Blue Skies and Cat Ladders

 

The skies have been blue for days, the heat is too much for me and the dogs but Alan is loving it.  But I am making the most of it and I usually manage to get all the washing out first thing and in these temperatures it's dry, folded and put away just a couple of hours later.  Which leaves the line clear for Alan to use or for it to be wound back in leaving the garden clear.  It's surprising the difference the lack of a line draped permanently across a garden makes.

I'm sat in the only shady bit available to me half way through the morning and in the distance you can see the start of what Alan was making for Ginger once we had finished building the new raised bed.

And this is what it looks like now!!

The cat ladder is not the prettiest construction ever but Ginger seems to like having his own safe landing spot and ladder down from the top of the fence.  Far better than the six foot drop and thud of old paws onto paving that his leaping off the top of the fence produced.  This way he can get onto his little shelf and run down the pallet that the raised bed parts arrived on.  The rest of the wood is going to be cut up for burning in the chimenea ... when the weather cools down a bit.  😎

Sue xx

Not Long Now ...

 

I was on the Government website the other day, gritting my teeth and paying my half-yearly Self Assessment tax bill, while I was there I decided to nip over to the Pension page to double check on the date of my retirement.  Somebody had said that things had changed yet again for those of us of a certain age, but no ... I'm still due to retire a month after my 66th birthday.

And GOSH isn't that creeping up fast!!

Alan is just over a year older than me and will be retiring first if he decides that he actually will retire this time so that made us sit and have a really good conversation, working out exactly what we have coming in and what our retirement might look like.  It's not too bad really as we will both be getting an individual full state pension and of course Alan has a Navy pension, but as two self-employed people we have had to set up other provisions to keep us afloat for the future and that is something that we will always have to keep an eye on.

To take my mind off the future and bring myself back down to earth I tackled another kitchen cupboard.  

There's not a lot in this one as the pipes and drains of the sink are obviously all down there, but I had gotten the kitchen fitter to put me a shelf that was cut around for the pipes in there to give me as much storage space as possible.  He did a really good job.

I found a few things that were no longer needed and they have gone now.

I decided to take an after photo ...

... and no matter what I did I just could not get it straight.

Just one of the downsides to a kitchen that is just six foot wide with cupboards on one side and a breakfast bar on the other.  😄😆  

The after photo is slightly deceptive as the two glass storage containers from the top shelf are currently in the fridge full of leftovers!

Sue xx

Weekend Working

 

Our delivery for the garden came last week and sat waiting patiently at the front of the house for Alan to get back from work.  Once he had built up the energy he unwrapped the blocks and moved them stack by stack through his house and into the garden.

On Saturday while the side of the garden where the new raised bed was going was still in the shade, he started by clearing back some of the stones and marking out the area for the new bed.  We'd both forgotten just how deep those stones go down!!

As long as you follow the detailed instructions and prepare the area, these block go together really well and quite quickly.  

And with a few breaks for cool drinks, ice-lollies and then later on some lunch the whole bed was built by teatime.

I just got a photo of the new bed this morning.

We are both really pleased with it and I'm really looking forward to filling it, but first we have the small matter of a narrowboat trip to look forward to so there's no rush and it's much too warm to be lugging bags of compost and chippings around at the moment.  

If you're wondering why there's a couple of saws lying on top of the bed when no saws were needed in it's construction, it's because Alan has already started on another little garden project ... something to make Ginger's life just a little bit easier!!

Sue xx

Good Eyesight, Labels and Figs

 

Someone asked me about the brass label on my little Veggie Bed, gosh you have got good eyesight!!

  Nope, it's not the manufacturers label it's a little plaque I had made by Rich at 'By Bike and Boat'.  I've followed him and his full-time narrow boating family for quite a while now and we have a few of his handmade, recycled things.  They also have a YouTube channel.

I went out to take a closer photo of it to put on here, and found it all tarnished.  I'm not surprised after all the bad weather we've had over the past couple of months.

It looked nothing like the wonderfully shiny label that arrived back in February with a hand-written note and wrapped in a page of the Canal Boat News.

Here are the words for you to see clearly.

So I went straight back in and raided my sachet stash for a sachet of brown sauce to give it a good clean up.  And five minutes later ...

... it was looking much better.

I was supposed to be looking for some brass screws to replace these temporary silver coloured ones ... something else I had forgotten to do.

I did a bit of weeding and had a tidy up of the garden while I was out there, just for posterity as we are having a bit of a rejig of the stony area today as the new Woodblocx raised bed parts have arrived now.  I can hear movement outside so Alan is obviously unpacking the pallet.

These will be staying, but will be moving over a little bit to make way for the new bed along the fence line.

And beautiful Mr Fig will be staying exactly where he is.  

He loves it there, but seems to be spending this year putting on lots of new leaf growth instead of any fruits ... much to Alan's dismay!

I'll take some more photos once the new bed is in place, but I'm sure you can imagine it ... it's just a slightly longer version of the veggie bed I already have.

Hopefully we'll get a bit of sunshine this weekend as it's been a much cooler week here this past week, there's been none of the sunshine that I've been reading about on blogs or seeing on the weather forecast on television.  😕

Have a great weekend everyone.

Sue xx

A Re-Jig and a Re-fresh But Nothing Left the House

 

These shelves had been bugging me for quite a while, I couldn't put my finger on what was wrong for a long time ... I figured it out after I did this little re-arranging and tidying. 😃

I had books here on the top shelf and pulled forward to the edge so that I could actually reach them while my back was so bad I could barely stretch my arms above my head.

I also had books on this little set of drawers, handy for every day use but somehow annoying to have them split into two 'camps'.

I took all the books off, gave everything a good wipe and clean and replaced the books with the red flour bin from the top shelf.  Making a very happy discovery in the process ...

... ooh I had forgotten all about these crunchie type bars.

Tidying and sorting does have some huge and very tasty plusses  😋

All these cookbooks fit neatly onto the top shelf with room to slide one more in very easily, which is handy as I have a signed, half price copy of Ella Mills new book on pre-order from Waterstones that should be arriving next month.

The jars were all wiped down, and the pussy cat salt cellar and the pasta jar were re-filled from the cupboard stock and then everything went back onto the lower shelves too.

So what had been bugging me then?  Well it turned out that as soon as I pushed all the books to the back of the shelf it just seemed much, much better, as well as neater and more spacious looking.

And the good news is that I can now just about reach them without having to resort to my little step ladders, so signs of improvement all round, both me and in my kitchen.

So although there was nothing to get rid of on the shelves or the drawers, I have ended up with a cleaned and more organised space ... and chocolate bars that I had no idea that I had.

Winner, winner crunchie dinner 😁

Sue xx

The Death of the Courgette

 

The Courgettes that I grew from seed did poorly this year.  

The first two seedlings took one look at the world and thought 'that's not for me' and didn't even make it outside.  The remaining plant started off strong with lots of beautiful male stems and flowers, but then over the last two weeks just as the first fruits finally appeared the whole plant has gradually withered and died.

My first every failure with Courgettes!!

Oh well, not one to be too disheartened I pulled up the plant and sowed my Winter Leeks in the space instead, along with a row of Spinach seeds.  If I do decide to join in with the WW2 rationing a good supply of Winter veggies will come in very useful.

We have another of these beds being delivered today, so there will be lots ... well another few feet ... more growing room for next year.

Another drawer sorted through and again only a couple of things were deemed un-needed by me in future.

There are some of the baking tins that haven't been used in the last year, but only a couple and they are good quality and as I am now able to stand for longer periods I should be able to get back to making more from scratch again so it would be silly of me to get rid of them just to fit in with a criteria that I set myself.

The only things to go into the unwanted box this time.

Sue xx

A Pretty Good Weekend

 

I was weeding a while ago and thought I spotted a little clump of Poppy leaves in amongst the leaves of the weeds, so I decided to pop them into the Herb bath at the front door.  Sure enough a few weeks later I have a beautiful Poppy to brighten my day.  There is another little flower head about to open and hopefully by next year there will be a few more if the seeds are happy to stay there.

The flowers are always so short lived in their papery delicateness, but absolutely beautiful.

Another drawer emptied, cleaned and sorted through.

As you can see there's barely a difference, and from this one there was nothing to get rid of as everything is in regular use, so just a couple of things were relocated ... but somehow it looks so much fresher.

I did sell something over the weekend, this little painted chest.  I've found that taking the time over the  staging of the first photo of the Facebook Marketplace advert properly does make for quick sales.  

A cup of coffee, an ice-lolly and a spot of people watching in the sunshine on the promenade at Morecambe with Alan and the dogs, a slightly tidier drawer, more space in my hallway and some money in the pot ... it's been a pretty good weekend.

Sue xx