Nine to Three Thirty

I must admit I’ve rather neglected the house since lockdown in favour of the garden.  The garden is looking great and whilst there are still jobs to do, it’s quite manageable now because I have done so much. It seemed a waste to be stuck inside in lovely weather, so I just decided to make the most of the sun and spend my time in the garden.  I did manage to find some motivation to tackle inside the house early in the week, when it wasn’t quite so warm outside.

I spent some time on the toys that we evicted from H’s room when we redecorated, which have been under the bed in the spare room mostly since.  When my nieces and nephews come round they’d get some out, as the toys were suitable for younger kids.  I was surprised to find this T Shirt under there as it’s not one of ours.  A quick pic and a message on WhatsApp and I’d established it was my nephew’s.  I dabbled a bit in the loft too.  I made some minor inroads into decluttering and then gave up on it as the sun started to shine again. I hear tomorrow isn’t going to be so warm so maybe I’ll get some more done inside then because there is a lot to do inside (enough to keep me busy for months I’d say).

My patio plants are starting to look really good now.  I’ve a few more pots planted up too, which should start flowering soon and I need to move the geraniums out of the greenhouse to add to the display.  I think I have all I need for a nice show of flowers for summer now.  I’ve never been this organised with spring and summer bedding.  I don’t usually buy so many plants, but I’ve been picking them up at Aldi when I’ve been food shopping and it feels like a bit of a treat to bring back a new plant.  They have mostly been bedding, but I planted a clematis too, so there should be some long term benefits for the garden.  I’ve also bought some perennial seeds online, so I’m hoping to have more to plant out soon.

Our road has become very social, via a WhatsApp group, since lockdown started and there’s much more of a community feel than previously.  I feel very much at home here as I grew up on the road and then moved away (but locally), before returning shortly after H started primary school.  Many of the households came outside to celebrate VE day in their front gardens and it was a lovely event.  I wandered up and down the road chatting to people from a distance and it was lovely to put a face to a name or chat to people that I’d known for years.   Here I am enjoying a bottle of Spitfire beer (one of my favourites anyway, but just the beer for the day) – this picture was kindly taken by my neighbour.

I’ve made a conscious effort to take a few pictures when I’m out on a walk this week.  This one is of the horse chestnut trees in the park.  They are in flower and I guess this is where the autumn’s conkers will be in a few months time.  The trees are in full leaf already, but some of the other trees are still just growing theirs.

It’s not been such a nice week weather wise, but there have been some nicer patches of weather between the showers.  I’ve felt lucky to have green space nearby, which thankfully isn’t too busy, despite being in the city.

My ‘walkman’ arrived this week and it works. Don’t you just love the old style packaging? I did struggle to get the batteries into the cassette player – it was a very tight fit and I had to use a nail file to help lever them in. I ordered some headphones too, as my ears are too small to wear those in ear phones for very long.  It’s been a bit of a blast from the past using old style cassettes again after so long, but I’ve settled back into the old style technology very easily.  I spent one afternoon really concentrating on my language tapes and I felt I made some progress.

Now I know this doesn’t look much, but it’s our first homegrown produce of the year from the garden (or in this case, they were grown in the conservatory and the greenhouse).  We have a selection of different salad leaves now ready to go.  I don’t have enough yet for a full blown salad, but there’s enough for a garnish.  It’s cut and come again as well, so there should be more where that came from and I do think I could be over run with salad within a week or two.  Don’t worry I served up these leaves with plenty of other food.  I planted some more seeds this week, more flowers than vegetables, but a few of them too. I’m hoping to supplement my flower border with some perennials as I find them the best way of getting a good display year after year. Starting to run out of seed compost now though, so I’ll have to find a way to get some more once the crowds at DIY places die down or if garden centres reopen.

Yesterday there was a lot of fox activity in the garden.  This (older I think) fox spent a lot of the day in my garden and another (younger I think) fox was in and out too.  The foxes live next door so it’s not that unusual to see them, but it’s usually a glimpse of a tail or a sighting from an upstairs window.  Since lockdown they seem to have been more in evidence, but it might just be that I’m at home more and so I’m noticing them more.

I’m spending sunny afternoons on the patio reading at the moment.  I’d prefer to have some paid work to do, but as there isn’t much of that, I’m making the most of the weather.  I spend mornings doing blog work, house work, gardening, whatever needs doing and then I read for a few hours.  We are eating early, so I start cooking quite early, clear up and do a few more jobs of various kinds when it’s cooler in the evening.  I have some nice plants in pots on the patio to cheer up my afternoon sunning spot.  As well as reading I’m trying to do a bit of language learning.  This created a bit of a dilemma as I have loads of cassette tapes with language stuff on, but nothing to listen to them on.  So I’ve ordered an old style walkman to listen to them on.  You can get them for not a lot of money on eBay.  I’ll see how I get on with those, but I have others on CD so I might have to buy a personal CD player later, as the only CD player I have is in the car.  Then I need to decide which languages to concentrate on.  I’ve been learning German for years, so I’ll be doing some of that for sure.  In the past I’ve learnt French, plus bits of Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Welsh.  I’ll be picking up some of those.  The only thing is I don’t think I’ll be going to anywhere that speaks those languages anytime soon, even my next trip to Wales is looking doubtful.

My geraniums are flowering in the greenhouse.  They have got there so early this year.  I bought them last year to have them ready in the garden for my birthday party in June.  Sadly they didn’t oblige until a week later.  This year they are looking great already.  I am still worried that we might have a frost and that’s the reason they aren’t in the garden or on the patio.

Most of the seeds I planted have germinated and are growing well.  I’m hoping to get some planted out this week.  Those peas are ready I think.  The veg patch is good to go now and some beds are already planted up.  I’ve never been so well organised with vegetable growing.

I struggle with the bluebells in the garden.  I think that they are the Spanish sort rather than the native wildflower.  They look nice along the edge of the lawn, under the hedge.  The trouble is that some are in my veg patch and some in my lavender border.  This year they are going to have to be moved to new spots where they are less in the way.

Sorry if this has been a bit garden dominated this week, but that’s how I’m spending my time just now.  I still have loads to do inside, but I’ve said I’ll do that when it rains.