have the lovely stone building and all the other bits of machinery.

And now we are past halfway through another month, it's another weekend and racing to November. 

Have a good one, I'll be back Monday.

Saturday 11th - All Sorts

 Today is the beginning of the two busy birthday months, (and there was DiL's at the end of last month too) some just birthday cards, others cards and presents. Eldest granddaughter is 9 today and a nephews birthday too - he must be around 41-ish. Then there is youngest grandson's 4th birthday on the 13th and son's on the 17th, poor old fella will be 44. Then more cards and a couple of presents in November, and at the same time Christmas presents need sorting  as well - complicated on the buying presents front! Thank goodness for amazon - who can deliver straight to grandchildren.

The lovely colours on the vine against the blue sky early in the week. It's on a piece of trellis by the shed and I have to cut it back so many times through the summer that I often think it's a real nuisance. 

But then the colours in autumn persuade me to keep it for a while longer.

I've had a quiet week reading and not going far after being a bit  unwell last weekend,  hopefully antibiotics are sorting me out, something I've not needed for many, many years. I'm going to have to watch out for foods that effect me even more than before.

One of the books I read was a re-read  of Susan Hill's Book "Howard's End is on the Landing" which is her book about reading only her own books for a year. I'm sure I enjoyed it first time but second time not so much. Then I read two other old crime fiction that I'd bought cheap off abebooks a while ago as they are part of a series and too old for the library to still have. Need to decide which other of my own books to read before the mobile library is bringing me a bagful next week. Choosing which of my own to read is hard!

This is new - it popped up on the post compose page...............

Google Search links: Based on your blog content, Blogger will automatically identify key words and phrases in your post and insert search links in case your readers want to explore more. In Compose View, look for the pencil icon at the top-right of the page to get started.

I clicked on the pencil icon to see what happened and links appeared all over the place and I had to undo them all individually. aaaagh!

We've probably all got used to blogger throwing in changes with no warning but do readers want to "explore more". And I can put in my own links Thank You Very Much! 

Did anyone watch the much publicised 'Celebrity Traitors' - oh my - I found it dreadful - half an episode was enough. One celeb on their own is OK, even 2, 3 or 4 is not too bad - as on Have I got News For You or Richard Osman's House of Games but all that lot at once NO, NO.

Another thing watched was episode one of Murder before Evensong - the TV adaptation of the Rev Richard Coles book - didn't think much of that either!

But for something completely different that I do love -  Ed Sheeran's new release 

and the latest from Lewis Capaldi too.

Back Monday - fine weather forecast here for the weekend - have a good one whatever your weather.

A Dahlia

 When I first moved here I bought some perennials to add to the borders but that was before I knew that nothing does well in this garden. The soil is awful and the trees that the previous owners planted take all the moisture and it seems to be a frost pocket in winter. I don't want the trees removed as they block out the houses all around, so have given up hope of lovely colourful borders.

I hadn't bought anything for the garden, except for edibles, for ages but a lady at a recent boot sale had a huge selection of Dahlias - all colours and shapes and they looked so good that I bought one but it will be kept in a pot out on the front step. She told me to repot into a larger pot, which I did and I've got a much nicer pot for it that's a bit too big as yet.

The other instructions were to remove dead heads, feed in summer, cut back and keep in a frost proof place in winter. I seem to remember from the past ex-husbands father putting the tubers/corms (whichever) in a box of straw for winter?

Will I keep it alive? Think I need Dahlia advice.

Back Soon

Random Bits..................

 ....................from this week.

• Haven't had flowers in for a while, it's been so dry there are a shortage in the border but the white rose was blooming well so I cut a few for a small posy.

• After 4 years here I discovered the Bosch induction hob has a child lock, don't know how it got switched on but  I had to search for the instructions for how to unlock it.

• There is a film of The Salt Path book by Raynor Winn. Released on the 30th. Do I want to watch it? Yes, because the book was good, but no because there's a lot of terminal illness involved.

•  Sitting out in the sun was wonderful earlier this week, not too long at a time but even half an hour is so good for mental health. This is what I saw on just one afternoon ...........Way overhead a buzzard circled before disappearing, lower down  swifts were flying round and round - hopefully finding lots of insects, there were several gulls, a housemartin and crows and pigeons of course, a pied wagtail sat on the neighbours roof, a female blackbird came and had a very splashy bath in the birdbath, the sink-pond and then back in the birdbath and then something I didn't recognise stopped on the guttering of my bungalow. Had to get the bird book and decided it was a garden warbler. Only one butterfly - an orange tip but the Ceanothus is covered with bees.

• Why hadn't I had a home made curry for a while? - because there were none in the freezer. I needed to make a batch and had korma paste and coconut milk in the cupboard and a bag of Quorn pieces in the freezer. I started with onions, added potatoes, spinach from the freezer and bought a pack of mangetout peas for some colour. It made enough for 10 meals -  9 boxes to restock the freezer and one to eat straightaway - it was very delicious.

• Next door neighbours cat was hit by a car and killed this week. Their daughter is distraught as Crumble was her cat and followed P up the road to the school bus stop every morning before coming back when P met her friends. Crumble was a lovely cat but her favourite place for hunting was over the road in the new part of the burial ground and I've held my breath many times when I've seen her dashing back across the road not far from a passing car. 

•  I've just finished  a crime fiction book set in wartime Cambridge (Jim Kelly- Night Raids) and it mentions a lady using a tea-bag - now I'm sure (well I was sure until doubting) that teabags weren't around in the UK until much later. I googled of course and it says "Tetley introduced teabags to Britain in 1939 but paper shortages meant they didn't become common until the 50's and not in general use until the 1960s".  What was used in the first half of the C20, for making one cup at a time were infusers - holding loose tea . My mum said that during wartime rationing, tea was used many times for a cuppa until it tasted of nothing much except hot water.

• Eurovision Song Contest on TV tonight. I half watched the semi-finals - good grief there's some rubbish this year - but people seem to be having a really good time out in Basel and if it brings together people from many parts of Europe and makes a lot of people happy then it has to be a good thing. 

And that's the end of another week. Thank you for reading and  comments  and have a good weekend.

Back Next Week

Sue

The Free Compost

At the smallholding we never needed to pay for a garden waste bin as we made loads of lovely compost with the chickens and the goats and the garden and had plenty of space too.

With this small garden and the nuisance of rats, I'm having to pay for a garden waste bin collection so when I found the District Council were giving away 2 x 25 litre bags of their compost (made from our garden waste) - to anyone who wanted some - as long as their stock lasted  - at 4 places in Mid Suffolk and Babergh areas I thought I'd better get some. The two sites in Mid Suffolk were not far from home.

 For the first one  I drove up the road to a Community centre car park well before the 8am start, arriving to find a queue of about 20 cars waiting. I didn't realise compost was so popular!

The second giveaway was at the Saturday Car-boot Sale site at Needham Market. So on Sunday I joined a queue of about 30 cars zig zagging the way round the field- very well choreographed to slow everyone down and to avoid causing a traffic jam out on the road - and got my two bags chucked in the boot of the car. By the time I was loaded up and out there were around 50 cars behind!

Compost giveaways have been happening for several years I believe, although it's the first time since I've been back in Mid Suffolk that I've been at home with nothing happening on the right days to be able to fetch some. 

4 bags out the front of the bungalow and then thankfully BiL brought my repaired wheelbarrow back to get the bags around to the greenhouse. We opened a bag as both of us were interested to see what it was like and it seems to be quite decent compost, no big lumps. 

Later yesterday, after the greenhouse had cooled down I got my pepper plants into their bigger final pots and the two cucumber plants that I had to buy into a grow bag. Just two aubergines left to sort out.

Back Soon

Sue

Seeds for this year

 Eventually I got around to opening my seed packet storage tin to see what I needed for this year. I can never get up much enthusiasm for gardening when the weather is gloomy.

I have a few seeds left from last year, some might be OK - they sometimes keep well and sometimes not, even when they should. I've bought 5 new packets of seeds  and I'm growing much the same as last year. 

I'll grow two types of tomatoes, cucumbers, aubergines and peppers in the greenhouse. Outside will be Runner and French Green climbing beans, courgette, butternut squash and sweetcorn for definite. I do have a packet of Kale seeds - might try them but with the problems from, pigeons, cabbage white caterpillars and next doors neighbours cat it might not be worth it. 

The leeks I grew last year all got Allium Leaf Miner ruining them, this is a pest that was unknown in this country until relatively recently. They affect late grown leeks so I might try and find some early seedlings at a carboot/nursery and then make sure to harvest early and freeze.

I'll buy  pots of growing Parsley and Basil from Aldi or Asda and propagate them, cheaper than a packet of seeds.

The five packets of seed from DT Brown came with a free packet of Carrot seeds which will be passed onto BiL. He has more room and grows a few each year. They are not worth my while growing.

So plans made for 2025 and hopefully with the big Sycamore gone it will make for better growing conditions in my small patch, more air movement and more sunlight.

Back Soon

Sue

Grey Weather and Saturday Morning Jumble Sale

 The weather this week doesn't look very exciting.

See the row of little grey clouds?

Trying to find a plus and the only thing I can see is that sunset is now  5pm and it's not too cold.

Had to remind myself yesterday how to take a screenshot again - wish I was better at computers.

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As Jumble sales are such a rare event I had to go and have a look. A good crowd inside. I didn't look through the massive pile of clothes but found 4 things. Two for the Granddaughters and two just because.

    

The beautiful glass ( a vase I guess but really just a piece of art glass - not to be used for flowers) is incredibly heavy, I liked the colours - turquoise and gold, but I'm not sure why I bought the Beswick Cabbage Leaf dish except for it being only 50p and I knew it was worth a bit more. I've been thinking of doing a car-boot sale sometime this summer with Son and DiL maybe, so this can be added to the car -boot box, I might even make a 50p profit!!

Total spend was only £1.50......I do love Jumble sales when they sell stuff cheap to get it gone - so sensible.

 I stopped outside BiL's house on the way home where he was parked unloading yet another mower that needed repairing, his least favourite job he says but the one many people ask him to do. He's still hoping to cut my grass which is too long now for my battery powered mower, if only some drying weather could coincide with him not being busy and looking at that weather forecast I don't think it will be this week.

Back Soon 

Sue

It's Half Past November

 I thought the nearest car-boot sale had finished a few weeks ago when the ground was really soggy but the dry weather over the last two weeks meant they kept going and the last one was last Sunday.  Of course I had to go and look and broke Low Spend November by............50p!.

They are to replace a couple of my herb/spice jars that have pull off lids which are really hard to open -it's  an age and weakness thing!

Then I did the big garden job I'd been dreading and it was hard work just as I knew it would be. The job was to empty last years compost bin- it made 4 wheelbarrows full for the veg beds and for the fruit trees. The compost looked good which I was pleased about. Then I turned this year's bin into last years - that lets in some air and makes it rot down better. The bin was absolutely full of lovely worms - not earthworms but the proper compost sort - red or brandling - exactly what's needed in a compost bin. Happy gardener!

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As well as the NYT Wordle I usually try their mini crossword and the connections every day, many fails due to lots of US words, baseball teams etc etc. 

On Wednesday I managed the connections puzzle but  the connection in the 4 words left seemed  very tenuous......................

What do you think the connection is between Colonel, Pharaoh, Worcestershire and Wednesday. I wouldn't have guessed, so it's a good job it told me the connection was that they were words that seem longer written than spoken! 

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How's it going with  No Low Spend November? 

Brought Forward £286.80

I did say I'd only be buying buy fresh food or anything I didn't want to run out of but that only puts off buying things for a month which seems pointless so I've been doing the normal shop of fresh stuff and replacing things used.

This week just gone - Saturday to Friday.

Last Saturday's Christmas Fayre and church morning total of £6.50. All for  charity and churches.
Car boot-sale, Window Cleaner, Exercise Group, Bin Bags =£14.80 +Asda, Tesco and Aldi Food £23.65  

(I discovered Tesco are the only place to find Lemon Meringue Pie Filling  which I wanted after using the packet that was 2 years past it's BB date ......it was absolutely fine and a nice treat.)

£286.80 + £44.95 =     £331.75.

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If you watched Antique Road Trip this week then on Wednesdays programme they were in Suffolk and Hettie went to Sarah's Attic in Monks Eleigh which is where I was last Saturday and Raj was at the Antique place at Stonham Barns where my nearest car boot sale is held. Always good to see Suffolk on TV. 

More Christmas Fayres this weekend - I shall look without spending too much and then there is colder weather forecast from Sunday onwards so I'll be settling into read my library books.

Have a good weekend and I'll be back Monday

Sue

Lots of Short Notes from the Week

The Olympic part Summer of Sport 2024 has nearly finished - what will I do now?  Have to wait for the Paralympics coming along on the 28th.

 Something I didn't know......................

Team GB is the brand name used since 1999 by the British Olympic Association (BOA) for their British Olympic team. The brand was developed after the nation's poor performance in the 1996 Summer Olympics, and is now a trademark of the BOA.

 Something odd............when I went out early to the boot sale last Sunday morning, for several 100 yards down the A140 the road was strewn with Parsley. Somewhere nearby it must have been grown as a crop for cutting. Had to investigate online when I got home and found this Company not far away. Another thing I didn't know.

 Book 8 for the Summer part of Reading The Seasons was a re-reading from about 50 + years ago of The Greengage Summer by Rumer Godden. I expect many book lovers have read this at sometime - it's a bit of a classic - a coming of age story. I'd forgotten almost all of it so it was lovely to read again.

Why does a book of short stories take less time to read than the same number of pages in a single whole story? I read the stories in this below in no time at all. Elly Griffiths - The Man in Black and Other Stories. These feature some of the characters from her Ruth and Nelson; Max Mestopho and Harbinder books.

 How and why is a 51 year old man doing Olympic skateboarding? Is he mad?

 On Thursday I watched some of the kite surfing/sailing at the Olympics, it looks like the nearest thing to flying .....and a Gold Medal too. Exciting stuff. More really good races in the Velodrome and on the athletics track.

 I was cutting back some of the Black Elder which keeps getting tangled up with the washing on my whirly when I heard my neighbour getting started on cutting his side of the horrible Yew Hedge out the front, which is really my hedge and I usually do both sides. I'd been putting off the job but I didn't want him to do it all as he's had a few health problems so I quickly got the extension lead and hedge cutter out and got my side done. Goodness me, it's a knackering job now I'm nearly 70! I couldn't reach one bit last year so left it sticking up but my neighbour managed to get that too so it's all level and neat enough for another year.

The BBC have really plugged some of the sportsmen and women at the Olympics, with short films on their background being shown several times, but on Thursday Katarina Johnson-Thompson was in the Heptathlon and I'd not even realised she was there in France - I'm sure she'd had no mention at all beforehand.  She did so well and got a Silver medal.

A Gold medal in the sport climbing before lunchtime Friday. The GB&NI hopes were for more than 50 medals total and by the end of Friday they'd won an amazing 57.

Runner beans and the climbing French beans this week, providing me with a couple of 'baits'.

Got some busy times with family now for a couple of weeks, I think I can post every other day as there are some church visits and a few other posts in drafts- I'll see how it goes - I might end up with more time than I think as the Surrey family aren't staying with me this time but near the coast for some seaside time for the boys.

I will be back..................

Sue

Hollyhocks out of Nowhere + First week July

 Seven foot tall and appearing where no Hollyhocks have appeared before. These are out in the front border.

 I've frequently tried to invite them into various gardens without much luck, although maybe one might have appeared in the back garden in my first year here? - never to be seen again.

BiL has lots growing every year right by his path to the back door. I never remember to collect seed pods to bring home - I'll try to remember this year.

It's been a mostly chilly week because Summer went away around midday on Tuesday. It came back briefly for a few hours on Thursday so people didn't get wet while going out to vote but Wednesday and Friday were horribly cold and grey and the wind on several days has had a real bite to it.

I raced around Monday morning getting loads of jobs done so I could watch the tennis and have been watching as much as possible all week. Thursday was the best day with so many Brits playing - all at once sometimes. Did you know there are 46 courts at Wimbledon if you include the practice courts and the 8 clay courts, I didn't, until it was a question on the Radio 2 Zoe Ball show mini quiz. Play on 18 main courts are often all on TV - difficult to choose.

I'd planned a swim again Friday but woke up feeling rough so cancelled that until next week, my own fault for getting cold when shopping.

It's odd sometimes to find the things people don't know. - On the local Next Door website page- which is usually lost cats - several people moaned about Green Party representatives sitting outside Polling Stations on Thursday - some folk were very irate that it should be 'allowed'. But it's something that used to happen a lot and there is no need to speak to them after all and the street is still a free country - thank God! 

Good to know that there was no fuss or cries of 'cheating' or 'fix' after the election results. Hand over is always polite and quick............unlike some countries! and they are able to get removal vans for Number 10 at very short notice - very different when the rest of us are moving house!

This week I've been grateful for

• Gift of Broad Beans from BiL who had been gifted more than he needed from a neighbour
• Huge bowlful of raspberries from the garden everyday
• Tomatoes, cucumbers and courgettes all ready now
• Another handful of green beans
• Plenty of good reading. (The final Maisie Dobbs from Jacqueline Winspear was excellent)
• Rain - just in time to fill the water butts

Not sure what I'm doing this weekend. 

Back Soon

Sue

A Good Year For Foxgloves

Despite me never intentionally growing or sowing them here, a couple of years ago one foxglove appeared in a strange spot, right outside the shed door. This year there are a dozen in various places all around the borders. I'm so pleased to see them as they grow wild in many places but not so often in (usually) dry Suffolk. Most are traditional dark pink/purple but a few are a lighter purple and white. Self seeded  don't have as many small flowers on the stem as those grown specifically but they are still very good for bees.

Common Foxgloves (Digitalis purpurea) have lots of local and traditional names around the country - Witches or Goblins fingers, Our Lady's gloves,  Dead Mans bells, Ladies fingers. They are native to Europe, Western Asia and Northwest Africa.

Foxgloves are one of those plants that are both poisonous and also used medicinally and were used in connection with heart failure and slowing excessive heart rate. There is a long description on Wikipedia. HERE 

And of course Cecily Mary Barker has a Foxglove Flower Fairy for Summer 

Back Soon

Sue

Bees - All Sorts

 The Ceanothus on my header(known as Californian Lilac elsewhere) was completely buzzing on Sunday morning when I filled up the mealworm feeder for the robin Yet Again - the starlings can empty it in a few minutes when they all swoop in.

There were so many bees of all shapes and sizes and all had their pollen sacs full. I've forgotten how the macro thing works on my camera - if I ever knew - so the photos are poor and you'll have to take my word for how many bees were there all at once.

The robin was waiting as usual for me to fill the feeder and visits it even before I've walked away.

Back Soon

Sue

Saturday

 Odd weather this week. Cold sometimes then mild  then wet  sometimes, then everything all at once. Floods have gone off the roads but I called in at Brother-in-Laws to see how he is drying out and it's going to take a while for the concrete floor of his kitchen, bathroom and utility room to dry, and he'll need new flooring and new kick boards for all the base cupboards.

We got back to the Keep Moving Group after the two weeks off due to the village hall having work done and the W.I that I go to has started a Reading Group that any members could attend, they had one before but met in peoples houses which was limited to six people which didn't seem fair. Now it's going to meet in the church community room with plenty of room for anyone who wants to go and they are doing  the same with a scrabble/games group ( I really do need to move back to that village!). So I went. We're not always going to all read the same book, which I'm glad about as I have enough library books without too many extras.

There's still some colour in the garden with  a few late roses - slightly rain damaged.

And this vine thing which I am forever cutting back

I've got lots of baby water snails in the mini sink pond - really teeny things, too small to see

And the tiger grass has 'flowered'.

After my post about washing all the big greenhouse pots there was a good comment from an anon about getting jobs done in the garden........... to paraphrase -  "my spring self will be pleased at what my autumn self got done" which is so very, very true.

But at the moment my Autumn self is just fed up with the boiler which decided to stop working for heating again one evening and then the next day the heating came on again but not when it should have done and weirdly I still had hot water all the time. It did this a few weeks ago too, that was before the issue with the low pressure which I could fix. Nothing looks wrong on the boiler so I'll have to call the heating man.

Have a good weekend. I'm waiting to see what the weather is like before I decide. Although car boot sales are now all finished due to the rain last weekend so that's something I won't be doing.

And it's clock change weekend - UGH..... Embrace it - don't hate it! - I'll try.

Back Monday

Sue

Pots are Washed

 My big pots had been standing outside and the rain had cleaned some but  I got them done properly on Monday morning after I'd done a bit of housework. It was nice and bright and sunny in the greenhouse and the water butt water wasn't too cold for the job of getting them all clean. 

Still so much to do outside - The water butt now needs emptying, the horrible yew hedge out the front to be cut and the three Buddleias all need cutting back. I've still got a wheelbarrow three-quarters full of my home made compost to empty and the three new patio fruit trees to get into bigger pots. The problem is I need the wheelbarrow empty for cutting the hedge and can't empty it all at once because it's going to go on the veg bed that is a bit low on soil and that's where the purple sprouting broccoli is.

I've always had more than one wheelbarrow everywhere else, now I know why.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

Monday - Friday

 Sorry I didn't reply to all comments yesterday. I think the rain affected the wifi connection as everything went slow.

Typical! was my thought on Monday morning when I felt the en-suite radiator and found it stone cold, that was after I'd looked out of the bedroom window and seen the ice on the car windscreen. I pulled on some clothes, coat and hat and went to the garage to look at the boiler - yep - low pressure light was on and, Thank Heavens, that's the one boiler problem I've learned how to solve in my 2½ years here.

After I'd got warmed up and had breakfast it seemed like a good idea to do another thing I've had to learn  since Colin died - checking the car tyres and putting some air in. It's easy now I've got a hand-held battery powered compressor thing - it looks like a battery drill and the instructions, which I have to read every time I use it, are in plain English.

The cold weather didn't last and the rest of the week was milder with some damp mornings but I zoomed round the back grass one afternoon before the battery ran out again on the mower - it's not holding it's charge so long nowadays. Another job done this week was to give the inside of the greenhouse glass a good wash, I'm ready for next spring now except for the worst job of washing all the pots. I'll do that inside the greenhouse sometime using the water butt full of water that's in there all summer as a basic sort of heat-sink.

No exercise group again as the electrical work at the village hall had over run (No surprise there then!) So a trip out for a visit and for shopping and a walk up the road for a haircut and library van were my only outings.  

Friday was the day that we got the heavy rain that had been talked about all week and rain it certainly did.  This was what happened just  a few yards down the road on the corner.

The little ditch that usually has no water running through it was overwhelmed  by water running off the fields - the sewer pumping station is not far away on the right of this photo below - very worrying!

Water was coming up out of the drains

and 4 x 4's were going through gently

and it got worse a few hours after this photo. I was very glad I hadn't booked a swim as I wouldn't have got home and might not have even got to the pool anyway as there are several places on the way there that probably flooded. 

At midday I texted son to tell him that I'd heard that my village was more or less cut off for small cars and he'd probably have to use the works van to pick up Daughter-in- Law from our primary school here and the children from their primary/pre school in the next village. He rang back a while later to say schools had been closed  and said he'd had to try 2 different ways to get from his office to our village and been through rivers running down roads between our village and the children's school. There was a transit van floating in one place! and worse news was that they had no water out of the taps in their part of their village. I straight away filled up some jugs - just in case. This is all very unusual for Suffolk.

Very glad that my bungalow is several feet up above road level and a good thing that there were no burials being prepared on the burial ground over the road, the mini digger would have made a right ol' mess getting through the gate - coffins would have floated in any graves dug!

Places in Scotland had even more flooding than our little bit of Suffolk and I really feel for the people who've had to move out of their homes and will be going back to a dreadful mess.

 I'd thought about visiting another  National Trust property this weekend before their times change for winter but the heavy rain will have caused floods everywhere so maybe not.. I'll definitely be watching the second semi-final of the Rugby World Cup when England play South Africa. England have done so well to get to the last 4 as they were more or less written off after their poor performances in their pre-tournament friendlies. I've managed to watch nearly all the games but can England  beat South Africa ? that is the question.

 Hope you all have a good weekend.

I'll be back Monday with Octobers library book photo

Sue.

Halfway Through September.............

 ..................already.................and the 2023 Strictly Come Dancing launch show is on TV tonight so we know it's Autumn.

This week in Suffolk....................

Lots of garden clearing done, although I can't do as much at a time as I used to - and there is still so much to do but after I'd cut down just half of one of the three buddleias  the council garden waste bin was straight away three quarters full again. 

A couple of weeks ago I managed to empty one compost bin into the wheelbarrow plus a big tub thing  and turned the full bin over into the empty one,(really hard work!) but buddleia and rose prunings are too tough for rotting down in my bins so they have to go out in the waste bin.

The compost made is a year old and looked good but I can't get it onto the garden yet because all the vegetable beds are still covered with plants so there's nowhere to put it. 

I was pulling out weeds and grass from around the supposed-to-be-red Hazel and a frog hopped out-  which is hopeful. I've put a terracotta pot upside down in the sink- pond to make a temporary step in case he finds his way in. Perhaps this weekend it would be an idea to get some plants to add in even though I've not finished around the outside of the pond yet.

Out the front of the house the previous owners made a very narrow flower bed running down one side of the path - it's very shingly poor soil, lower than the 'lawn' and the grass  keeps spreading over it but  I've not really got the energy to dig it wider, so I've taken out the Lady's Mantle and a small clump of pinks and moved them into the border in the back garden. One more plant to move then some soil needs adding to level the bed and I'll be able to mow right to the path.

One more job done was to remove the small stepping stone slabs that I put between patio and greenhouse door two years ago. The grass just kept growing over them and I got fed up with having to cut round them with the edging spade. I've refilled the holes I dug with dirt and the grass will soon cover them again. 

So how's  low spending September going?

Week two wasn't too bad................

Food shopping last Saturday £14.61 (fruit and other things that were running short)

Printing out the photo of Eldest Grandson for the frame  55p

Parcel back to him of something he left behind £3.79

Swimming £3

Half a dozen eggs from roadside stall £1.25 (they were £1 until recently)

Exercise group £1.50

My main meals since last weekend using things here already

Sunday - The 3rd piece of vegetable/cheese quiche made on Friday eaten with sweetcorn, runner beans and courgette (all from garden)

Monday - The 4th and final piece of a quiche with sweetcorn and beetroot(both from the garden).

Tuesday - Last of the "Artisan"-expensive-never-to-be-bought-again-burgers and roast vegetables (from the garden except potatoes)

Wednesday - Leeks from the garden used in a Leek and Bacon Pilaff -(a new favourite 30 minute meal)

Thursday - Home made vegetable pasty from freezer plus sweetcorn and runner beans from garden

Friday- Stir fried vegetables -home grown except carrot with belly pork slice in hoisin sauce and noodles. Think the pork had been in the freezer for months - it's something I'll not buy again.

Today- Pizza on a home made base with home made topping which I batch make and freeze - plus salad of cucumber, tomato and red pepper - it's the last of the cucumbers.

Every other day this week I've been picking a handful of Autumn raspberries from the canes that were already here - nice extra treat.

 I'm reading from my shelves until library day next week and choose one of the books picked up from the church sale - H.E.Bates - Fair Stood the Wind for France. Why had I never read this before? It's a good story .

Perhaps it's because it's described as a Modern Classic and I used to avoid anything that said it was a "classic" - the word makes me think of dull, dreary and hard work = Dickens or Austen (apologies to fans of their work but I'm Not!)

If you watched Only Connect on BBC 2 on Monday and do the NYT Wordle did you get the answer to one of the sequences? It was the words that pop up when you get the word in 3,4,5 or 6 goes. 6 is Phew! and that was what popped up for me on Friday's Wordle - a tricky one with lots of possible words for the letters I got right just  keeping my current run of 33 correct words going. 6 missed out of 195.

And that's my week rounded up in a few sentences .

Bring on the weekend!

Back Monday

Sue

What's Happened to my Red Hazel?

 For reasons I don't understand, my Red Hazel bush (bought in a pot from a plant sale in May '22) which had put on good growth this year, has reverted to green. It had lovely red leaves right up until a couple of weeks ago but now just common green.

I googled and found this

If the weather is unfavourable to a particular plant, it may revert just to get a competitive advantage. Once the leaves revert to all green, the plant can increase its harvest of solar energy, which in turn gives it more fuel to produce bigger and stronger growth.

Below on the left  is how it looked after buying it last year.

Will it go back to red? That is the question.

Back Tomorrow

Sue