Keyhole Gardens

I saw this link on a gardening forum, and thought it was a lovely and useful idea.

Making a Keyhole Garden in Lesotho from Send a Cow on Vimeo.

We bought a house

Been a long time since I posted here. We finally bought a house, purchase was completed on 11 December and we've been trying to get various stuff sorted out ever since.

The garden is quite large for a semi round here, and has some lovely shrubs - quince in the front garden, magnolia, camellia, azaleas in the back.

Quince flowers

We've been tackling the brambles in the back garden, and also the buddleias. I chopped down most of a buddleia yesterday - or at least pruned it severely, and began trying to prune some of the roses. Here's a picture of the garden from the back bedroom, taken a while ago, and before we began work on the pruning etc.

Have my favourite visitor here again!

Here's Brodie!

We're going through some interesting times right now, as we offered on a 2 bedroom bungalow yesterday (subject to survey) and heard soon after 5pm that our offer has been accepted.

I am feeling fairly mixed up about it all, it will be hard to leave this house, say goodbye to our mini-Eden in the back yard...

But I have a friendly visitor staying with me. And he keeps me sane in times that feel a bit insane to me!

Teeth!

I went to the Dental Hygienist today. I was lectured about what a mess my teeth were because I hadn't really flossed them at all in the last 3 months. I did mention that I was finding it hard to even clean my teeth, let alone floss them due to the cap on one of my upper front teeth being loose and wobbly - Dentist (seen just before we went to the caravan in May) said she thinks the root has split. So can't be cured, that tooth must go. At least I've got nice clean teeth for a day after scale and polish! ;-)

Not sure what to do, but cannot face another denture - the bottom one is useless and I have to take it out to eat as a couple of times I've nearly swallowed the beastly thing and I'm scared of choking on it! So guess it's bridge or implant time. Hygienist says implants best but costly... I need to see the Head Dentist to find out what's possible. It depends on jaw bones and stuff like that I think. Next appointment in September, could organise something sooner, but I think I'll just have to put up with eating slush and only chewing on the right side of my mouth as would prefer to be gardening at the caravan!

I keep thinking of that Pam Ayre's poem - "I wish I'd looked after me teeth"!

After dental adventures we went to "Mr T's" (that supermarket whose name must not be mentioned!) for me to get a photo done for new Blue Badge. As usual ghastly, and not suitable for a passport as my ears are not showing (cost £4). Then back home to pick up the paperwork and go to the nearest Liverpool Direct place where I produced several thousand proofs of identity ;-) and came away with the new Badge (cost £2). Total cost for new badge £6. While I am very grateful for the freedom the Badge gives me, the ability to park in some places where other motorists aren't allowed, and free onstreet parking, I guess that the £6 could be very hard for some disabled folks to find even though it's only every 3 years.

Yesterday we did a HUGE shopping trip - both Aldi and Lidl! Took nearly 4 hours I think. Bought a digital camera for John (Aldi) - I think he's going to have a lot of fun with it. Next step is for him to open a Flickr account - will post it when he does. Plus we got lots of maple syrup and some waffles. I feel a waffley breakfast coming on - make a nice change from poached or scrambled eggs on toast! Also a microwave for the caraven at Lidl, with a palm plant for me, and a mini-pond though I'm not sure if the plants for it are still alive. John added some water to the bags they were packed in last night, in an attempt to keep them going till we can plant them. It's been chucking it down since we got home from Liverpool Direct, so can't plant tonight.

Anyway, all of the above is why I'm now sitting in bed with a hot water bottle on my back (despite the heat and humidity this evening) rather than watching Glastonbury downstairs on the HD TV. At least we've got a TV in the bedroom, so not totally deprived!

Still haven't managed to earth up the potatoes - been meaning to do it all week. Maybe tomorrow!

Nature red in tooth and claw

We seem to have had several rather gruesome days at the caravan!

A couple of days ago I looked across the field to see a large gull tucking into what I thought looked like the remains of a young rabbit. It was quite a big and elegant bird with a black back, a gull that I don't recall seeing in the field here before (we usually have herring gulls), our neighbour from across the field reckons it was a Great black-back gull. He was sufficiently intrigued to take some video of it (eek!) and told us it actually stood on the rabbit and then tore off strips of meat. Two herring gulls were standing by looking hopeful, but they didn't stand a chance!

Yesterday it rained from around 5am, very hard, and with a strong south-easterly wind, blowing hard on the side of the caravan. John was making lunch when he began cursing - water was dropping down on him from one of the spotlights in the kitchen! Not a lot to do at the time, as it was raining too hard to investigate. So we called our landlord, who said he'd get in touch with Gwilym to come and take a look. We suspect the vent/skylight over the shower is the weak point, especially since we were getting water coming into the shower.

Despite the rain we had some rather bedraggled goldfinches feeding on the niger seed and the sunflower hearts for most of the morning. The rain cleared soon after mid day, though it still looked rather nasty over the mainland. We watched a kestrel hovering over the fields by the farm, and then over our field, and it stooped over the next door field further over to us.

Meanwhile we had about seven goldfinches trying to feed from the niger seed, and it only has four perches. Two of the goldfinches got into a kerfuffle, flying up into the air with an explosion of wings, circling each other and making a racket. Suddenly a brown bomb descended from the sky, a flurry of brown wings flying away, with a small body dangling from its feet. So we think that the kestrel had missed its prey before, and taken a goldfinch instead.

This morning there was a similar altercation between a couple of the goldfinches. For a while nothing happened, but then there was another avian explosion. I missed the hunt, but John saw a large bird dive and chase a small one into the hedge. Suddenly it was there, sitting on a post just outside the caravan window. Bright yellow eye, yellow tallons, but nothing in beak or tallons - we think the little bird got away this time! I managed to take a photo, and from that we think it was a male sparrowhawk this time.