tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62928085390410776232024-03-14T03:49:00.090+00:00Nutty GnomeNutty Gnomehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06146296943319504785noreply@blogger.comBlogger102125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292808539041077623.post-34785398758438703382015-12-22T11:02:00.001+00:002015-12-22T11:02:13.805+00:00Christmas Greetings<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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As you lovely regular readers of my blog will know from my previous post, I've had a bit of a rough year this year - hence the lack of posts. Loosing dad has been one of the most intensely painful and heart-wrenching experiences of my life, but it has been eased by the wonderful, loving and supportive messages from my dear on-line Blogger and Facebook friends and I want to thank you from the bottom of my slowly mending heart for that support....even though I've been rubbish as responding individually to you!<br />
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As we face our first Christmas without him, it's a time of conflicting emotions. All my family are gathering together for a few days to celebrate both Christmas and dad. There will be the usual laughter and fun but no doubt this will be tempered by tears from us all along the way too as we get used to the new normality of Christmas without him. I suspect that there will be an awful lots of sixpences appearing from the Christmas pudding in his honour as well!<br />
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This year's Christmas tree .... as traditional as ever!<br />
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First-Born realised how difficult this year could be for me and made me two new ornaments for the Christmas tree. The first one is a copy of our favourite family photo in a silver frame. I absolutely love it and it's perfect having us all together on the tree.<br />
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She was a little bit wary of giving me the second one in case I got upset or offended ....but I nearly split my sides laughing instead! She made a 'Santa Dad'! He would have loved this. It would have really appealed to his sense of humour and the absurd!<br />
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It came with strict instructions that whenever we go to other family member's houses for Christmas, Santa Dad comes too! I can live with that! It's brilliant!<br />
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Of course, the one thing I really wish for I can't have, so instead I'll wish each and every one of you a very Merry Christmas and a happy, healthy and joy-filled 2016 instead.<br />
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Hopefully normally blog service will resume in the New Year - I have so much to post about as we've still managed to finally do some fairly major works in the garden over summer on a project that been 13 years in the design process! No spoilers!!!<br />
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Merry Christmas everyone.<br />
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xxx<br />
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<br />Nutty Gnomehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06146296943319504785noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292808539041077623.post-7971121839927660752015-06-17T18:38:00.001+01:002015-06-17T18:38:21.546+01:00Parting Is Such Sweet SorrowShakespeare was wrong, parting is most definitely <em>not</em> a sweet sorrow, parting is agony. It is curling up in a foetal position, holding yourself and rocking until the pain and silent screaming have passed, whilst knowing that the agony will strike again and again for the foreseeable future because it is outside of your control.<br />
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It's the seemingly endless tears we can produce at any time - the ones that stream down the face for what seem like hours and leave you snotty, red eyed and exhausted and the ones that just leak silently from the eyes unbidden at unexpected times. It's the howling like a banshee with your face pressed into an old coat, the sight of which had caused the flood in the first place.<br />
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It's that intensely sharp stab through the heart at a piece of music, a specific scent, the touch of a cashmere jumper, the memory of a frequently shared old family joke or seeing a beloved face in a photograph. It's the tossing and turning in bed at night, unable to get to sleep then finally doing so only to wake, exhausted, in the wee small hours to start tossing and turning all over again.<br />
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It is the intense weight of lethargy - that sheer inability to make a decision or even to do anything some days, the total lack of enthusiasm for things that you normally love, the sudden inability to concentrate on anything except iPad jigsaw games for more than a couple of minutes at a time. It's the favourite book that has suddenly been translated into Russian and no longer makes any sense no matter how many times you read the same paragraph.<br />
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It is the burning desire and the need to become a hermit from the social world to be alone with your pain without having to deal with other people. It is the immense heaviness of grief. But strangest of all, it is the mind that wanders off to a different place at will - a place of bland nothingness, but where it was safe, where you weren't bereft, rudderless and adrift in the sea of life, alone as an orphan.<br />
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You may have realised by now that, at the age of 55, I have become an orphan. The death of a parent is always devastating and I don't think it matters at what age it happens, but the death of your second parent is even more so because of that complete loss of the guiding lights of your life and the only people who can and will ever give you total complete and utterly unconditional love.<br />
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My wonderful Dad died on February the 26th after a brief illness - the first in his 83 years of life. Ower Dave and I are left bereft. We had such a strong, loving, open, honest and laughter-filled relationship with Dad, as you can see from the photo below.<br />
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I wanted to say so much about Dad, but as Ower Dave gave a fantastic and very moving eulogy at Dad's crowded funeral, and as I share so many of the same strong memories, I figured I couldn't write anything better than that so I've pinched a few bits from it instead. It's over to Ower Dave now, but any bits in brackets are my comments and thoughts:<br />
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Dad was a big family man and most of my earliest memories are around the things we did as a family:</div>
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the way we used to go for walks in Derbyshire every weekend, and how brilliant Dad was at playing hide and seek in the heather when we had picnics</div>
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the way we always ate together as a family and how he teased us by hiding our cutlery when we were distracted at the dinner table</div>
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the children's parties we did and the treasure hunts he organised as part of those</div>
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the way he could always pick out the last piece of the jigsaw and put it to one side to prove it, even when we'd just started (took me years to work that one out!)</div>
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As we grew up, home and the family continued to be important to Dad. We lived as a family in three houses over the years but whichever house we were in, he and Mum always made it a welcoming place for other people.</div>
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I remember the house often being full of both our friends and theirs</div>
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there was always a meal available</div>
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many of our friends came round just because they felt it a comfortable place to be when they were growing up</div>
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In my head it seems that Mum and Dad often went out to parties and, especially when I was young, the way everyone dressed up in long dresses and posh suits made being a grown up just seem so glamorous (Mum and Dad, circa 1971. Dad was Regional President of the North East Region of the National Federation of Master Painters - now the more boringly titled Painters and Decorators Association)</div>
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As the family grew up and we found ourselves with our partners, Dad and Mum embraced them all fully as part of the family and of course loved and treasured their 4 granddaughters when they came along.</div>
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It's telling that one of the most consistent messages we've heard since Dad died, from the funeral director, from dad's florist, from his neighbours, Father Desmond (Dad's parish priest) and others is how proud he was of us all.</div>
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looking back over his life, one of the reasons I think he was able to be so proud was because of the safe spaces he created for all of those around him. Whether it was us, our friends or those he came into contact with, he had a way of being supportive and present in a way that was right for each person even if he didn't know that was what he was doing.</div>
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Part of that was Dad's sheer capacity to love, his underlying kindness, personal resilience, courage and fortitude. He was devastated when Angie (our sister) had an accident that left her paralysed. And I'm certain he thought he was going to die of a broken heart during the first few months after mum died in 1991. But he found a way of working through these and Angie's subsequent death in 1996, and continued to find great joy and pleasure in the family. He loved it when all the family was together. (Like the time 2 years ago that we had a professional photography session for the family - he was at the centre of the family then, as he always was. This was the photo we chose to go on the front of the Order Of Service at his funeral as it seemed so right to surround him with our love one last time)</div>
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The last area of Dad's life I'd like to touch on was the overall way he was able to connect with people. When Mum was alive she was so vibrant that I thought she was the main connector, but I've come to recognise that Dad and she were at least equally matched.</div>
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Both before and since he died, so very many people have told me (us) what a genuinely good and nice man he was and how fond they were of him and I think that was one of his true gifts. Sometimes it's just the little things. People remember him as being kind, thoughtful and caring - a true gentleman, but they also remember him being smartly dressed with a jacket and tie or his trademark cashmere jumpers.</div>
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Wherever Dad formed his connections and friendships, he held them all dear, and this completed the circle for him of family, work, faith and friendship. The one thing that was common throughout all this seems to have been that there was always laughter wherever Dad was. Liz often tells the story that the people where she worked always knew when she was talking on the phone to Dad because she laughed so much and I remember Angie saying much the same thing.</div>
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Even amongst the sadness we laughed with James from Bartholomew's when we were arranging the funeral. We laughed with Sasha at the florists when we were the flowers. We laughed with Father Desmond when arranging the funeral service and we've laughed amongst ourselves as we've remembered what Dad meant to us and the things we did together.</div>
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Dad would have been fine with that. I came across a piece of paper when I was checking his papers for his thoughts on today which said, in his words, that it was alright to take the mickey out of him at his funeral.</div>
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One of the things that Dad often said in good humour to us, usually after he'd been teasing, messing around or just generally being daft, was "you'll miss me when I've gone".</div>
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He was right. We do and we will, but these then are some of the ways I'm going to remember him:</div>
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as the man who could magically squeeze toothpaste back into the tube</div>
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as the man who always found the sixpence at Christmas</div>
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as the man who could always find the last piece of the jigsaw</div>
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as the man who loved his family and friends enormously and was loved equally by them</div>
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as the man who left us with a legacy of doing up houses that so far has lasted for more than thirty years</div>
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as a man who brought love and laughter wherever he went</div>
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as the 83 year old with two replacement knees who could still get up at ladder to paint his chimney</div>
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as the man who adored spending time with his beloved granddaughters</div>
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<li><span style="font-size: small;">as a man who's competitive spirit and unending sense of fun caused so much laughter over the years - traits that he has passed on to Ower Dave and myself! (This photo, from the same photo shoot is made up of individual photos of us all role playing 'jobs' from one of our favourite family games ...Cranium. It was supposed to be a quick part of the shoot, but we all got competitive and wouldn't stop until our 'jobs' had been correctly guessed, so it beautifully sums up the fun we all had together)</span></li>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Back to me now for the final word.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">I feel so fortunate to have had such amazing parents. We were financially poor when I was little, but we 3 children were never aware of it because we were love rich and protected from such adult worries. Dad and Mum both set us firm and consistent boundaries with known consequences if we didn't follow them - and they never failed to carry out those consequences either, but they also praised and rewarded us for the positive things we did and for our achievements - even though Dad was smarting a little when, at age 12, I finally beat him in a swimming race! (Competitive? Us? Dead right!)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">The best thing they gave us throughout our lives though was the knowledge that we were loved. "I love you" was a commonly used phrase by everyone in our family.....although from Mum and Dad, it was sometimes (okay, often) followed by "....but I don't like your behaviour right now!", but it was never used in a trite or offhand manner. It was always heartfelt and meant.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Dave and I had the painful and heart-wrenching privilege of being with both Mum and Dad when they died, 24 years apart. But we also had the immense privilege of hearing the last words from both of them to each of us be "I love you".</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">I love you too Dad.</span></div>
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</span><br />Nutty Gnomehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06146296943319504785noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292808539041077623.post-55463682855117230202014-12-22T14:33:00.004+00:002014-12-22T14:33:55.641+00:00Merry Christmas!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It's been a funny old year one way and another, but Christmas and the New Year beckon so I'd like to wish everyone in Blogland and very Happy Christmas and wonderful 2015.</div>
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I also want to thank everyone for reading my blog and for putting up with the huuuuuge gaps between posts! I'm hoping to get back into blogging again properly in the new year :-)<br />
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May your celebrations be joy-filled and I hope Santa will be good to you!<br />
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Ho, Ho, Ho!<br />
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Nutty Gnomehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06146296943319504785noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292808539041077623.post-43781827365206354012014-10-23T17:17:00.001+01:002014-10-23T17:17:25.787+01:00Erm....Oooops!Erm.....oooops indeed. I'm not quite sure where the summer went, except in a frenzy of gardening, but I certainly didn't quite get round to blogging - but here we are now, ready for another except from the delayed tales of how to build a Japanese garden!<br />
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Some of you with sharp eyes and long memories might remember that in the early days of the garden, oh so long ago now, there was a fruit cage behind the the tea house....frequently complete with a football care of the son of Mrs. AnotherBloodyEyesore! This photo is from May 2011 - oh how things change! ;-)<br />
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Anyway, that summer we had Big Bud Mite on the blackcurrant bushes in the cage and the only rememdy was to dig the fruit bushes up and burn them ...incurring the wrath of Mrs. A.B.E yet again because she had some laundry out! BUT given that my magic eyes aren't <i>quite</i> strong enough to see through a 6ft high, 3ft wide thick holly boundary hedge and it appears that she <i>always</i> has laundry out so that she has an excuse to shout at people, it was a risk I had to take! </div>
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Anyway, I burnt the bushes, survived the verbal mauling from our delightful neighbour and resisted the urge to get drawn into pointing out how often their footballs had damaged our plants, landed in the pond, nearly hit us on the head, etc.etc.etc before realising that I couldn't replant new bushes in the same place in case of recontamination from mites in the soil. </div>
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Relocating the fruit cage meant that suddenly there would soon be all this unclaimed land up for grabs! .....Now what could I possibly do with that eh?!</div>
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I have to confess that I was never particularly happy with having the fruit cage directly behind the tea house as I felt it detracted from Himself's work of art, but as the fruit cage was there first, I'd never come up with a strong enough reason to shift it - until now!</div>
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But it was summer and the redcurrant and gooseberry bushes were still in fruit so moving the cage had to be an autumn job if we didn't want the birds, squirrels, foxes and badgers to get to the fruit before we did! However, having got rid of the blackcurrant bushes, there was space inside the cage to work! I laid out my trusty bit of old hosepipe to form the route for a new path I'd envisaged and Himself kindly offered to dig it for me - and who was I to refuse?!</div>
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It was hot, hard work ...glad it wasn't me that was digging! I was nice - I kept the pints of water coming!<br />
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Once the path was dug to a depth suitable for motorway foundations, Himself raided our sandstone store up the garden (which was created with what we'd dug out of the pond years ago!) and used that as hardcore foundations. I got him to pile all the topsoil up to create a 'mountain' for the path to curve round and to give that very flat area some topological interest (Ooh er, there's posh!)<br />
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The mountain in the background.<br />
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And, as usual, the new bit stayed like that for quite some time! Well, actually, that's not quite true! Being me, I couldn't resist a bit of instant gardening, so I pinched various grasses and ferns from other parts of the garden to use purely as temporary fillers, planted the Killmarnock Willow that our lovely neighbour, Tony, had bought us as a Silver Wedding anniversary present.......</div>
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Found a few Hebes going for a song on the 'Rescue' table at the local nursery....unlike the Twisted Beech, which was also at the local nursery, but wasn't exactly going for a song!<br />
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I then bought some Irish Moss as ground cover.<br />
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And I left it to get on with its own devices for 3 years until this spring!</div>
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I wanted to join up the now-not-so-new path to the veranda, so Himself had to move the huge rock that had acted as a retaining rock when the fruit cage had been behind the tea house, from its original upright position to a horizontal position to make a step from the veranda to the path.....no mean feat given the size and weight of the rock and we bent the scaffold pole lever - again!</div>
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You can see here that the grasses have become too dominant and need to be moved - fortunately I appear to have got myself involved in the after-school gardening club at one of the primary schools we teach tai chi at, so the grasses have found a new home as part of the redesign of their raised beds in the playground ....quite useful that I was doing the redesign really! ;-)<br />
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Anyway, the next few photos were taken yesterday - and our trusty bent scaffold pole makes a very good netting support to keep the leaves out of the pond. A bit over-engineered (as ever!), but it keeps Himself happy!</div>
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The grasses have gone, the hebes have grown, box balls have found a new home and the Irish moss, which worked well in the very wet summer of 2012, didn't like the direct sunlight of 2013 and died, so has been replaced by a creeping ground cover that I don't know the name of and don't have a photo of either!</div>
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I've finally made a start on doing the path edgings - bought a load of old roof tiles from the local reclaim yard for 35 pence each - bargain! The path, which will soon be covered in weed repellant matting and a thick layer of pea gravel to match the other paths, now joins the veranda step at one end.....</div>
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goes up to curve round past the twisted beech on the mountain.....</div>
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and has currently got as far as my lovely Buddha statue, which was a Christmas present from our best friends - they know me so well!</div>
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There is still a way to go yet though - but I'm hoping to get it finished off during the half term holiday next week if the weather is kind to me!</div>
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The sharp-eyed amongst you may have spotted a certain final bit of annexation! There was a metre (or so) beyond the back wall of the fruit cage that went up as far as the concrete path just behind the maple tree. This area was originally planted up with rhubarb and blackberries which appear to have moved themselves to the other side of the garden to be with the rest of the soft fruit ;-P</div>
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Various other bamboos, cornus, pieris, hebes and an acer have somehow appeared in the empty soil ...don't know how it happened! </div>
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I have now had <i>very</i> strict instructions from Himself that I am not allowed to annexe any more of the garden :-D</div>
Nutty Gnomehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06146296943319504785noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292808539041077623.post-52521235963734390232014-06-27T19:56:00.000+01:002014-06-27T19:56:01.391+01:00Many years ago............in a small market town in Derbyshire, some fool decided that building a Japanese garden and tea house would be a good plan and probably wouldn't take all that long. That fool was me and eight years later, it's still not finished! However, we have <i>just about</i> finished renovating our 1920's house, learnt how to grow fruit and vegetables, made a lot of other changes in the garden and had a life with our gorgeous daughters, so all is not lost!<br />
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I'm not known as a speedy blogger and many of my posts refer back to stuff we did ages ago - ok, <i>MOST</i> of my posts are about about stuff we did ages ago...life gets in the way of blogging at times! Today's post is no exception. Today we're going back 4 years to the finishing off of the top pond and the tea house courtyard....if I can find the right photos after all this time!<br />
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We'll start with Himself putting my granite lantern into the pond....and making it work, obviously!<br />
He put a couple of large flatish stones on the pond shelf before drilling a hole for the wire in another stone and resting that on top. The water looks skanky because we hadn't got the filter working at that time - the water is lovely and clear now.<br />
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The granite lantern came in 4 parts - because it was chuffing 'eavy and couldn't possibly have been hoiked into place as one complete lantern. The base went on top of the drilled stone,<br />
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it was of course perfectly level!</div>
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The light was then threaded through the hole and the wire was carefully placed in the small gap between the 2 base stones.<br />
The clamps and stuff on the edge of the tea house veranda were because Himself had glued some mahogany pieces onto the edges to completely encase the softwood and protect it from the weather.<br />
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The second piece of the lantern went on next. In Japan, the windows are open to the elements, but our elements are a bit too inclement for that, so I used pieces of plastic milk containers to provide protection - an idea I borrowed from <a href="http://www.buddhamaitreya.co.uk/" target="_blank">Purelands</a>, a Japanese Garden and Meditation Centre near Newark which is well worth a visit if you're in the area.</div>
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The mountain of soil inside the fruit cage will get explained in another post very soon!</div>
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Himself making sure he'd not dribbled glue onto the grantite whilst sticking the third piece on!<br />
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The fourth piece finally in place.<br />
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Once Himself had done the heavy work, I could move in and do the arty-farty bit! I covered the shelf and the surrounding edges with more small rocks, stones and pebbles. If there is one thing I can't abide with home-made ponds it's being able to see the liner - you can't see any liner anywhere around my ponds.......except if you lie on your tummy on the veranda and peer back underneath to the bit I can't get to! :-P<br />
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A goodly chunk of the pond shelf and edge sorted and the waterlillies in place in the deep bit of the pond.<br />
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Himself's next task (it's begining to sound like 'The Twelve Labours of Hercules' here!) was to make me a Tsukubai - a stone water basin. Traditionally they are smoother on the outside, often rounded, but hey - we had lots of big rocks lying around the yard....!</div>
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First he drilled a load of holes,</div>
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before chiseling the stone out<br />
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to make a nice smooth central water hole.<br />
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The only <i>slight</i> problem was that he'd done the job down on the yard and the tea house courtyard was about 100 yards <u>up</u> the garden! Everywhere is UP in our garden, including the stone, which was levered up</div>
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and placed in our long-suffering wheelbarrow for Himself, Last-Born and the Drummer Boy to take up the garden. I can't remember which bit of me I'd injured at that point or how, but I was on light duties and therefore exempt from rock hauling!<br />
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hence we got photos.</div>
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There are no photos of getting it into place because I was too busy bossing them around and choosing which face of the stone I wanted facing outwards to take any!</div>
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The Wonderful Pete had put the step stone in place the previous weekend (but can I 'eckerslike find those photos!) and I laid down the stepping stones - in Japanese gardens the stepping stones are always deliberately close together to make you slow down as you walk on them so that you have chance to take in your surroundings.</div>
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They were then taken up so that sand could be put down</div>
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A fully sanded courtyard.</div>
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Then some left over butyl pond liner was put on top of the sand as a weed suppressant</div>
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before I had the fun job of putting all the pebbles down in the courtyard - individually handpicked and carefully placed, obviously!<br />
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before putting pea gravel on the path from the bridge to the courtyard and blending in where they met. And so it has remained ever since!<br />
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To finish off, I've added in a few photos of how it looks now at 6.45pm on a grey and wet June day - when we've had stonking hot sunny weather for days, I know, I know - should have taken 'em yesterday!<br />
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There will one day be a rainchain from the roof to the basin to fill it with fresh rainwater. At the moment I use the ladle to fill it with pond water ...but I do have to be careful at this time of year as I have been known to accidentally ladle tadpoles in as well!</div>
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The granite lantern is a bit greener than it really ought to be ;-P<br />
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Hope you enjoyed your tour? It's not finished yet....will it ever be?! I'm in the middle of replacing a lot of the 'filler' grasses with hebes, euphorbias and box balls. I'm also planting moss and other ground cover. Still got 2 paths to finish and some other stuff to do, so watch this space!Nutty Gnomehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06146296943319504785noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292808539041077623.post-45000404233635280372014-04-09T20:17:00.001+01:002014-04-10T19:01:42.166+01:00The Pond Building Saga Continues! Right, a bit of a warning before we start....it's a long one this one! You might want to pop to the loo, make a nice cup of tea or get a glass of your favourite tipple to keep you company as we go! We're off back to last summer again.<br />
Before we could start on the bottom pond properly, we had to sort out the waterfall stone out of the top pond - it's never straightforward is it?! The waterfall stone was a 50p offcut from the local stonemason's scrap pile a few years ago and was never a brilliant stone. It really didn't like the hard winters of 2010 and 2011 - the frost and snow caused it to split along its natural striations and the top pond slowly went down by about 3 inches, which was somewhat worrying at first as we spotted the water level drop but didn't know the cause. I spent ages one weekend carefully working my way around the entire edge of the pond, moving stones, checking that the edge support hadn't failed, looking for tears etc, but all to no avail - which left a split waterfall stone as the only answer.<br />
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We aquired an old stone step from somewhere (but I can't remember where as it was so long ago!), which was a bit big and needed cutting to size.I shifted the streamside stones out of the way then Himself and I gently peeled the glued liner away from the original, broken stone, lifted it out....and it fell to pieces, so at least our deduction about the cause of the water level drop was proved correct!!!<br />
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The only time Himself really pays heed to the old 'elf n safety' is when he's using the chainsaw or the stone cutter and duely kevlar gatered, gloved and helmetted up he set about cutting the stone to size, having measured and checked several times each side that had to be cut .<br />
It has to be said at this point that our dear, happy, cheerful neighbour Mrs AnotherBloodyEyesore was absolutely delighted by the stone cutting and yelled jaunty encouragement over the hedge at us for a good ten minutes! She is such a joy! ;-P<br />
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Once cutting was completed Himself put it in place and tickled about with it until it was completely level.<br />
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Then he stuck the liner onto it.....<br />
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made a little dam wall out of gaffer tape to check his levels<br />
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and we filled the pond back up to its original and correct level. After two years of low water it was lovely to have it back to normal again....however, I then had to try and retro-fit all the streamside stones back into their old - and sometimes new places.<br />
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It didn't end upquite the same as previously, but I was still happy with the result.<br />
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Himself had a little respite from playing with big boys toys by spending time packing sand onto the shelves on the bottom pond in preparation for the arty-farty stone placement. Last-Born, as you can see, was fully engaged in the whole pond building process and in there getting down and dirty with us - not!<br />
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The following weekend The Wonderful Pete (TWP) came up to help. He has done this so often that there is no way we can ever repay his imense kindness....other than with lots of good food and nice wine or beer when he's with us, obviously!<br />
Anyway, we started off shifting the stones onto the pond shelf using the scaffold poles to hoist them in.....<br />
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but the second stone bent the pole, so we had to bring the big guns in! Given that we were working on a sloping site with veeeeerrrrry heavy stones, it seemed prudent to fill the trugs with stones and put them on the scaffold boards for a bit of extra ballast.....just in case! It may not be elegant, but it does work.<br />
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With lots of hoisting, pulling, puffing, panting and just the occasional rude word,<br />
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we got the big rocks in place along the back of the pond to create a supporting wall<br />
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and then down the far side of the pond where the shelf is at its widest point.<br />
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Once the big rocks were in their 'right' places ...which did involve shifting one or two of them into different places a couple of times until the Art Department (me) was happy with them...even if Himself and TWP were less than impressed with me! I then hoiked various smaller stones around happily for about 3 weeks, or maybe it just felt like that?! until I was happy with the overall effect.<br />
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Then we ran the stream to get the levels in the bottom pond right and see how it all looked.<br />
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Somehow, somewhere along the way, even though the pond's hard landscaping wasn't complete some plants managed to jump in and get settled down...don't know <i>how</i> that happened! I then spent some time building up the bottom part of the stream and the waterfall - contrary to popular family belief, this was NOT faffing about with rocks and stones, this was serious naturalisation of an artificial pond!<br />
It's surprisingly hard to get it right!<br />
I then moved onto the not-yet-garden and planted various plants that I nicked from other parts of the garden and some grotty unloved Hebes I bought for pennies from the 'rescue' table at the local garden centre.<br />
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Once I'd finally finished <strike>playing</strike> getting it to the point where I was happy with it, it all got left until a couple of weeks ago - yes folks, <b><i>this</i></b> year!!! when I decided that I really couldn't bear the lack of proper garden or skanky, messy and frankly slightly unsafe hotchpotch of flagstones and mud that made up part of the still unfinished path for a minute longer. So I started off by transplanting all the 'mind your own business', moss and other ground covering plants that had been taking over aprts of the path that has been in situ for 2 or 3 years so that I had a clear view of things first. It took a surprisingly long time to do that!<br />
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I followed this up with a bit of excavating down to the sandstone path foundations I'd put in about 4 years ago (things really don't happen quickly on this project!) and getting the levels right, followed by a few hours of digging of slots to get the old roof tiles in to create a nice level edge to both sides of the path - aided by a bit of stick carefully broken to the right length to act as my path-width measurer ...technology? Bhah!<br />
and finished off by laying the weed supressant membrane and covering it in a couple of inches of pea gravel......followed by some serious arty-farty pretty gravel soothing to make me happy! Doesn't take much does it?! :-P</div>
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So I now have a complete and safe route to both bridges....and as it's a bit steep in places I might well end up putting stepping stones into the gravel as I suspect I may find lots of gravel down by the bottom bridge!<br />
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The plants in the pond were put in last year, as were most of the plants around the edges, but I have plans! They mainly involve Hebes, Box balls, moss and the like, but possibly not more bamboo - unless a very pretty one catches my eye!<br />
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To finish off then, a little quiz!</div>
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Spot the name of one of my favourite films in this photo! A smugness award to the first person to get it :-)</div>
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<br />Nutty Gnomehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06146296943319504785noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292808539041077623.post-83241052614029065992014-01-26T18:52:00.001+00:002014-01-26T18:52:09.338+00:00Life In A Time Warp!Okay, look, I know - and I'm feeling guilty about it, alright?! I haven't posted in forever, I missed doing my Christmas and New Year post altogether and it's suddenly the end of January and I don't know how I got here so quickly...so the only answer is that there's a problem with my space-time continuum again and I'm stuck in a time warp that is distorting everything and making October actually just yesterday for me!!!<br />
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So, guilt gone and I've accepted I am now really in January - it <i>must</i> be true because I <i>know</i> it's been raining forever and I'm heartily sick of it. It's a wonder Britain doesn't sink with the weight of all that water on our sodden land!<br />
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I'm going to use my useful time warp and transport us back to the hazy, crazy but not so lazy days of last summer to show you the work on the bottom pond...at last! :-D<br />
Ooops, I've just realised from looking at the dates on the photos that building the reservoir actually happened in April 2012, but we didn't get any further then because the awful weather set in for the rest of the summer and it was never dry enough for long enough to get the pond finished!<br />
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Right. Get yourselves a nice cup of tea, or whatever takes your fancy, and sit back and enjoy the ride!<br />
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Given that Himself is a reincarnated Victorian engineer, it wouldn't have been right if we'd built a reservoir without him having to produce some wonderful contraption to help it along.<br />
He made 2 cruciform wheels of spokes.....<br />
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to go in place once he'd cleared out,shaped, sized, levelled and put sand in the bottom of the long dug out reservoir pit. He then made a cylinder of 2 layers of hardboard - the inner one was shiny side out, the outer one was shiny side in and was 2" bigger in diameter - the reasons for this will become clear in a minute!<br />
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The two cruciforms wedged the inner cylinder in place and kept it circular. The outer cylinder, being bigger, left a 2" gap for concrete to be poured in and we used offcuts of tea house insulation to wedge the out cylinder in place. I'm a really good mixer of concrete (she said, modestly!)<br />
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Once the concrete was set, we took it all apart, raised the cylinders and cruciforms up and repeated the process twice more - with a week between each move to let the concrete harden off. It was hard work and Himself proved to be a bit of a contortionist as he clambered inelegantly in and out of the hole with increasing amounts of stuff in it!<br />
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The result? A beautifully cast concrete reservoir! Himself is a star!<br />
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Now you're probably wondering why we needed a reservoir? Well even if you weren't wondering, I'm still going to tell you. The top pond is considerably larger than the bottom pond. It holds appoximately 6000 litres (or 1300 gallons if you prefer) and the bottom pond only holds about 2000 litres (500 gallons), so every time we switched on the pump to run the stream, the bottom pond water level went down about 2 feet - because the water level in the top pond needed to rise by a couple of inches in order to get over the lip of the waterfall stone - but more about <i>that </i>later!<br />
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In the next photo, the green hosepipe shows the shape of the finished pond. It had only been, up to this point, a hole with a liner in it so that we could get the water levels right and check that the stream worked. It had never been properly dug out, shaped, shelved and 'done'. Part of the problem in getting it done was that I wanted the pond to extend across the skanky old path, part of which I'd already removed, hence the manky flagstones......<br />
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and it was at the top of some equally skanky old steps!!! Yeah, yeah, I know ...first I build ponds under treees, then I put them at the top of steps!<br />
We pumped the water out of the pond hole to let us access the hole.<br />
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Anyway Himself , as ever, had a cunning plan to deal with my idiocy! He took out the old steps, used a few chunky pieces of pond stones to construct a dry stone wall to join up with the hideous old wall on the right (which at <i>some</i> point will be replaced with a nice wall!) and then he backfilled it with the topsoil we'd had lying in a heap from when we originally dug out the pond hole about 5 years ago!<br />
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I then had the dubious pleasure of clearing several years worth of leaves, gunge, frogs, newts and assorted other squirmy things out of the bottom of the hole. Balancing somewhat precariously on the edge of a hole where the bottom was juuuust deeper than I could safely reach did wonders for my core muscles - ouch!</div>
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Then liner was then removed and Himself went all technical again. I pointed out where I wanted the shelves to be. He then carefully worked out all the levels and did the scary bit of drilling the hole through the concrete to put the outlet pipe in place. No use having a reservoir if you can't get water in or out of it!<br />
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The outlet pipe was fitted - after a bit of a struggle in a confined space again, but at least there were no cruciforms in there this time!<br />
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and backfilled with soil, then a layer of builders sand on top.<br />
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The tank was lined with fleecy pond underlay<br />
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and then, with Ower Dave's help, a specially made 'top hat' shaped butyl liner was carefully put into place and glued down.<br />
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The rest of the pond was properly dug to size and levels. Ower Dave lined it all with fine sand - that I had spent hours making from the sandstone I'd dug out of the pond holes years ago and stashed up the garden on some tarpaulin. It just needed a bit of bashing and putting through a griddle.<br />
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We filled the reservoir, checking carefully for any leaks - and, of course, there weren't any!<br />
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The fleece liner was put in place and swept clean of any small stones and grit<br />
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before the butyl liner was finally laid...after sitting in the shed for 2 years!<br />
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Himself cut the hole in the liner for the outlet pipe and fastened the outlet seal in place<br />
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and we left it to fill up with water<br />
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...and it stayed that way for a whole year!<br />
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To be continued........!<br />
Oh, and Happy New Year everyone!Nutty Gnomehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06146296943319504785noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292808539041077623.post-6771106378240527082013-10-05T16:11:00.000+01:002013-10-06T10:27:17.630+01:00Life?! Don't Talk To Me About Life!Okay, so Winter didn't end until the middle of May, Spring ran by at full tilt, Summer was glorious but I'm not quite sure how we got to October SO quickly. Where has this year gone? I can't believe that it's over 3 months since my last post...<i>really</i> not sure how time has flown by at such a lick - maybe there's a hole in the space-time continuum again?!<br />
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Actually, I think it's because despite the very late start, we've actually had a fabulous summer and actually done lots of 'stuff - unlike last year where we constantly getting rained off!.One thing we have done is finally completed one side of the front garden project that we began way back in March 2010....yes, that <i>does</i> say 2010! Things happen slowly around here :-P<br />
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Anyway, the front garden has gone from this - the laurels were taken out by our Tree Surgeon, his lads and their Land Rover winch.....as you do!<br />
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Then I brought in a bit of hired in teenage muscle from the school where I'm a Governor. They cleared some smaller roots, weeded the whole area and dug a trench to reduce the pressure on our old and somewhat wonky dry stone wall...a trench which I promptly began filling in with stones from the cleared area to help with drainage...yeah, right! Nothing to do with not being prepared to slog barrowloads for stones uphill to the stone mountain...how come everywhere is uphill in our garden?!<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Knbcg8DxHw8/UkxPBOkghmI/AAAAAAAADLA/5ZWe3obfbEA/s1600/Jake+and+Matt+005.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Knbcg8DxHw8/UkxPBOkghmI/AAAAAAAADLA/5ZWe3obfbEA/s320/Jake+and+Matt+005.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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To this in Autumn of 2012 after Himself had rotivated it:<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ki6E55wRa8w/UkxEUVlgleI/AAAAAAAADKA/3issEraZ0JA/s1600/Terrace+&+Front+Garden+work+Aug+2012+014.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ki6E55wRa8w/UkxEUVlgleI/AAAAAAAADKA/3issEraZ0JA/s320/Terrace+&+Front+Garden+work+Aug+2012+014.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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And in April this year after re-weeding, much raking and rolling to levelling:<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8A5H7V6EGFw/UkxFyMkgRRI/AAAAAAAADKc/zVF2Bf6rDC0/s1600/P1000947.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8A5H7V6EGFw/UkxFyMkgRRI/AAAAAAAADKc/zVF2Bf6rDC0/s320/P1000947.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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With this - Himself's lastest invention!</div>
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To this! A glorious, lush, green open space of approximately 220sq metres.......that is currently being covered in Autumn leaves! </div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6lLHkj6-ZOQ/UkxG_38S2iI/AAAAAAAADKk/PePDn9BOjAI/s1600/P1010275.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6lLHkj6-ZOQ/UkxG_38S2iI/AAAAAAAADKk/PePDn9BOjAI/s320/P1010275.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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So all I need to do to do now (HAH- ALL!!!) is to finish clearing the other side of the drive - which is only about half the size, sort out/ fill in the huge holes where the laurel stumps were, get it something like level despite the rapidly changing gradiant of the slope and then get Himself in to finish the job and seed it. Simples! Should be done in time for Spring seeding...<i>should be</i>!</div>
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We've also finished the bottom pond up in the Japanese garden - but as that is several blog posts in its own right you'll have to hang on a bit!</div>
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We've had a superb year with the fruit and vegetables. You may remember that last year my vegetable garden looked like this:</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TIYF9wkmRD4/UkxMNVXyKvI/AAAAAAAADK0/MFZqpS-gAo8/s1600/Julsy21st+garden+photos+109.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TIYF9wkmRD4/UkxMNVXyKvI/AAAAAAAADK0/MFZqpS-gAo8/s320/Julsy21st+garden+photos+109.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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So many of my vegetables drowned, rotted or just didn't bother poking their heads above ground because it was so cold and wet for so much of the summer...seriously depressing after all the work I'd put into getting everything ready in spring and we got very little that was edible as even the stuff that did manage to grow ended up woody and tasteless. You can read about last year's garden disaster <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6292808539041077623#editor/target=post;postID=325762237803179727;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=7;src=postname">here</a> if you plough through past the trip to the Lake District, the wedding and the Olympics! </div>
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This year has been a different matter altogether :-D The long, long winter meant I didn't even plant any seeds until April when the light started to improve and nothing was planted out until early June when the weather started getting better and better. the result? A lush green verdant vegetable garden!</div>
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Carrots - taken me SEVEN years to get decent carrots!, parsnips, 3 sorts of cabbages, spinach, rainbow chard, kale, French beans, runner beans......</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1E_jXR40qZo/UlAXbe-cX1I/AAAAAAAADLU/zR-14_1CLLw/s1600/P1020815.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1E_jXR40qZo/UlAXbe-cX1I/AAAAAAAADLU/zR-14_1CLLw/s320/P1020815.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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....leeks, peas, raspberries, eating apples, cooking apples, redcurrants, blackcurrants, gooseberries, rhubarb and my first ever blueberries.The bare soil is where the potatoes, onions and garlic had been - which is soon to be planted with broad beans to overwinter. The overwintering onions and garlic are going in where the carrots are about to come out!<br />
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The greenhouse was equally productive, with 5 different types of tomatoes, cucumbers and my first aubergine to ever get to an edible size!<br />
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The 4 varieties of chillies and the 2 types of peppers cropped superbly and most are now nestled happily in my freezer.<br />
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We did have some anomolies amongst the 'Costulo Fiorentino' tomatoes - but I ate the red parts and am still here to tell the tale!<br />
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'Fort Sweetcorn' protected our best ever sweetcorn crop from the ravaging attacks of the foxes and badgers, allowing us to finally enjoy our full crop of sweetcorn rather than just getting the oddments the animals had kindly left behind! We've had roughly 50 corn cobs - all delicious so far :-)</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7vzOQTo7q7o/UlAbcKDrVkI/AAAAAAAADME/HRaAadbVktQ/s1600/P1020838.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7vzOQTo7q7o/UlAbcKDrVkI/AAAAAAAADME/HRaAadbVktQ/s320/P1020838.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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Because I had interplanted, 'Fort Sweetcorn' had the added bonus of protecting the squashes as well. These 3 varieties cropped well but the Butternut squashes didn't and I have NO idea why.<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/---uivHkmMmQ/UlAhaBDy8uI/AAAAAAAADMw/N8mPttRBZVw/s1600/P1020841.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/---uivHkmMmQ/UlAhaBDy8uI/AAAAAAAADMw/N8mPttRBZVw/s320/P1020841.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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A recent and decent hour's work!<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OUScQkLGo6g/UlAb_9DxBxI/AAAAAAAADMM/t4djLOKDrns/s1600/P1020845.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OUScQkLGo6g/UlAb_9DxBxI/AAAAAAAADMM/t4djLOKDrns/s320/P1020845.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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...and the next day's pickings!</div>
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All of which lead to a flurry of cooking...this is the early stages of 'Old Dowerhouse Chutney' - a recipe from the Blessed Delia which has become a family favourite! :-)</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ls9gzOsNL8o/UlAeY8q3FwI/AAAAAAAADMk/2SsdNRK0W4c/s1600/IMAG0468.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ls9gzOsNL8o/UlAeY8q3FwI/AAAAAAAADMk/2SsdNRK0W4c/s320/IMAG0468.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
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This was one afternoon's work (it's a phone photo, so not as good a quality)</div>
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My grand total so far is:<br />
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8 jars of raspberry jam</div>
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8 jars of plum jam</div>
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8 jars of blackcurrant jam (with lbs and lbs of extra fruit in the freezer)</div>
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2 jars of Spitfire Sauce</div>
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4 jars of pickled cucumber</div>
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4 jars of pickled onions</div>
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3 jars of green tomato ketchup</div>
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3 jars of chilli oil</div>
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11 jars of green tomato chutney</div>
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14 jars of Old Dowerhouse chutney and</div>
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after my first ever experiment with American canning</div>
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5 jars of pickled French beans</div>
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The cooking apples are almost ready...but I'll need to stew and freeze most of them which may lead to a freezer crisis as both my freezers are full to bursting point. I'll just have to eat a lot in order to make the space then <i>*sigh* ....</i> a tough job, but I'm sure Himself won't be averse to helping out!</div>
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The only things that didn't work were the salad crops and herbs ...because the slugs and snails feasted on them :-( I did plant some salad crops in trays in the greenhouse, which worked quite well but we didn't have the big crop I was hoping to get out of the ground.</div>
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That didn't bother me too much, but one event broke my heart!</div>
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My much loved (by me anyway!) 21 year old Land Rover finally failed its M.O.T., needing over £2k's worth of work on its chassis ... maybe I'd driven him through too many rivers and through too much deep mud over the years? - aaah, happy times!</div>
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Anyway, Himself sold him to the owner of the panel shop nextdoor to the garage and he's going to strip him down, rebuild him and then use him, so at least he will carry on being loved by someone else. I don't think I could have stood it if he's gone for scrap!</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zqeYXsw9DhE/UlAnoHChuEI/AAAAAAAADNA/NoEdbVQpvFw/s1600/IMAG0336.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zqeYXsw9DhE/UlAnoHChuEI/AAAAAAAADNA/NoEdbVQpvFw/s320/IMAG0336.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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The final journey - and, yes dear readers, I wept!<br />
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He's been replaced by an eco-friendly, fuel efficient really girlie Kia Picanto...just not in the same league really. It's SO girlie that I couldn't even bring myself to put up a photo of it! Himself has promised me that I can have another Land Rover when we get rich......! Ho hum!</div>
Nutty Gnomehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06146296943319504785noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292808539041077623.post-24523670907632710602013-06-17T12:30:00.003+01:002013-06-17T12:30:34.197+01:00Errm...Ooops?! Ooops on many counts really. Firstly that it's taken me so long to do a new post - partly down to having trouble with uploading photos to Blogger again - thanks for that Blogger :-P. Secondly, I've been being jolly busy! And finally, I recently realised that although I've been using the tea house for almost 2 years now (Yes, TWO years!!!) I've never gotten round to doing a post about finishing it off - shame on you Lizbeth!<br />
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So, sorry people, but here - accompanied by a drum roll of your own choosing, is.........wait for it!<br />
The Finished Tea House! Ta Daah!<br />
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Okay - the nearly finished tea house! Firstly, the electrics had to be fitted - and have a nice dimmer switch to add ambiance. Then it had to be lined with 2" thick insulation panels because I am officially a wuss in cold weather.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Nxkod3zw-tI/Ub7oTaqfeBI/AAAAAAAADHo/6JXy69wXW50/s1600/Dad's+80th+weekend+008.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Nxkod3zw-tI/Ub7oTaqfeBI/AAAAAAAADHo/6JXy69wXW50/s320/Dad's+80th+weekend+008.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Then the insulation had to be covered with plywood - including all those complicated little corners - Himself does love a good challenge!<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--EBKReYOKkU/Ub7obUu3eJI/AAAAAAAADH0/uIrm-L8DFTM/s1600/Dad's+80th+weekend+010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--EBKReYOKkU/Ub7obUu3eJI/AAAAAAAADH0/uIrm-L8DFTM/s320/Dad's+80th+weekend+010.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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See what I mean?!<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7V4vzjBkOn0/Ub7mt4DUc_I/AAAAAAAADG4/VKARNDFq0v0/s1600/08.05.11+029.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7V4vzjBkOn0/Ub7mt4DUc_I/AAAAAAAADG4/VKARNDFq0v0/s320/08.05.11+029.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Despite the zillions of screw that he used, Himself wasn't convinced that a couple of panels weren't about to ping off - so he braced them......<br />
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I was a tad more worried about the bracing pinging off than I was about the panels falling down!<br />
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Then he fitted a sort of picture rail to hide all the joints.<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f0jhKAA7lDE/Ub7nL8RgW-I/AAAAAAAADHI/Y7rBeT_l_5Y/s1600/08.05.11+040.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f0jhKAA7lDE/Ub7nL8RgW-I/AAAAAAAADHI/Y7rBeT_l_5Y/s320/08.05.11+040.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Built me a cupboard for all my gubbins and rammel. (necessary bits and pieces!)<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_Xhwo1tV7Ow/Ub7nr-Na11I/AAAAAAAADHg/eitW05nhL4E/s1600/08.05.11+074.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_Xhwo1tV7Ow/Ub7nr-Na11I/AAAAAAAADHg/eitW05nhL4E/s320/08.05.11+074.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
And finally, I got to paint it. It took three coats in total of a very nice soft mushroomy-greyey brown<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-o8qUY1EywDw/Ub7ozloAzkI/AAAAAAAADH8/2K7HqeQcYEE/s1600/30.05.11+002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-o8qUY1EywDw/Ub7ozloAzkI/AAAAAAAADH8/2K7HqeQcYEE/s320/30.05.11+002.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
...including in all those complicated little corners!Very fiddly, with <i>lots</i> of edges to cut in - it took me AGES!<br />
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I had to do plenty of filling after the first coat because the plywood was very uneven in places and faults, screw heads and general unevenness show up best at this point, and as a decorator's daughter, I know full well that 'preparation is all'!<br />
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The finished Tea House - and, yes, I <i>know</i> I've not posted about building the courtyard yet, but I'm on it!<br />
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The 3 little pictures were a gift from a grateful client and are very sweet Japanese countryside scenes. the purple agate mobile was a Christmas present from my best friend - who knows me <i>so</i> well!<br />
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Looking out over the veranda and pond. It is lovely when the weather is warm and sunny to be able to do treatment sessions with the doors open - when we can hear the sound of the stream running, the birds singing, the copper mobile outside gently playing and the squirrels jumping on the roof!<br />
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Looking across the pond into the tea house.<br />
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The Reiki Precepts that I do try to live by - although I don't always manage it!<br />
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They are:<br />
Just for today do not worry<br />
Just for today do not anger<br />
Honour your parents, elders and teachers,<br />
Earn your living honestly and<br />
Respect all living things<br />
(although personally, I'm not sure that slugs and snails count!)Nutty Gnomehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06146296943319504785noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292808539041077623.post-50674825967980485882013-03-23T19:00:00.002+00:002013-03-24T14:32:07.771+00:00Narnia revisited!<div>
Some of you may remember that a couple of years ago we had a really bad winter, with snow up to my thighs for a couple of weeks (ooh err)?! </div>
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Some of you may also remember that this time <i>last</i> year we were in the middle of a heatwave and wearing shorts and tee shirts - oh how things change!!</div>
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Anyway, when the deep snow came 2 years ago, I went in search of Narnia and found it, but failed to find the lamp post. I was going to do a snazzy link to that blogpost, but the blogger gremlins have stolen it so you'll have to either trust your memory or me on that one! We've got snow again at the moment - not thigh deep this time (yet), but a good six inches so far and more forecast for the coming week...time for a quick chorus of "I'm dreamin' of a white Easter" anyone??<br />
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My wonderful friend Bilbo Waggins from <a href="http://theviewfrombagend.blogspot.co.uk/">The View From Bag End</a> managed to find the snazzy link for me, so you can read about my first trip to Narnia <a href="http://nuttygnome.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/i-think-i-know-where-narnia-is.html">here</a>, once you've read her blog! Thanks Bilbo :-)</div>
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So, looking out of the sitting room window this morning I decided it'd be a good time to revisit Narnia to see if I could find that flippin' lamp post this time.</div>
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Suitably layered and wellied up, I set off down the drive ....or what I<i> think </i>was the drive!<br />
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I wandered on down through the trees until I spied the gate in the distance........<br />
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stopping only to check out the splash of colour on the berries,<br />
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I trudged on until I made it to 'The Road'. I took a well earned rest break (well, it's a long way down our drive!) and had a chat with our lovely neighbours as we gazed up Tony's drive and looked at how pretty our wall is! Our neighbours had been far more advernterous than me and had ventured as far as 'The Newsagents', brave people that they are....but then, their drive is a lot shorter and flatter than ours!<br />
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I decided to head back to warm my feet up, pausing briefly to admire our 3 sentinels - our elegant, magnificent, protected Horse Chesnuts.<br />
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Trudging slowly uphill through more trees, I thought I spied something....something black, something man-made. Could this be it? Had I found it?</div>
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YEEEEESSSSS!!!!</div>
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The lamp post. I could go home now!</div>
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So I did!</div>
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HAPPY SPRING EVERYONE!</div>
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<br />Nutty Gnomehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06146296943319504785noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292808539041077623.post-49256563208179021272013-02-09T17:40:00.001+00:002013-02-10T10:45:51.700+00:00A Winter Walk During our recent heavy snow I was <strike>elated</strike> gutted to have to have a 'Snow Day' as the school I was due to work in that day was shut ....devestated I was!!!<br />
Instead, I filled my time by going for a walk in a local park with my wonderful neighbour and his dog and trying out my new camera that Himself surprised me with at Christmas - a Panasonic Lumix FZ150 for those who're interested. A camera for those who aren't! :-P<br />
The park is set in a valley, surrounded by several large housing estates, but the place seemed almost deserted when we arrived and human activity was only given away by the footprints in the snow and, further on, the faint sounds of screams and laughter. We were on the valley floor and the activity was on the slopes!<br />
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The snow was about 7" deep and crunched wonderfully underfoot as we walked. The trees hung low, weighed down by the snow and the air had that magical quality and silence that only snow can give.<br />
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Sally dog proved tricky to photo as she is <i>so</i> fast and loves playing in the snow. This is a rare still moment!<br />
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The stream oozed silently between the banks, not quite water but not yet ice.<br />
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A splash of colour in a black and white world.<br />
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We reached the lake and revelled in how different it looked to normal.<br />
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The gulls appeared singularly unimpressed with the change to their land and lakescape!<br />
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Tony (bless him) had brought a bag of bird seed to entice the birds in for me to photograph :-)<br />
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The swans quickly muscled in on the act.<br />
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The swan was happy with its unexpected meal.<br />
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Sally loves playing with other dogs - and they don't seem to realise that they haven't got a hope of catching her! :-D<br />
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We walked round the lake and along to where the sledgers were having great fun. That slope is quite a bit steeper than it looks! Sadly, Tony wouldn't let me nick a child's sledge ....<br />
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I could have had hers - she was homeward bound anyway!<br />
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And back to the car park past this magnificent tree.<br />
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There is a saying that "happiness never decreases by being shared" and certainly Tony and I shared a lovely hour or so that day - one which will stay with me for a long time. Simple pleasures eh?!<br />
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<br />Nutty Gnomehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06146296943319504785noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292808539041077623.post-89663782105479078282013-01-20T14:21:00.000+00:002013-01-20T14:21:39.289+00:00Silent Sunday<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The normal peace and tranquility of the tea house, pond and Japanese garden moves to a whole new depth in the snow.Nutty Gnomehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06146296943319504785noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292808539041077623.post-64391986792314318342013-01-19T19:06:00.002+00:002013-01-20T12:10:23.112+00:00HEEEEELLLLPPPPP!!!Aaaaargh!<br />
The new Blogger editor is sending me scatty and totally up the wall and I can't work it out. It'll only let me upload one photo at a time, only the first photo shows up and ALL subsequent photos come out black even though they are perfectly good, clear photos in my pictures library. Whooops, hang on a minute - it won't let me upload ANYTHING other than a black rectangle now! :-(<br />
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Now, I got a super-duper new camera for Christmas which came with a CD for 'PHOTOfunSTUDIO' which is a <strike>pile of shite</strike> Panasonic digital photo management thing which is truely amazing in its complete and utter awfulness.....but I haven't worked out how to uninstall it yet!<br />
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So people, my question is:<br />
Is it Blogger or is it PHOTOfunSTUDIO that is causing my misery????<br />
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<u>OR</u> is it something worse? Is it being caused by the presence of the 'friends' that have been accompanying me everywhere I go for the past endless months?<br />
Ladies and gentlemen .....<i>*drum roll* ..................... </i>my friends!!!<br />
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Which one is responsible for my sudden inability to write a blog post?<br />
Any help or advice - rude or otherwise, will be gratefully accepted at this point ....before I throw everything out into the snow that I wanted to show you!!!<br />
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<u>Post Script Sunday 20th January.</u><br />
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With hindsight, I don't think my 'friends' are dwarves. Dwarves are happy, merry, cheery little fellows. My 'friends' are evil, stroppy, mischievous little gits who think that holding lighted bunson burners under my feet at night until my whole body is on fire is funny! They enjoy stealing my brain and replacing it with cotton wool so that I can't remember why I've gone upstairs or the name of this person that I'm talking to and have known forever. They love having me read instructions that they turn into Russian halfway through so that they become completely incomprehensible.....need I go on? These are not Dwarves and there are definitely a lot more than just seven of them. These 'friends' ladies and gentlemen are <i>GREMLINS</i>!!!Nutty Gnomehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06146296943319504785noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292808539041077623.post-3257622378031797272012-09-30T15:08:00.002+01:002012-09-30T15:08:21.984+01:00It's Been A Funny Old Summer.....<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
...in so many ways, with an assortment of highs and lows as summer went along - starting back in May when I narrowly avoided hurling myself down a mountain in the Lake District, but hurt my knee quite badly in the process :-( </div>
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We did a circular route up Whiteless Pike - a walk of about 8 miles in length and 2000ft of (what felt like) mostly up, so not one of the highest or longest walks we've ever done but that day, certainly one of the windiest!</div>
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Almost at the top, with Crummock Water and the Irish Sea in the background. Definitely a <b>high</b> on both counts there!</div>
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We followed the path along the ridge ...yep, that leeeetle faint yellow line going off into the distance is the path! I did have to hold Himself's hand at a couple of points along there as the wind was gusting SO strongly. I'm not normally such a wuss on walks but I was in <i>real</i> danger of being blown off . Over the years we walked in the Alps, the Himalayas and the Karakorums as well as our own Lakes, Peaks, Dales, Scotland and Wales but I have <i>never </i>known anywhere to be as windy as it was that day - but that wasn't the problem!<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xYf6VHpcZ4Y/UGGnsM1chEI/AAAAAAAACyo/zzkNPLQ57x8/s1600/Lakes+May+2012+063.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xYf6VHpcZ4Y/UGGnsM1chEI/AAAAAAAACyo/zzkNPLQ57x8/s320/Lakes+May+2012+063.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
We came down a scree gulley, which was tricky but do-able with care even though it got a awful lot steeper than this and the gap between path and stream got much higher .....<br />
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but I didn't fall until I was on a 'proper' path about 20 ft above the river and rocks - when I tripped on a stone sticking up in the path, idiot that I am! After an impressive bit of stumbling and windmilling of arms for about 20 feet, I finally fell, landed on my right knee, started to tilt ominously fast towards my left - and that drop, so twisted to face-plant into the heather instead. Ouch.<br />
I've walked in the Lakes often enough to know that you need to take care <i>At All Times </i>or the Fells bite back!<br />
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Then there was the 3 mile walk out back to the car ...including a bit of scrambling! Good job it didn't happen at the top of the gully or Mountain Rescue might have had to come and get me. I was down to an agonising painfully slow painful hobble-limp by the last mile. Yep, that was a definite <b>low</b>!<br />
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Fortunately, the weekend was saved by the fact that the hotel we'd booked had turned out to be close enough to Bilbo Waggins of <a href="http://theviewfrombagend.blogspot.co.uk/">http://theviewfrombagend.blogspot.co.uk/</a> for us to go and visit her and Management and plans were already in place for a curry with them at an excellent Indian restaurant that night! Laughter, convivial company, great conversation, good food and beer worked as excellent pain relief! So much so that we went back the following morning for a top-up on the laughter and conversation ...and, bless her heart, Bilbo produced a shepherd's crook so that I could hobble up their wonderful garden and have coffee overlooking the pond - but the racket we made with laughing so much scared away the wildlife! Meeting them was another <b>high</b> :-) I was just sad that I didn't get to drive Miss Daisy because of my knee!</div>
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June saw me still in pain, but only limping a bit as I undertook one of the scariest 'jobs' of my life!!! My wonderful SIL was getting married and she and her equally lovely almost-husband asked me to perform a Handfasting Ceremony after the Registrar has done her bit - it seemed like a good idea last year when I agreed to do it (now where have I heard that phrase before?Oh yes, <a href="http://nuttygnome.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/big-bash.html">The Big Bash!</a>), but it took 2 months of research and writing/re-writing/re-re-writing before I had a 30 minute ceremony that I was happy with - and they had no idea of the contents of! Trusting or what? I could have had them strip naked and dance round a bonfire for all they knew of what I was up to!!!</div>
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Don't be fooled by the calm exterior here - I was (to use the vernacular) 'bricking it' on my way to the chapel at this point!The box had my Handfasting kit in it and was given to the happy couple as a gift after the ceremony. The photos were taken by <a href="http://www.rachelbarnes.co.uk/rachelbarnesweddings.htm">http://www.rachelbarnes.co.uk/rachelbarnesweddings.htm</a>, who just happens to be SIL's best friend and a dear friend of ours :-) </div>
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My dress was made to measure by First-Born, aka <a href="http://the-little-seamstress.blogspot.co.uk/">http://the-little-seamstress.blogspot.co.uk/</a> and my jewellery was made by Last-Born, aka <a href="https://www.facebook.com/KayamaMoonJewellery">https://www.facebook.com/KayamaMoonJewellery</a> . </div>
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Proud to be dressed by my awesome daughters!</div>
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The 'tying of the knot' part of the ceremony ...happily they loved everything that I'd prepared! Not sure what I'd have done if they'd hated it!<br />
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The photo shoot (by Rachel Barnes Photography again) of me and Last-Born for First-Born's portfolio. She's a costume maker and can turn her hand to anything - clothes, wedding dresses, costumes, chain-mail, armour, weapons, wings......! You name it, she can make it.<br />
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<span style="text-align: start;">I have to confess to the wedding being a </span><b style="text-align: start;">retrospective high</b><span style="text-align: start;"> as I put myself under HUGE pressure to get it right, but did enjoy looking back at it!</span></div>
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The London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics began at the end of July and I rapidly became an Olympic addict - so apologies to my Facebook friends who had to put up with several weeks of what one friend described as my 'stream of consciousness' regarding both Games! </div>
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I'd managed to get Olympic tickets in the first round of bidding so, on the 4th August Himself and I went off to London and the North Greenwich Arena to see the women's trampolining.</div>
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It was amazing - people talked to each other on the train going down ...Hello Britain, we don't DO that!!! We got free lollies when we arrived at St. Pancras, the Games Maker volunteers were fantastic, the police and army were wonderful, EVERYONE was so friendly, happy, smiling, helpful....it didn't matter who you were supporting or where in London you were, the atmosphere was simply amazing!</div>
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Outside the North Greenwich Arena. See that blue line up the roof? You can go on guided (roped up) tours up there! Sadly I didn't know about that beforehand or I'd have booked us tickets to go up. We'll just have to go back and do it another day :-D</div>
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In the arena having a Boadicea moment! </div>
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Spot the trampolinist? I'll give you a clue...she's above the left hand bed. I did quite a bit of trampolining when I was a teenager, but never achieved the heights these girls can bounce, nor the complexity of their routines - we were gobsmacked!</div>
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There were thrills and spills - and the gold medal was decided on the last bounce of the last girl to go. The Chinese favourite landed badly at the end of her routine and dropped to Bronze, Canada took the Gold.</div>
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After the medal ceremony we went of to Hyde Park to find the free big screens that were showing various events of the day. Again a brilliant atmosphere. <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/aug/01/olympics-cycling-time-trial-wiggins-live">Bradley Wiggins,</a> cycling hero, put in an appearance at the free concert whilst we were there and I pretended I was doing a lap of honour! Gold medal for idiocy, but still a massive <b>high </b>of a day!</div>
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However, all that walking took its toll on my knee so I was reduced to forcing champagne down me for pain relief at St. Pancras before hobbling onto the train home in agony! A dip into a <b>low</b>.</div>
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<span style="text-align: left;">The whole carriage had the volume turned up on someone's iPad to listen to </span><a href="http://www.jessicaennis.net/#contactForm" style="text-align: left;">Jess Ennis</a><span style="text-align: left;"> win her 8000m race and take Gold in the Heptathlon - massive cheers all round! What a <b>high</b>!</span><br />
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<span style="text-align: left;">The Paralympics were also a major <b>high</b> for me. Stuff the old idea of 'disabled athletes' somehow <i>playing</i> at doing sport - 'cos, let's face it, that's what many, many people think, although I'd never bought into that, having worked with lots of disabled people over the years in my job as an Occupational Therapist. These were SERIOUS ATHLETES who just happened to have a disability, but who had trained hard for 4 years and were giving it their all to get that Gold. Incredible races and competitions that had me on the edge of my seat - again, and pumping up the adrenalin - again! The Russian archer who had no arms and fired his arrows using his feet and mouth yet still scored perfect tens - awesome. The Team GB Equestrian squad were amazing. ALL the wheelchair basketball games were so much more exciting than ordinary basketball because they rely on sheer skill rather than just having the tallest players! <strike>Murderball</strike>, oops,Wheelchair rugby - fantastic! The 100m final battle between Oscar Pistorius and Jonnie Peacock - nail biting! Ellie Simmonds (swimming), David Weir (wheelchair 1500m, 800m, 400m and marathon), Hannah Cockcroft (wheelchair racing), Sarah Storey (cycling), Richard Whitehead (athletics) and so many others whose names became so familiar to us proved what incredibly dedicated and skilful athletes they were - and Jody Cundy's justified rant after he was denied a restart in the cycling time trial showed just how quickly their disabilities had become invisible in the face of their athleticism!</span></div>
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<span style="text-align: left;"><b>A HUGE, HUGE HIGH!</b> ...and I still can't believe that the USA didn't broadcast ANY of the Paralympics - what a missed opportunity. And what a <b>mega low</b> for the American TV broadcasting companies!</span></div>
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<span style="text-align: left;">I thought it was brilliant that ALL the Gold medal winners in both Games got a gold postbox in their home town and a special edition stamp print run as well. You've just got to love Royal Mail for that!</span><span style="text-align: center;"> </span></div>
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SO, mostly highs so far. <b>Lows?</b> The wet, cold, windy, grotty, horrible, miserable flippin' British weather this year! My garden has suffered badly and I've had the worst fruit and vegetable crop ever in the 11 years that I've been growing stuff.<span style="text-align: center;"> </span></div>
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<span style="text-align: center;">My salad bed grew lots of radish tops, but no edible radishes. I gave up trying to grow salad outside after repeated sowings got repeatedly drowned. I had a bit more success growing salad in trays in the greenhouse, but the crop was still very small compared to normal.</span></div>
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The runner beans took until August to even flower. We've only been picking the beans for a couple of weeks now and in way smaller numbers than usual. The French climbing beans that I grew for the first time have, however, proved to be a winner - crispy, tasty and quite prolific...the only crop that is! The pea crop produced enough peas for one meal for two of us ...and I'd planted extra plants this year because I LOVE fresh peas! There are a fair few flagelot beans, but they haven't matured into decent sized beans. </div>
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Whilst the squash, courgette and sweetcorn plants look good from a distance, they're rubbish close up - all foliage and very little substance (or sustenance!)</div>
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It wasn't warm enough for long enough for the corn cobs to fully mature....</div>
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I only managed to grow 7 cobs from a dozen plants. Disappointingly few. They were all small when measured against that well known measuring stick of the teaspoon, but they were very tasty and we've marked them down as a success ...mainly because, although there were far fewer cobs than last year, at least <i>we</i> got to eat them this year instead of the badgers!!!</div>
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<span style="text-align: left;">I'm not sure if this is a courgette, a squash or a squashette, but it's the only one that all those plants combined managed to produce! :-(</span></div>
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The onion tops and all the herbs got eaten by pigeons. Half the leeks got washed away by the rain and everything else got eaten by slugs and snails. </div>
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Spot the carrots and parsnips?! There are 2 carrots and 3 parsnips lurking in this bed - out of repeated sowings on 3 rows each of each vegetable. Huh! What a waste of time and effort <i>that</i> was!</div>
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So - vegetable growing a <b>low</b>, fruit also a <b>low</b> - most of the blossom got washed off in the downpours, so we got very few apples, no pears, plums, damsons or cherries (although to be fair, the blasted pigeons ate what few cherries there were!). The summer raspberries were large and tasteless because they were waterlogged, but the autumn raspberries have redeemed themselves and the new blackcurrant bushes gave us a reasonable first year crop after several years of poor yield on the old bushes due to undiagnosed big bud mite!</div>
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The other <b>big</b> <b>low</b> was that I hit the 'woman of a certain age' thing big time. No energy, no motivation, no oomph, no internal thermostat, no sleep, constantly hungry, waistline disappearing, porridge where my brain used to be...... NOT impressed! But we'll gloss quickly over that and admire the sedums whilst gasping in horror at one day's rainfall in my rain gauge - whilst bearing in mind that that was on the <i>last </i>day of the huge storm that hit us at the beginning of the week and flooded parts of the UK again. On the first day, the gauge overflowed!</div>
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<span style="text-align: left;">And to finish on a <b>high</b>.....my old <a href="http://www.hunter-boot.com/">Hunter</a> wellies finally wore out - well, they were 28 years old and third hand (or foot!) when I got them, so it's not <i>that</i> surprising really! So I treated myself (or 'tret mesen' as they say round here) and bought a brand new pair of really girlie RHS designed Hunter wellies - that I couldn't bring myself to wear for the first week or so because they're so pretty that I didn't want to get them mucky! </span></div>
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Told you my brain had gone to porridge!</div>
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Nutty Gnomehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06146296943319504785noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292808539041077623.post-47696070058326409082012-07-15T21:06:00.006+01:002012-07-18T08:39:00.772+01:00Pathetic!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
After the wettest April to July period since records began back in 1910, my vegetable garden is looking pretty...well, pathetic really! Want to take a tour with me and see what's grown? Well I can tell you now for nowt, it's sod all!! Too wet, too cold and too flamin' miserable!</div>
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Here are my sweet peas - the grand total of 3ft tall and, after a couple of days of sunshine in amongst the rain, I've got ONE flower - it's the middle of July for heaven's sake and I've got <u>one </u>sweet pea flower!</div>
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Did you notice the salad bed behind the sweet peas? No? Hardly surprising as nothing has grown here except for 2 bolting spicey mixed leaves and a fine crop of radish tops - but no radish bottoms... as it were! :-( I seeded and re-seeded about 8 rows of different salad crops and have now given up and am growing them in trays in my greenhouse.<br />
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Here are my runner beans. They should have romped up to the top of the frame by now and be full of flowers and beans, not skulking away down at the bottom with narey a flower in sight<i>*sigh*</i><br />
The potato tops in the background are coming into flower and look healthy enough, but I have no idea of the state of any spuds underneath them...if indeed there <i>are</i> any spuds underneath them!<br />
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And as for the peas......... :-( I adore freshly picked peas, but I'll be very lucky to get <i>any</i> this year at the rate things are going - and the rate crops are rotting!<br />
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Can you spot the carrots and parsnips? No, neither can I! Actually, after <b>3</b> sowings of <b>3</b> rows of each I've got the princely sum of 2 carrots and 4 parsnips. What's happened to the rest of them? Drowned!<br />
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Spinach and kale...juuust about holding their own. But the leeks are struggling as the amount of rain we keep getting in each deluge fills the holes and lifts the leeks out. I've lost count of the number of times I've stuffed the leeks back into the holes...and have NO idea if any of them will stay there long enough to grow.<br />
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Sweetcorn, squashes, pumpkins and courgettes - many have rotted away and the rest are doing nothing much, so I don't hold out much hope of a crop here either. Last Born is quite happy about this as she really doesn't like courgettes ever since the first year I grew vegetables and grew 8 courgette plants...well I didn't know how many courgettes one plant could produce, did I? We all overdosed on courgettes that year! :-P<br />
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Anything that doesn't get drowned has a fair chance of being eaten by the huge slug and snail population that has grown because of the very wet weather. I accidentally trod on one yesterday - it was nearly as big as my foot and it was like squashing a sausage!<br />
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The things that are doing well are....the weeds! Yesterday I completely filled my large green bin with sticky weed and willow bay herb that I pulled up on the island at the front - miserable! ...and I haven't even touched a couple of other weed-filled areas yet :-(</div>
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Although one bed along the right hand boundary in the back garden (which has had absolutely No attention whatsoever since I did some planting there in late March) has flowered well in spite of the weather - it obviously thrives on total neglect and lots and lots and lots of rain!</div>
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Another special thing that has planted itself in the garden (with a bit of help, obviously!) is my recently acquired sculpture,'Atmos' .......Atmos-sphere, geddit?!! Ah well, it made me laugh!<br />
It was a present to me from me for a job well done recently - something that was so far out of my comfort zone that I could barely see it in the distance.....so you just have to reward yourself after times like that don't you?!<br />
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It was made by Alex Moore from <a href="http://www.mooredesigns.co.uk/sculpture/">Moore Designs</a> in West Sussex and I absolutely love it.<span style="background-color: white;">Once I'd seen it - in a magazine if I remember rightly, but don't ask me which one, I just had to have it...a response that is most unusual for me except for with plants!</span><span style="background-color: white;"> And, <i>yes</i>, it IS meant to be rusty and, <i>no</i>, it's not just rusty from all the rain we've had! He makes them in shiny stainless steel too, but I didn't think that'd sit so well in my garden. It was made to order and delivered within a month - and with a phone call from Alex to check when I'd be in to take delivery. A very impressive personalised service.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">Check out Alex's website for some other great ideas!</span><br />
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Another acquisition that cheers me up every time I look out of the kitchen window is Gerald, my Javanese wood carving. Why Gerald? That is First-Born's fault! I'd popped to Nottingham for the day to see her back in April and there was a craft market on....dangerous places, craft markets! Anyway, we both loved the carvings on one stall and I couldn't resist buying this one. I had a very interesting conversation with the stall holder about the village he supports by selling their produce, about the Suar hardwood they use and about various Javanese names that I could pick from. As we walked away, purchase completed, First-Born announced "Gerald. You should call him Gerald"!<br />
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You try remembering complicated Javanese names once Gerald is in your head!!!<br />
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Hope the weather's better where you are?!Nutty Gnomehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06146296943319504785noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292808539041077623.post-20149188805233810282012-04-23T20:47:00.002+01:002012-04-24T09:13:36.528+01:00La Grande Reunion?!A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...well, Rotherham back in 1973 to be exact! (*<i>gasps of horror at how long ago that was</i>*), I did a school exchange trip to La Mayenne in France and was lucky enough to be randomly paired with Claudine. We hit it off straight away and became firm friends, we shared secrets, shared friends and became part of each other's family. We continued to visit each other independently every summer right through our teenage years (but some of our exploits should not be discussed in polite company, especially as our offspring can read my blog!). My parents went to Claudine's wedding to Gerard - I was in Canada at the time so I couldn't go. Claudine and Gerard came to my sister's wedding and, later, to my wedding with Himself 25 years ago.....and that was the last time I saw her, even though we stayed in contact until about 15 years ago when young children and house moves on both sides of the channel meant that we lost touch :-(<br />
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Ower Dave, Claudine and me in 1976<br />
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Fast forward to last year. I had long wanted to find Claudine again as she and her family had been a large and important part of my life. I had tried all sorts of things without success then, one day, a spark of inspiration hit me....that doesn't happen very often, so I have to go with it when it does!! Knowing the names and approximate ages of her sons, I searched for them on Facebook!<br />
RESULT! Within 24 hours her First-Born son had replied to me saying that Claudine was so happy to hear from me again she had cried .....at least I <i>think</i> that's what he said! :-P<br />
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Claudine and Gerard came to visit us for a couple of days last November. It was a wonderful and easy visit, but Himself and I wimped out big time on speaking French! Anyway, when the invite came to visit them in Paris AND to go back to La Mayenne to see the rest of the family (who Himself had never met), we just had to do it.....and, given that the majority of the family don't speak any English, we set ourselves the task of getting our French and our confidence up to scratch!<br />
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Me and Himself have very different learning styles (surprise, surprise!). Himself went for the Michel Thomas CDs, with all the rules explained - well, he IS a mathematician after all! I went to the French Assistant at school! Himself loved finally understanding all the rules and how to build up the language. I loved chattering away in (frequently corrected!) French and, surprisingly, doing my homework each week!<br />
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Thus sorted and confidence (mostly) built, we tootled off on Eurostar for our Easter break en La belle France avec la famille! I was excited and nervous in just about equal measures as it was 32 years since I'd last seen the family and, let's face it, I'd always had a bit of a crush on Didier - Claudine's older brother!!!<br />
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<span style="text-align: left;"> Claudine and Nutty Gnome chez mamie (Gerard's mum)</span><br />
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Gerard, Claudine, Nutty Gnome and Himself<br />
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La famille as I remember them - a larger version of this photo was on the wall in Claudine's parents' house whenever I visited, so seeing this one brought so many memories flooding back...and you've got to admit that Didier <i>was</i> rather cute!<br />
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I'd always called Claudine's parents Monsieur et Madame, <i>never</i> by their Christian names (Sacre Blue, il n'etait pas possible!) and, even now 32 years on, Monsieur et Madame they remain! We were greeted with such warmth - <b>4</b> kisses...full family honours, and Monsieur's assurances that he would have known me anywhere....I could have cried with joy! </div>
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Saturday night saw us at a birthday party in the village hall for one of the granddaughters. There were 37 of us in total, and it was a scary moment walking in to a sea of familiar faces spanning 4 generations - the genes run strong in that family! We spent about 90% of our time with la famille speaking French. Himself was a revelation - for someone who is generally quite reticent and quiet when meeting groups of new people, he amazed me by chattering away quite happily AND making jokes in French with complete strangers. It. Was. Awesome! HE was awesome! </div>
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Monsieur et Madame et moi :-D</div>
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Most of La Famille of my generation. One brother couldn't come and one was still at work when the photo was taken. Not quite as neat as the other family photo!</div>
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Moi et Didier! That's all I'm saying!!! (but he's a grandad now!)</div>
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On Easter Sunday 24 of the clan gathered chez Monsieur et Madame for lunch. I got a touch of vegetable garden envy....and coveted Monsieur's chickens and sheep!<br />
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There was the obligatory Easter egg hunt for the great-grandchildren (or was it the adults?!)<br />
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...and a very slow, careful ride on a quad bike for a much loved nephew</div>
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before champagne aperitifs and a 4 hour barbecue lunch in the garage, with Monsieur plying us with wine and making us laugh as each new bottle he produced went up in quality from 'good' to 'better' to 'best' to 'superior', before he brought out the big guns of the home distilled calvados, or Calva as it is locally known. Good job there were lots of bottles of water on the table or we'd have been under it!</div>
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It was wonderful and to be there and to be part of the love, laughter and warmth of la famille was a real privilege - it was so like when my own family are all together, only with double the people and in French!<br />
We stayed at La Fleurie, Gerard's mum's farm. It's out on the edge of the village.....<br />
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so it doesn't matter how noisy the neighbours are!<br />
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Mamie is an amazing woman and almost as sprightly as I remembered her, in spite of her being 91 now - and only giving up milking a few years ago although she still checks on the herd daily. She also did us the very great honour of giving us a bottle of her husband's home distilled Calva - a gift not to be taken lightly as the bottle is around 50+ years old! It tastes amazing :-)<br />
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Himself, Elisabet (one of Gerard's sisters), mamie, Nutty Gnome</div>
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Monday saw us return to Paris and the rain, accompanied by Gerard's niece. I'm suspecting it was her parents rather than Melanie, who thought a couple of days with us would be good for her English. That's a laugh! Who wants to learn English with a Yorkshire accent?!<br />
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We spent Tuesday doing the sights, but didn't go up the Eiffel Tower as there was a 1&1/2 hour wait to walk up it or a 3 hour queue to go up in the lift! </div>
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La Seine in the rain<br />
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I still have the photo of me pushing the Eiffel Tower over when I was 20, so it just had to be done again - much to Himself's despair!</div>
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Parisienne flower shop</div>
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Garden near Notre Dame</div>
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Notre Dame</div>
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Part of the queue to go in Notre Dame...didn't bother to join that one either!</div>
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Bikes for hire to use round Paris - a bit like Boris's bikes in London although these don't seem to get nicked and end up in Romania!<br />
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You can also hire electric cars to use in the city, but I didn't have chance to look at how much it costs or what deposit you have to pay.</div>
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I love French shutters and balconies</div>
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We went by the Moulin Rouge, but weren't prepared to pay bucket loads to go in so we had to make do with looking at the paintings above the entrance!<br />
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A random Paris side street.</div>
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French food shops....mmmmm!</div>
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Heading up towards Sacre Cour</div>
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It's a bit of a climb, but at least the view is good!</div>
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After Sacre Cour, which we did go inside, we went to Montmatre to have a look at the rather soggy street artists,<br />
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have a little beer whilst giving Melanie an English lesson(!)</div>
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and looked at a few more paintings</div>
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before falling in love with une petite maison on the way back home.<br />
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Our final day in Paris took us to the Champs Elysees to look at the shops. We ventured into the Louis Vuitton shop to look at the world's most expensive - and most hideous handbags. I definitely prefer my (much cheaper) gorgeous leather bag that I haggled for in the souk in Marrakesh last year! We also spotted a shop with shoes I could fall off!<br />
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Time for a last photo call</div>
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or two</div>
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before heading for the Gare du Nord, the Eurostar and home, very, very happy with the reunion! It won't be 32 years before we're back next time!<br />
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<br />Nutty Gnomehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06146296943319504785noreply@blogger.com30tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292808539041077623.post-2645834242673516742012-03-29T18:56:00.016+01:002012-04-02T18:32:04.592+01:00How to Build A Pond - Chapter 393!<span style="font-style: normal; "><span style="font-size: 100%;">...at least that what it feels like! </span></span><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-style: normal; ">I seem to have been doing pond posts for ever and have promised to do this one on edging the pond for almost as long! (I've also had mega problems with Blogger not autosaving and have had to reload the photos so many times that I've been spittin' feathers in frustration!)</div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-style: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-style: normal; "><span><span style="font-size: 100%;">Anyway, we're here now and Blogger seems to be behaving itself, so we'll crack on. You may remember the saga of the pond extension but, if not, you can refresh your memory about it </span></span><a href="http://nuttygnome.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/himself-gets-expansionist-ideas.html" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-style: normal; ">here</a><span><span style="font-size: 100%;">. But if you can't be bothered to do that, here's a refresher of how the the newly extended pond complete with shelf </span></span><span style="font-size: 100%; ">looked</span><span style="font-size: 100%; "> last spring - yep, a whole year ago!</span></div><div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-style: normal; "><img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nvKZOy4vsAw/T3SlZzfhhUI/AAAAAAAACkw/Ft1psxymp5Y/s320/16-05-11%2BTPO%2B004.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5725382889032484162" style="cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-style: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-style: normal; ">Himself carefully sorted out all the levels and edges so that they were strong enough for me to put multiple large rocks on.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-style: normal; "><img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4Ac7eFlpklk/T3SlZE0fsNI/AAAAAAAACkk/-9vZnzO-faY/s320/05.06.11%2B070.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5725382876503978194" style="cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-style: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-style: normal; ">and, for reasons known only to him, he helpfully put a few rocks in</div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-style: normal; "><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zcgajM6jkLE/T3VsBm-lWjI/AAAAAAAACmo/H5eKdS1SR4s/s320/05.06.11%2B075.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5725601276170164786" /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-style: normal; "><span style="font-size: 100%; ">........which I promptly removed!</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-style: normal; "><span style="font-size: 100%; ">My plan when pond building has always been to end up with it looking as natural as possible and with NO liner showing.....visible liner around pond edges is a pet hate of mine!</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-style: normal; "><span style="font-size: 100%; ">I began by building the beach area. This time I had learnt from my mistakes and had made the shelf slope upwards as it went out towards the middle of the pond - thus making it harder for the foxes, badgers, cats, squirrels, birds and other sundry small creatures to knock the pebbles and stones into the pond when they come to drink.</span></div><div style="font-style: normal; "><span><span><span style="font-size: 100%;">I put a layer of largish rocks on the shelf then added baby boulders, rocks and pebbles in a random fashion (you have </span></span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; ">NO</i><span><span style="font-size: 100%;"> idea how hard it is to do </span></span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; ">random</i><span><span style="font-size: 100%;"> with rocks when your head craves </span>symmetry<span style="font-size: 100%;">!!). </span></span></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; "><span><span><span style="font-size: 100%;">I also built back from the pond, over Himself's edge and onto the garden to make it look more naturalised.</span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-style: normal; "><img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-H-qOI71X32c/T3NCT8ZitGI/AAAAAAAACi0/X8Wc4zWyVVg/s320/Pond%2B18.06.11%2B089.jpg" /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-style: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-style: normal; "><span style="font-style: normal; ">For the non-beach area, I decided that getting the plants into place first would be the best bet as I could then place the stones around the pots, making it look like they'd found little spaces for themselves ....and had </span><i>absolutely nothing</i> to do with me wanting to make it look more finished than it actually was!!!</div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-style: normal; "><img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qLJIaINvlxQ/T3a-KMeabBI/AAAAAAAACoU/27elQuFWwS8/s320/Pond%2B18.06.11%2B090.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5725973058604919826" style="font-size: 100%; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-style: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-style: normal; ">So I started at each end of the extension and worked my way to the middle, building up rocks on the shelf and garden - and mixing sizes and shapes as I went. I was very much working on what looked and 'felt' right for each place - causing endless amusement for and sarcastic comments from everyone else around me as this involved numerous attempts, multiple rock moves in and out of different spots and me running round to the other side of the pond to check the visual effects until I was satisfied it was right. Pedantic? Moi?</div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-style: normal; "><img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-67vBousLq6Q/T3a-JiTuWTI/AAAAAAAACoI/C6CKsQVy1E8/s320/Pond%2B18.06.11%2B085.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5725973047285799218" style="cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-style: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-style: normal; ">I also couldn't resist chucking a few plants into the middle of the pond - floaters, oxygenaters and a water lily which flowered in October, but there you go!</div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-style: normal; "><img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VleuxrwZ-us/T3SlX8alhSI/AAAAAAAACkM/lw1oZZNTHTs/s320/Pond%2B18.06.11%2B094.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5725382857067955490" style="font-size: 100%; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-style: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-style: normal; ">In the mean time, whilst I was faffing about with rocks, Himself had put a Japanese lantern into place on the newly built promontory which was the combined result of not being able to dig out too close to the wacking big <span style="font-size: 100%; ">rock </span><span style="font-size: 100%; ">that we'd hoisted into place </span><span style="font-size: 100%; ">originally and me wanting a lantern sitting in the water. </span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-style: normal; "><span style="font-size: 100%; ">Did I ever do a post about Himself fitting the Japanese lantern? A work of art and my Reincarnated Victorian Engineer was in mini heaven working it all out - and, yes, it does have a light in it!</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-style: normal; "><img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tWy4akoj9mk/T3a-K2OAJiI/AAAAAAAACog/ESKd1pBDWCU/s320/Pond%2B18.06.11%2B095.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5725973069810378274" style="font-size: 100%; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-style: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-style: normal; ">Of course, once Himself had got the lantern sorted, I had to make sure no liner was visible!</div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-style: normal; "><img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-78nGQ3tlIus/T3VsASJ2gUI/AAAAAAAACmQ/_SNtTAvAt20/s320/Tea%2BHouse%2B%2526%2BPond%2B27.06.11%2B012.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5725601253400412482" style="cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-style: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; "><span style="font-style: normal; ">and planting around and close to the edges of the pond began to happen. Yes I know </span><i>most</i> people would have finished the pond <i>before</i> starting the planting - but I have never been most people so it happens in the order that I fancy doing it!<br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YDSce2D1WPQ/T3VsBJw3NyI/AAAAAAAACmc/4bmhBHO8e8E/s1600/Tea%2BHouse%2B%2526%2BPond%2B27.06.11%2B016.jpg" style="font-style: normal; "><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YDSce2D1WPQ/T3VsBJw3NyI/AAAAAAAACmc/4bmhBHO8e8E/s320/Tea%2BHouse%2B%2526%2BPond%2B27.06.11%2B016.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5725601268327986978" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-style: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-style: normal; ">I lugged moss-covered rocks from other parts of the garden to create a 'pre-aged' feel to the pond area.</div><div style="font-style: normal; "><span><span style="font-size: 100%;">The black tray with plants in on the right near the watering can is full of Sagina Subulata (Heath Pearlwort/Irish Moss) which I am using as ground cover. Proper Japanese gardens use a wide variety of mosses as their ground cover, but </span>apparently<span style="font-size: 100%;"> they don't have to contend with squirrels digging it up all the time! </span></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; "><span><span style="font-size: 100%;">The Pearlwort plugs were planted about 9" apart and will gradually join up to form a carpet of greenery that will become sort of springy and bouncy according to the bumph. I've got another 100 on order to come next month and as I can split each one into two I should get most of the new area covered....hopefully!</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-style: normal; "><img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WGUyjJgc_lo/T3VxYsgjJSI/AAAAAAAACnA/MJNfX7IcNRo/s320/The%2BBig%2BBash%2B16.07.11%2B013.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5725607170349933858" style="font-size: 100%; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; font-style: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-style: normal; "><span><span style="font-size: 100%;">The pond was finished in time for The Big Bash (which, as we all know, was the real </span>catalyst<span style="font-size: 100%;"> behind us getting stuff done last year!). It also came in useful for a photo shoot when Last Born and The Drummer Boy were off to their Year 13 prom a couple of weeks later!</span></span><br /><span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-imJWpj6oBXA/T3VxX7D0Q-I/AAAAAAAACm0/1fxipzpIsfM/s320/The%2BBig%2BBash%2B16.07.11%2B020.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5725607157076083682" style="cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px; " /></span></span><br />The pond from the waterfall end in late summer.<br /><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; "><img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5oK-sjqCgJs/T3Vr_lYjtcI/AAAAAAAACmE/cSk7UsQcyqo/s320/Tea%2BHouse%2B%2526%2BPond%2B27.06.11%2B010.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5725601241382499778" style="cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px; " /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; ">The pond yesterday.....with the plants just beginning to green up from their late winter stage, but with beautifully clear water again. Himself takes the <a href="http://www.oase-livingwater.com/en_EN/water-garden/products/filters.html">Oase</a> filter out every winter (as per the instructions!) and the water gets very very murky. A mere 24 hours of filtering gets it crystal clear again. It was quite expensive as I recall, but well worth it!</div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; ">It's so clear you can see one of the frogs. No prizes other than a slightly smug sense of satisfaction for spotting it though! :)</div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; "><img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VPzXGKeO-1k/T3VxZvlbzLI/AAAAAAAACnM/HRGOf6Eh3aA/s320/Pond%2BMarch%2B2012%2B004.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5725607188355599538" style="cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; ">The Weeping Willow 'Kilmarnoch' was a Silver Wedding anniversary present from our lovely neighbour last year. It's going to fill that space beautifully.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; "><img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GLNPHf_i6xM/T3VxaSNLI1I/AAAAAAAACnY/qoRMVe6yaRs/s320/Pond%2BMarch%2B2012%2B005.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5725607197649085266" style="cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; ">There's lots more work going on around the Japanese garden at the moment but, as ever, that'll have to wait until another day! I sometimes have days where I have a vague notion about just sitting in a finished garden and enjoying it without the urge to pop and weed something or shift a plant a two that have found themselves in the wrong place ;P</div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; "><br /></div><div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; ">When those days do strike, I tend to wander the web looking for inspiration about what I'd actually sit on or how I might redesign bits of the garden to make it even better (!). One such wander took me to Robert Bridgeman's site at <a href="http://www.bridgman.co.uk/blog/">http://www.bridgman.co.uk/blog/</a> ...take a minute to pop over and have a look - you'll find yourself drooling at some of his ideas. Or is that just me?!</div></div></div>Nutty Gnomehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06146296943319504785noreply@blogger.com31tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292808539041077623.post-27855195861122440082012-02-25T15:33:00.009+00:002012-02-25T18:34:23.175+00:00If I Could Turn Back Time!<span style="font-size: 100%; ">.....we'd go back to the work we did last summer, I'd write the appropriate post immediately (yeah, like that is <i>SO</i> going to happen!) and I wouldn't have to spend hours trawling through badly labelled photos to find the ones I want....but anyway, I digress!</span><div style="font-style: normal; "><span style="font-size: 100%; "><br /></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; "><span style="font-size: 100%; ">Posts on progress on the tea house have been sadly lacking this year as I've got sidetracked onto other things again lately just for a change! But Bilbo Waggins at </span><a href="http://theviewfrombagend.blogspot.com/" style="font-size: 100%; ">The View From Bag End</a><span style="font-size: 100%; "> has recently reminded me of my promise to do a post about the finishing off of last summer's pond extension, so I thought I'd better get on with it otherwise she'll have finished building her megapond before I've finished telling you about ours!(Go and have a read of her blog - it's great...she cracks me up!)</span><div><br />If you want to remind yourself what we got up to and how Himself did the edges of the pond extension, you can read about it <a href="http://nuttygnome.blogspot.com/2011/08/himself-gets-expansionist-ideas.html">here</a>. I really do want to show you the finished pond, but I thought I ought to show you how Himself and the Wonderful Pete completed the tea house veranda first or it'll all be out of sorts and in the wrong order!</div><div><br /></div><div>Himself carefully measured and cut all the supporting rails.<br /><div><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8VX7uL9sEdo/T0kSZkaXxyI/AAAAAAAACgA/MCnQjUxVGaE/s320/30.05.11%2B037.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5713117832776501026" /></div><div><br /></div><div>then he concreted in the two hand rail newel posts</div><div><img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cplv_SjKquM/T0ka7ldVyrI/AAAAAAAAChs/YXwDSriIr-s/s320/16-05-11%2BTPO%2B009.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5713127213265963698" style="font-size: 100%; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></div><div><br /></div><div>before biscuit-jointing all the 45* angled joints and putting metal hangers on all the ordinary joints.</div><div><img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-A0_d3_BiBk4/T0kUaErBtfI/AAAAAAAACgY/M4UigqnWx-E/s320/30.05.11%2B045.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5713120040459548146" style="cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></div><div><br /></div><div>The first corner support in place</div><div><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yacK5v1gfLw/T0kUZn336RI/AAAAAAAACgM/9PDhqHyjl8Y/s1600/30.05.11%2B044.jpg"><img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yacK5v1gfLw/T0kUZn336RI/AAAAAAAACgM/9PDhqHyjl8Y/s320/30.05.11%2B044.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5713120032728803602" style="cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>I insisted on a bit of arty-fartiness and decreed that the pebbles had to go under the veranda in front of the door so that if anyone looked down it would appear that the courtyard continued on under the veranda. Himself thought I'd lost the plot with that one, but I was right! :)</div><div><img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Z5--CkdMKf4/T0kUcMrE66I/AAAAAAAACgw/VWO5LLDOgj0/s320/30.05.11%2B059.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5713120076966980514" style="cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></div><div><br /></div><div>The decking was put in place for testing the spacings between the boards and then marked up for cutting - a precision job</div><div><img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VxXDtb6MG9A/T0kUbuMTRZI/AAAAAAAACgk/4Zl5tTGlxZA/s320/30.05.11%2B048.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5713120068784833938" style="font-size: 100%; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px; " /></div><div><br /></div><div>...with magnificent results!</div><div><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BzASqnEA2Vw/T0kSXhP-xvI/AAAAAAAACfc/OXGVTz4STSA/s320/30.05.11%2B081.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5713117797567874802" /></div><div><br /></div><div>Fixing the supports on the side over the pond proved 'interesting'</div><div><img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EH9vZFlIPok/T0kUcoxLVtI/AAAAAAAACg8/7Wch_S-JoBs/s320/30.05.11%2B065.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5713120084508759762" style="cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px; " /></div><div><br /></div><div>but do-able</div><div><img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NognA1CpkEo/T0ka5wsEyMI/AAAAAAAAChI/OTLcXPLFZ6s/s320/30.05.11%2B082.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5713127181920815298" style="cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px; " /></div><div><br /></div><div>The long lengths were then spaced, marked, cut and fastened down</div><div><img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hhFaUkf9cV0/T0ka6hLon3I/AAAAAAAAChU/gCigTO1Rvew/s320/30.05.11%2B076.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5713127194938089330" style="font-size: 100%; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></div><div><br /></div><div>The end result was superb - as I think you'll agree!</div><div><img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2dB3Pia3MLw/T0kSY-6qayI/AAAAAAAACf0/3Ju6A6Gje88/s320/30.05.11%2B087.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5713117822711393058" style="cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></div><div><br /></div><div>The Wonderful Pete cleared and levelled the courtyard, then laid the step</div><div><img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BseM6Z_GXOo/T0kSYK20jkI/AAAAAAAACfo/Vd89ByelpHM/s320/30.05.11%2B093.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5713117808736636482" style="font-size: 100%; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px; " /></div><div><br /></div><div>and we all celebrated a quite momentous occasion with a glass or several of champagne on the veranda in the light of the setting sun - a happy day! </div><div><img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EL8Icb_5xCc/T0ka7MbeoZI/AAAAAAAAChg/5TfLK7piVa8/s320/30.05.11%2B088.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5713127206547267986" style="font-size: 100%; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></div><div><br /></div></div><div>Finishing the veranda decking felt like a huge achievement and a great leap forward......it really did feel like we would actually get the tea house finished - a bit like some of my posts really then?!</div></div>Nutty Gnomehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06146296943319504785noreply@blogger.com32tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292808539041077623.post-6417475240848747262012-02-05T19:05:00.005+00:002012-02-05T20:09:34.051+00:00*Happy Dance* TimeYAY! At last! <br />After one of the weirdest, mildest winters in ages - and a vastly different one to last year, we've finally got some snow! It was a bitterly cold minus 9 yesterday morning and the snow arrived bang on the time predicted by the weathermen....so they <i>can</i> get it right sometimes then!<div><img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KLP3IZp9pYU/Ty7Vv36ydhI/AAAAAAAACds/JrAilH5Xqp4/s320/Jan%2B2012%2B041.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5705732796366091794" style="cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /><br /><div><br /></div><div>Whilst my inner 8 year old was doing the Happy Dance, Nala the kitten was slightly less impressed with her first foray into the big white world!<br /><div><img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yqqvTXKEZ94/Ty7VvkJgyyI/AAAAAAAACdg/CNFCgvj311c/s320/Jan%2B2012%2B033.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5705732791059139362" style="cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></div><div><br /></div><div>Sedum heads</div><div><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7SBCzY24A1w/Ty7VvIOF9CI/AAAAAAAACdY/MT1PfNQIuxA/s1600/Jan%2B2012%2B039.jpg"><img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7SBCzY24A1w/Ty7VvIOF9CI/AAAAAAAACdY/MT1PfNQIuxA/s320/Jan%2B2012%2B039.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5705732783562159138" style="cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-q5Ognao5iAc/Ty7X15tRH0I/AAAAAAAACfE/tGzyFmLoSYs/s320/Jan%2B2012%2B079.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5705735098948722498" /></div><br /><div>A splash of colour from the Cornus</div><div><img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IZSBNnyTJ7w/Ty7VwsW8WrI/AAAAAAAACd8/C6A43GFWEKw/s320/Jan%2B2012%2B047.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5705732810442824370" style="cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px; " /></div><div><br /></div><div>My solar powered Japanese lanterns won't be doing a lot tonight :P</div><div><img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZqCoFyEOlWc/Ty7XzycdMEI/AAAAAAAACeg/1gVU2Ztkk7k/s320/Jan%2B2012%2B057.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5705735062639423554" style="cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></div><div><br /></div><div>This red bush Acer seemed so much more vibrant this morning than it looks in the photo.<br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IctkqxqlGzQ/Ty7X0zdFHWI/AAAAAAAACe4/4ovoDzOraek/s1600/Jan%2B2012%2B077.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IctkqxqlGzQ/Ty7X0zdFHWI/AAAAAAAACe4/4ovoDzOraek/s320/Jan%2B2012%2B077.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5705735080090344802" /></a></div><div><br />Ceefer cat (who's cool about the snow) inspecting the Acer in the Japanese Garden.</div><div><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PXp27IKkA2o/Ty7XzsS2A4I/AAAAAAAACeU/8YnBn6WsmDw/s1600/Jan%2B2012%2B055.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PXp27IKkA2o/Ty7XzsS2A4I/AAAAAAAACeU/8YnBn6WsmDw/s320/Jan%2B2012%2B055.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5705735060988494722" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>The Tea House and top pond<br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hGIefxtltjQ/Ty7Vxf_1WMI/AAAAAAAACeI/pJPDYfePIZU/s1600/Jan%2B2012%2B048.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hGIefxtltjQ/Ty7Vxf_1WMI/AAAAAAAACeI/pJPDYfePIZU/s320/Jan%2B2012%2B048.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5705732824304539842" /></a><br />As I had recently spotted a couple of fish that the heron must have missed, Himself decided to gently break the ice on the pond for them. A fox had had a wander across the pond in the night!<br /><img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OJqNvxCcIbc/Ty7X0fDNS_I/AAAAAAAACes/vtxxt-ldHMs/s320/Jan%2B2012%2B066.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5705735074613119986" style="cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px; " /><br />Are you dancing happy?! :D<br /></div></div></div>Nutty Gnomehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06146296943319504785noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292808539041077623.post-81230211910897761192012-01-16T15:56:00.009+00:002012-01-17T09:24:40.895+00:00January Blues.....and pinks and yellows!This has been a very weird winter weatherwise so far - way too warm for starters, with temperatures into double figures.....not a thing I ever thought I'd hear myself wingeing about really, whereas at this time last year we were up to our knees in snow - literally!<br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Vpm1PAKBPtM/TxRQnoE-YsI/AAAAAAAACco/sGnEwWmWoY0/s1600/Serious%2Bsnow%2B1st%2BDec2010%2B039.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5698268070233924290" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Vpm1PAKBPtM/TxRQnoE-YsI/AAAAAAAACco/sGnEwWmWoY0/s320/Serious%2Bsnow%2B1st%2BDec2010%2B039.jpg" /></a><br /><br />These past 2 days have been the first cold, frosty days that we've had - and a bit of a shock to the system they've turned out to be too! But as a consequence of the warm, wet weather, an awful lot of flowers and blossom have gotten very confused and popped out early.<br /><br />No snow (yet!) this year, but here are a few of the plants in bloom in my garden right now!<br /><br />This azalea has been in flower since early November.<br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rWXQsATp1U0/TxRMVGKmeRI/AAAAAAAACaw/2RJyZKAaNBU/s1600/End%2Bof%2B2011%2Bto%2BJan%2B2012%2B181.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 240px; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5698263353846561042" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rWXQsATp1U0/TxRMVGKmeRI/AAAAAAAACaw/2RJyZKAaNBU/s320/End%2Bof%2B2011%2Bto%2BJan%2B2012%2B181.jpg" /></a><br /><br />This ornamental cherry came into flower on Christmas Day - a whole 6 weeks early!<br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3m3O2-izGfY/TxRczD5SY_I/AAAAAAAACdE/xkzBFjKWCew/s1600/End%2Bof%2B2011%2Bto%2BJan%2B2012%2B243.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5698281460819190770" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3m3O2-izGfY/TxRczD5SY_I/AAAAAAAACdE/xkzBFjKWCew/s320/End%2Bof%2B2011%2Bto%2BJan%2B2012%2B243.jpg" /></a><br /><br />It's not quite as fullsome as usual, but still very pretty.<br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xyegFr7suFU/TxRcyzJS3fI/AAAAAAAACc0/erPuw80GpyA/s1600/End%2Bof%2B2011%2Bto%2BJan%2B2012%2B216.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5698281456322928114" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xyegFr7suFU/TxRcyzJS3fI/AAAAAAAACc0/erPuw80GpyA/s320/End%2Bof%2B2011%2Bto%2BJan%2B2012%2B216.jpg" /></a><br /><br />The Hellebores are about a fortnight early.<br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-p5T_7xuWnUs/TxRMVe0x0vI/AAAAAAAACbA/iScOoRNlr9g/s1600/End%2Bof%2B2011%2Bto%2BJan%2B2012%2B182.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5698263360465916658" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-p5T_7xuWnUs/TxRMVe0x0vI/AAAAAAAACbA/iScOoRNlr9g/s320/End%2Bof%2B2011%2Bto%2BJan%2B2012%2B182.jpg" /></a><br /><br />This little fellow shouldn't be out at all yet!<br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KyMG3dHjbps/TxRMWShbdsI/AAAAAAAACbI/32_7XAE_Tfk/s1600/End%2Bof%2B2011%2Bto%2BJan%2B2012%2B187.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5698263374343403202" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KyMG3dHjbps/TxRMWShbdsI/AAAAAAAACbI/32_7XAE_Tfk/s320/End%2Bof%2B2011%2Bto%2BJan%2B2012%2B187.jpg" /></a><br /><br />The heathers normally flower in mid-February.<br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fZFHIkwkFKY/TxRMYvrX3oI/AAAAAAAACbg/xLG7X8r77RU/s1600/End%2Bof%2B2011%2Bto%2BJan%2B2012%2B193.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5698263416529477250" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fZFHIkwkFKY/TxRMYvrX3oI/AAAAAAAACbg/xLG7X8r77RU/s320/End%2Bof%2B2011%2Bto%2BJan%2B2012%2B193.jpg" /></a><br /><br />This Hellebore doesn't usually put in an appearance until early February.<br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6HWw5Vy6paE/TxRMWkKEu_I/AAAAAAAACbY/fmRBRnoH7P4/s1600/End%2Bof%2B2011%2Bto%2BJan%2B2012%2B186.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 240px; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5698263379077282802" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6HWw5Vy6paE/TxRMWkKEu_I/AAAAAAAACbY/fmRBRnoH7P4/s320/End%2Bof%2B2011%2Bto%2BJan%2B2012%2B186.jpg" /></a><br /><br />These usually pop out in March and last for months!<br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MnAnuSqwwqA/TxRQLPAeD-I/AAAAAAAACcE/M_QCOTdqjtE/s1600/End%2Bof%2B2011%2Bto%2BJan%2B2012%2B210.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5698267582467805154" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MnAnuSqwwqA/TxRQLPAeD-I/AAAAAAAACcE/M_QCOTdqjtE/s320/End%2Bof%2B2011%2Bto%2BJan%2B2012%2B210.jpg" /></a><br /><br />I don't know when this Willow 'Kilmarnoch' should go into bud as it was only planted in July (it was a Silver Wedding Anniversary present), but I wouldn't have thought it should be coming out now, should it?!<br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4E5LGJVbAPo/TxRQKLJhnXI/AAAAAAAACbs/F53wQmtzoMA/s1600/End%2Bof%2B2011%2Bto%2BJan%2B2012%2B202.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 240px; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5698267564252175730" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4E5LGJVbAPo/TxRQKLJhnXI/AAAAAAAACbs/F53wQmtzoMA/s320/End%2Bof%2B2011%2Bto%2BJan%2B2012%2B202.jpg" /></a><br /><br />I've still got kale, spinach, chard, leeks, 2 sorts of cabbages, 2 types of broccolli and some sprouts going strong - and some self-set peas are about 2 inches high over by the greenhouse! The sharpe eyed amongst you may have spotted that I'm a mucky pup who failed to empty and clean the greenhouse in Autumn! :(<br /><br />All our vegetables for Christmas dinner for 12 came out of our garden - and it made me ridiculously happy to do that!<br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-g0mi649ARBw/TxRQKSxJvPI/AAAAAAAACb4/5Q3ylz5dotI/s1600/End%2Bof%2B2011%2Bto%2BJan%2B2012%2B203.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5698267566297431282" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-g0mi649ARBw/TxRQKSxJvPI/AAAAAAAACb4/5Q3ylz5dotI/s320/End%2Bof%2B2011%2Bto%2BJan%2B2012%2B203.jpg" /></a><br /><br />The Garrya is glorious this year with the longest tasssles it's ever had but, again, somewhat earlier than usual.<br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ciiw_s48OAA/TxRQME0eWzI/AAAAAAAACcg/yXTVVGU8PTI/s1600/End%2Bof%2B2011%2Bto%2BJan%2B2012%2B234.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5698267596913007410" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ciiw_s48OAA/TxRQME0eWzI/AAAAAAAACcg/yXTVVGU8PTI/s320/End%2Bof%2B2011%2Bto%2BJan%2B2012%2B234.jpg" /></a><br /><br />And a new planting that hasn't yet bloomed (or shone) is my Christmas present from Himself, new lights for the drive! Ten years of complaining about how dark and scary our drive is at night have finally paid off. This pair of lights are about 50 yards from the road, about halfway up, and a single light is going in nearer the house....and Himself has promised to get them working before Easter! Naturally, being Himself, he's not doing it the easy way. He's got some complicated plan to tunnel under the drive rather than just dig a channel in the tarmac like everyone else would! :P<br />Frankly I don't mind HOW he gets the electrickery to the lights as long as he gets them working!!!<br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KglWSjzVwJk/TxRQLt6y_gI/AAAAAAAACcQ/9Wav5kCXLcU/s1600/End%2Bof%2B2011%2Bto%2BJan%2B2012%2B225.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 240px; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5698267590765510146" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KglWSjzVwJk/TxRQLt6y_gI/AAAAAAAACcQ/9Wav5kCXLcU/s320/End%2Bof%2B2011%2Bto%2BJan%2B2012%2B225.jpg" /></a><br /><br />What's happening in your garden?Nutty Gnomehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06146296943319504785noreply@blogger.com33tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292808539041077623.post-59926180833071089572011-12-23T14:34:00.005+00:002011-12-23T14:54:20.730+00:00Who stole November?!Now we all know that the Grinch stole Christmas, but I want to know who stole November? I had <em>PLANS</em> for November<em>!</em><br />I was going to do posts on the reconvening of The Brown Earth Society, Autumnal vegetables, work in the garden, developments in the Japanese garden, the heron that nicked my fish, the renovations in the house and - most importantly, the completion of the Tea House at last. But then some heartless swine stole November when I wasn't looking and here we are at Christmas already and none of the above have got done!<br /><br />So instead, all that remains is for me to wish each and every one of you a very Merry Christmas and a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year.<br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PlE9YzOUKDw/TvSSHL2J2cI/AAAAAAAACak/aejNOr8qgRA/s1600/Christmas%2Btree%2B13.12.12%2B003.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 240px; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5689332881412446658" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PlE9YzOUKDw/TvSSHL2J2cI/AAAAAAAACak/aejNOr8qgRA/s320/Christmas%2Btree%2B13.12.12%2B003.jpg" /></a><br />Thank you all for reading my posts, leaving comments, making me laugh and becoming my friends ..... I'll be back in 2012 (with an extra month in it when I've found the stray November) with the as yet unwritten posts - hopefully! :)Nutty Gnomehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06146296943319504785noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292808539041077623.post-53575370738881943982011-10-19T10:56:00.016+01:002011-10-27T17:53:52.576+01:00Book Review - Sarah Raven's Wild FlowersI recently recieved an email from a Senior Marketing Exec at Bloomsbury Books who had been rootling around on my blog (!) and "thought that you might want to hear about a book that we are publishing in October – Sarah Raven’s Wild Flowers." She also wondered if I'd be interested in "seeing a sample of the book, with a view to perhaps mentioning it on your blog, as a fresh angle for your readers? "<br /><br />Well, not being one to miss out on doing something a bit different for you lot for a change (aren't I so good to you, eh?!), emails were swapped and it was agreed that I would review the book from the information on the sample providing that "I have the freedom to give a clear, open and totally honest review of the book as I see it?! ". So here it is.....<br /><br />I duely awaited the arrival of said sample with excited anticipation whilst not being fully sure what a sample would consist of ..... would it be a whole chapter? just a few pages stapled together? a hefty wodge of the book perhaps?! I knew it wouldn't be the whole thing because: A) I was getting a <em>sample</em>! and: B) the book had been described to me as 'a whopper', but even so I have to confess that I was just a wee bit disappointed to recieve this:<br /><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ehJDjJZRNfE/Tp7V8YuUy-I/AAAAAAAACYc/gWnBtn0B6g8/s1600/Misc%2B19.10.11%2B075.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 240px; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5665200614684281826" border="0" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ehJDjJZRNfE/Tp7V8YuUy-I/AAAAAAAACYc/gWnBtn0B6g8/s320/Misc%2B19.10.11%2B075.jpg" /></a><br />An A2 sheet concertinaed down to A6 size.<br /><br /><br /><br />When I opened it out there was a very pretty poster on the back, photographed by Jonathan Buckley - who took all the photos for the book. The 9 photos on the sampler are <em>glorious</em> and I have no reason to doubt that the others in the book will be equally as good. The photos are clear, sharply focused yet with wonderful slightly hazy backgrounds and depths of fields or, alternatively, the soft background greens of spring grass:<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4vurDjlvCMM/Tp6nSutYMhI/AAAAAAAACYM/yKmaCP_t2a4/s1600/Sarah%2BRaven%2B1.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 225px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5665149321496506898" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4vurDjlvCMM/Tp6nSutYMhI/AAAAAAAACYM/yKmaCP_t2a4/s320/Sarah%2BRaven%2B1.jpg" /></a><br /><br />I had initially felt a bit let down by the size of the sampler, but I felt even more so when I looked at the information side of the sheet - as it only contained <strong>4</strong> examples of wild flowers and their descriptions....not much of a sample from a book of <strong>500</strong> wild flowers that is described as a 'lavish book' , 'a botanical marvel' and something that will be 'the most covetable flower book on the market'!!!<br /><br /><br /><br />Anyway, once I'd got over being miffed at having to review the book from such a tiny sample (about 3 days later 'cos I can be a stroppy baggage at times!) and sat down to read it properly, I did quite enjoy what I read.<br /><br /><br /><br />According to the (limited) information on the sampler, there are landscape photos throughout the book and a portrait of each plant to accompany each species description.<br /><br /><br /><br />Two of the 4 extracts are shown below and you can click on them to enlarge them for reading:<br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-T-w_AnlrPuo/Tp6lnjljQ6I/AAAAAAAACXU/bi--1ivRNLA/s1600/Misc%2B19.10.11%2B077.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5665147480264885154" border="0" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-T-w_AnlrPuo/Tp6lnjljQ6I/AAAAAAAACXU/bi--1ivRNLA/s320/Misc%2B19.10.11%2B077.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br />I knew nothing about the Fly Orchid, except that I thought I vaguely recognised it from early summer walks out in Derbyshire, so this description of what it looks like and why, combined with where I might find it was useful and I felt I'd be far more able to spot Fly Orchids and to astound my companions with my depth of knowledge whilst on my wanderings in future!<br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Qx7Vo836K_s/Tp6loAuX3FI/AAAAAAAACXk/JlQ1CASlQTA/s1600/Misc%2B19.10.11%2B078.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5665147488086514770" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Qx7Vo836K_s/Tp6loAuX3FI/AAAAAAAACXk/JlQ1CASlQTA/s320/Misc%2B19.10.11%2B078.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br />I loved this photo but there was no description to go with it as the writing alongside the photo was too busy telling me what a perfect gift the book would make and how Sarah Raven has travelled the length and breadth of the British Isles to find these 500 "most breathtaking beautiful wild flowers".<br /><br /><br /><br />Apparently she will be also presenting a 3-part BBC2 series about biodiversity and British wild flowers this Autumn - what a coincidence!<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3eGai0iJ_rs/Tp6lozq8deI/AAAAAAAACXs/G7LJIh-pSyU/s1600/Misc%2B19.10.11%2B079.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5665147501762344418" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3eGai0iJ_rs/Tp6lozq8deI/AAAAAAAACXs/G7LJIh-pSyU/s320/Misc%2B19.10.11%2B079.jpg" /></a><br /><br />Mild sarcasm at marketing aside, the photos in the book are absolutely stunning, the species description write-ups are informative, clear and well laid out. Each one begins with a brief overview, then covers plant type, flowering period, height, description (very useful), companion species, distribution and habitat.<br /><br /><br /><br />I did enjoy reading these 4 species descriptions as I only knew one of the four plants shown, although I didn't find them quite as captivating as the sampler blurb suggested I would, and I found the initial paragraph about the Wood Anemone a little bit twee as I don't go in for anthropomorphism in plants, but that's just me! I also found that as I didn't recognise the names of some of the companion species mentioned, I'd have to be flicking to and fro through the book to find the companions if I was using it in real life (as it were!)<br /><br /><br /><br />But the book cover is pretty - even if it is somewhat predictably of bluebells:<br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tPeCf1brj9o/Tp6nSt_U3NI/AAAAAAAACYE/Q-KnwosSgQQ/s1600/Wild%2BFlowers%2BCover%2BFinal.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 246px; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5665149321303350482" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tPeCf1brj9o/Tp6nSt_U3NI/AAAAAAAACYE/Q-KnwosSgQQ/s320/Wild%2BFlowers%2BCover%2BFinal.jpg" /></a><br /><br />....yet I was left feeling that as they had managed quite easily to get 2 photos and 2 species descriptions onto one A4 sized section of the sampler when the actual book itself is a nominal A4 size with a photo on one page and the species description on the facing page, then £50 for a large format hardbacked edition (yes...fifty quid!!!) and <em>seventy five quid</em> for a special slipcased edition was a hell of a lot to pay for some pretty pictures and a larger font that I could read without my glasses on!<br /><br /><br /><br />I know it's meant to be a coffee table book and I know I adore wild flowers and would love to know more about them, but there is <strong>no way</strong> that I would cough up that amount of money for <em>any</em> book no matter how beautiful and informative it is! I didn't pay anywhere near that for my much loved and well used RHS 2 volume Garden Plant Encyclopaedia in a slipcase and that has vastly more than 500 plants in it!<br /><br /><br /><br />Also Sarah's hefty tome is hardly a transportable little number, so you'd have to remember to either bring a bit of plant back with you (which I suspect is illegal for some plants anyway - not that I'd know without the book there though!) or to take your camera with you and then remember to take a photo of the plant and hope it came out clear and non-blurry enough to be able to identify the plant from...or is that just me and my photography skills?!<br /><br /><br /><br />Having said all that though, if it ever comes out in a smaller, softbacked edition that would fit in the pocket of my rucksac so that I could have it to hand for when I spot the wild flowers when I'm out and about and, ideally, costs less than a tenner, then I'll be the first in the queue at WH Smiths but until then I'll just have to hope that our local library gets a couple of copies!!!<br /><br /><br /><br />However, if money is burning a hole in your pocket or you've got some rich relative prepared to fork out the dosh for a cracking Christmas present that will indeed look very elegant on your coffee table (and may well have to stay there because it's too heavy to move), then this could be the book for you.<br /><br /><br /><br />It was published on Monday, 17th October by Bloomsbury Books. The large format hardbacked edition is Wild Flowers, Sarah Raven<br /><br /><br /><br />ISBN 978 1 4088 1394 2 480PP and is £50 ...or if you go onto Amazon it's down to £28.50 already..... looks like I'm not the only one that thinks it's too expensive then!Nutty Gnomehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06146296943319504785noreply@blogger.com31tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292808539041077623.post-27988792004385127602011-10-13T15:49:00.008+01:002011-10-13T17:11:44.011+01:00A quick Autumnal hotchpotch!It's a jolly good job that I've got that 'Slow Blogger' label on my sidebar or I'd be chucked out of here for my lack of posts of late! Anyway, here's a quick roundup of what's going on in the garden at the moment......<br /><br />Kale, spinach and rainbow chard are going at full pelt at the moment ...but the salad behind them has bolted somewhat!<br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1qDNm12y56c/Tpb9AdyedHI/AAAAAAAACVE/JhT7Tjxofd4/s1600/Autumn%2Bin%2Bthe%2Bgarden%2B2011%2B008.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5662991765903144050" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1qDNm12y56c/Tpb9AdyedHI/AAAAAAAACVE/JhT7Tjxofd4/s320/Autumn%2Bin%2Bthe%2Bgarden%2B2011%2B008.jpg" /></a> <br /><p>No idea what sort of squashes these are as the foxes or badgers broke and nicked the labels when they ate the sweetcorn :(</p><br /><p><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eCQQSjNvd-0/TpcImlIBi5I/AAAAAAAACWk/5kWShJ6GRGI/s1600/Autumn%2Bin%2Bthe%2Bgarden%2B2011%2B013.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 240px; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5663004515335506834" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eCQQSjNvd-0/TpcImlIBi5I/AAAAAAAACWk/5kWShJ6GRGI/s320/Autumn%2Bin%2Bthe%2Bgarden%2B2011%2B013.jpg" /></a></p>Yesterday's pick of the crop - and, yes, we have still got a few Autumn raspberries left, but that's the last of the flagelot beans.<br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vsD-eWmxttI/Tpb_kDKzIcI/AAAAAAAACV0/RK_P_0MYNew/s1600/Autumn%2Bin%2Bthe%2Bgarden%2B2011%2B024.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5662994576255951298" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vsD-eWmxttI/Tpb_kDKzIcI/AAAAAAAACV0/RK_P_0MYNew/s320/Autumn%2Bin%2Bthe%2Bgarden%2B2011%2B024.jpg" /></a><br />The sedum is lovely this year.<br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dAA-7dbw5uA/Tpb_lOpOTqI/AAAAAAAACWU/v3YTYYcj5BE/s1600/Reservoir%2B2011%2B046.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 240px; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5662994596516220578" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dAA-7dbw5uA/Tpb_lOpOTqI/AAAAAAAACWU/v3YTYYcj5BE/s320/Reservoir%2B2011%2B046.jpg" /></a><br />A closer look.<br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Lp7P9kOgGRI/Tpb_kd57yoI/AAAAAAAACV8/MwIfssBFXDY/s1600/Reservoir%2B2011%2B033.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5662994583432972930" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Lp7P9kOgGRI/Tpb_kd57yoI/AAAAAAAACV8/MwIfssBFXDY/s320/Reservoir%2B2011%2B033.jpg" /></a><br />One of the Acers in the Japanese garden is begining to turn. It'll be a stunning deep red in about 2 more weeks.<br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xP3FUYNnb3o/Tpb9B5WdUZI/AAAAAAAACVk/NyZ_1e9JSOU/s1600/Autumn%2Bin%2Bthe%2Bgarden%2B2011%2B017.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5662991790481691026" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xP3FUYNnb3o/Tpb9B5WdUZI/AAAAAAAACVk/NyZ_1e9JSOU/s320/Autumn%2Bin%2Bthe%2Bgarden%2B2011%2B017.jpg" /></a><br />No-one told my new water lily (Nymphaea 'Denver') that it shouldn't be flowering at this time of year. I guess the recent very warm weather confused it!<br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KqEbqhoWE-Y/Tpb9ANDoN8I/AAAAAAAACU4/MgBn0RQNSC0/s1600/Autumn%2Bin%2Bthe%2Bgarden%2B2011%2B005.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5662991761411684290" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KqEbqhoWE-Y/Tpb9ANDoN8I/AAAAAAAACU4/MgBn0RQNSC0/s320/Autumn%2Bin%2Bthe%2Bgarden%2B2011%2B005.jpg" /></a><br />There are lots of berries everywhere this year - is this a harbinger of another hard winter?<br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iCKQh-dF6ts/Tpb_kcfyv-I/AAAAAAAACWM/ZmoI3cir_CM/s1600/Reservoir%2B2011%2B035.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5662994583054893026" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iCKQh-dF6ts/Tpb_kcfyv-I/AAAAAAAACWM/ZmoI3cir_CM/s320/Reservoir%2B2011%2B035.jpg" /></a><br /><br />The next post will be interesting - I hope! It's going to be a book review on a new wild flowers book that comes out next month......! :DNutty Gnomehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06146296943319504785noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292808539041077623.post-76273683950406832362011-09-07T14:06:00.013+01:002011-09-07T18:16:08.176+01:00That's Proper Foreign!......was the phrase heard as we gazed down from the plane over the vast expanse of scrub desert that is Morrocco. For the past few years we have got cold and wet holidaying in England and France - and France doesn't <em>really</em> count as 'abroad' because we know the language, we know the culture, we know the way it all works and we know how cold the rain can be! So it was decided that to celebrate our Silver Wedding anniversary, we would have a family holiday somewhere different; hot, dry and 'proper foreign' for a change .... and Marrakech was certainly all those things!<br />So make yourself a cup of mint tea (or 'Morroccan Whisky' as the locals call it!), sit yourself down and join me in a whirlwind tour of Marrakech.<br /><br />The hot dry air that slapped us in our faces as we left the plane at 7 o'clock at night was just the first of many suprises:<br />The traffic wasn't heavy, but it was interesting in its make up.....<br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dCXa64b_g-I/Tmd9nm5t_CI/AAAAAAAACSI/ijLARaXWtSg/s1600/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B230.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5649622376970583074" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dCXa64b_g-I/Tmd9nm5t_CI/AAAAAAAACSI/ijLARaXWtSg/s320/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B230.jpg" /></a><br />Cars can't get down the narrow streets and alleyways of the Medina - the old town within the walls, so a man with a handcart trundled our bags to our guest house.<br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FjI-9uEKGIY/Tmd1Rft9oWI/AAAAAAAACRQ/La-D2rmSwhM/s1600/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B083.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5649613200992084322" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FjI-9uEKGIY/Tmd1Rft9oWI/AAAAAAAACRQ/La-D2rmSwhM/s320/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B083.jpg" /></a><br />Some of the children that we talked with every day on our way in and out from our riad<br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-62Jtz6ERhOQ/TmeHi9N8ZzI/AAAAAAAACUw/ulwbhaWb940/s1600/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B843.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 240px; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5649633292177925938" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-62Jtz6ERhOQ/TmeHi9N8ZzI/AAAAAAAACUw/ulwbhaWb940/s320/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B843.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br /><div><br /><div><br /><div><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oPX51tUJQzI/TmeFroGTAoI/AAAAAAAACUQ/tMXpFFvK3zI/s1600/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B834.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5649631242104275586" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oPX51tUJQzI/TmeFroGTAoI/AAAAAAAACUQ/tMXpFFvK3zI/s320/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B834.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qc7jhIlyDZg/TmeFrWYoc9I/AAAAAAAACUI/VZ7xUkiZgmo/s1600/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B842.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 240px; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5649631237349340114" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qc7jhIlyDZg/TmeFrWYoc9I/AAAAAAAACUI/VZ7xUkiZgmo/s320/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B842.jpg" /></a> </div><br /><div>We stayed in the wonderful <a href="http://www.riadhadikamaria.com/visiteGuidee.php">Riad HadikaMaria</a>, an 8 roomed guest house 10 minutes walk from the main Jemma El Fna square (or 3 hours and, eventually, the hire of one small boy as a guide to get you back on your first day!)</div><br /><div>The courtyard gardens were beautiful.<br /><img style="WIDTH: 240px; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5649628438667166386" border="0" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-paKy0zAmHEY/TmeDIcezgrI/AAAAAAAACT4/eTJMYpVaYwo/s320/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B851.jpg" /></div><br /><div>The plunge pool was a joy when the temperature topped 40 degrees!<br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1Ncvns_3ll0/TmeHh1i0yEI/AAAAAAAACUY/trtdhhAegas/s1600/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B173.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 240px; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5649633272938154050" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1Ncvns_3ll0/TmeHh1i0yEI/AAAAAAAACUY/trtdhhAegas/s320/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B173.jpg" /></a><br />Our room...but, sadly, I never got serenaded by anyone under my balcony!</div><br /><div><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Pvzc2qSPI_Y/TmeFq-RMV3I/AAAAAAAACUA/2_yr_9rciY0/s1600/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B846.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 240px; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5649631230875686770" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Pvzc2qSPI_Y/TmeFq-RMV3I/AAAAAAAACUA/2_yr_9rciY0/s320/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B846.jpg" /></a> <br />The rooftop terrace - the view was prettier at night as you couldn't see all the breezeblocks and satellite dishes!<br /><br /><div><br /><div><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8rUepjGHTYw/TmeDHrHOffI/AAAAAAAACTo/yCRMY2tJoiQ/s1600/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B880.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5649628425414934002" border="0" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8rUepjGHTYw/TmeDHrHOffI/AAAAAAAACTo/yCRMY2tJoiQ/s320/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B880.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><div>The souk.</div><br /><div>A tangle of narrow alleyways where you can buy anything and everything - for a price!</div><br /><div>It's easy to get to get lost at first, but it's also easy to get the hang of the layout of the alleys once you dive in and get on with it. As most people are a bit wussy and tend to lurk round the main street, the further in you go, the quieter it gets and the chances of haggling down to a cheaper price are greater. A wonderful place!</div><br /><div><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1Fdzvabh3z0/TmeHiPdh6PI/AAAAAAAACUg/fcuBfU_bBnQ/s1600/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B150.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 240px; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5649633279895267570" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1Fdzvabh3z0/TmeHiPdh6PI/AAAAAAAACUg/fcuBfU_bBnQ/s320/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B150.jpg" /></a><br />We found possibly the world's largest padlock</div><br /><div><br /><div><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9uxh6K2JcNc/TmeAyayAA_I/AAAAAAAACSw/yKFWL1pAqe8/s1600/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B424.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 240px; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5649625861230429170" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9uxh6K2JcNc/TmeAyayAA_I/AAAAAAAACSw/yKFWL1pAqe8/s320/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B424.jpg" /></a><br />Tassles - they just <em>love</em> tassles!I've never seen so many tassles, they were everywhere!<br /><br /><div><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZZeXEQY7Cjw/TmeAzWa86dI/AAAAAAAACTI/IDtQrAJ6h7I/s1600/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B444.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 240px; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5649625877239884242" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZZeXEQY7Cjw/TmeAzWa86dI/AAAAAAAACTI/IDtQrAJ6h7I/s320/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B444.jpg" /></a><br />"Looking is free today!"<br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qlFG7Et7vRQ/Tmd33cXt5iI/AAAAAAAACRw/x_Nc9eipBVY/s1600/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B109.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 240px; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5649616051951756834" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qlFG7Et7vRQ/Tmd33cXt5iI/AAAAAAAACRw/x_Nc9eipBVY/s320/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B109.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><div>The best compliment that the shop keepers can give you is "You like Berber - strong! Bargain hard!" </div><br /><div>Meet Nutty Gnome, Berber woman!</div><br /><div>First-Born and Last-Born are also natural born Berber women! :D<br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NioYYKgTVyc/Tmd334qwVGI/AAAAAAAACSA/eess6gojJ3k/s1600/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B143.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 240px; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5649616059547800674" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NioYYKgTVyc/Tmd334qwVGI/AAAAAAAACSA/eess6gojJ3k/s320/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B143.jpg" /></a><br />"You want nice lamp? I sell you nice lamp - democratic price"?!</div><br /><div>Never did find out what a democratic price was.<br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xBcwXt9PB0E/Tmd1RisxY9I/AAAAAAAACRY/Hk7dhiGkZdg/s1600/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B084.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5649613201792394194" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xBcwXt9PB0E/Tmd1RisxY9I/AAAAAAAACRY/Hk7dhiGkZdg/s320/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B084.jpg" /></a><br />Last-Born the jewellery maker checking out the quality of the beads in her bead heaven.</div><br /><div><br /><div><br /><div><br /><div><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ih7M7kM6nB0/Tmd33K5H1KI/AAAAAAAACRo/xKEl5poe1HA/s1600/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B101.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 240px; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5649616047260030114" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ih7M7kM6nB0/Tmd33K5H1KI/AAAAAAAACRo/xKEl5poe1HA/s320/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B101.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div></div><br /><div><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-evNAQ4A_2as/Tmd32kWMeHI/AAAAAAAACRg/IEcCgsU4A-Q/s1600/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B085.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5649616036912986226" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-evNAQ4A_2as/Tmd32kWMeHI/AAAAAAAACRg/IEcCgsU4A-Q/s320/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B085.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div></div><br /><div>*whispers* "You want spices? I sell you spices - I take you to my/my brother's/my sister's spice shop....best price...come, come!"<br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-B31YeMOMLqg/Tmd33sXXF0I/AAAAAAAACR4/OAWTtWszIvw/s1600/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B127.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 240px; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5649616056245229378" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-B31YeMOMLqg/Tmd33sXXF0I/AAAAAAAACR4/OAWTtWszIvw/s320/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B127.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div>First-Born caught cumin-sniffing!</div><br /><div><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hqVVRJ2t_MY/Tmd9oSZQCzI/AAAAAAAACSY/DwfKvkJP7xo/s1600/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B306.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5649622388645563186" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hqVVRJ2t_MY/Tmd9oSZQCzI/AAAAAAAACSY/DwfKvkJP7xo/s320/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B306.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div>or you can go to the Dyers Market, a specific area within the souk, to see the yarn and fabrics being dyed - in vast vats of boiling water over roaring fires. How the men coped with the temperatures is beyond me!</div><br /><div><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LxOM8_oRELo/TmeAzNFu7DI/AAAAAAAACTA/RIuTxg6XALQ/s1600/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B433.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5649625874734967858" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LxOM8_oRELo/TmeAzNFu7DI/AAAAAAAACTA/RIuTxg6XALQ/s320/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B433.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div>....where we bought huge scarves at ridiculously cheap prices - mine was one of the blue ones you can see hanging up...and he showed us how to make it into a toureg turban - not <em>quite</em> sure I could do it again now though!</div><br /><div><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aQ804qDkKq0/TmeAyt6DTuI/AAAAAAAACS4/WaXgR7swwkI/s1600/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B430.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5649625866364473058" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aQ804qDkKq0/TmeAyt6DTuI/AAAAAAAACS4/WaXgR7swwkI/s320/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B430.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div>or check out the fresh produce.....<br /><br /><div><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CMTKSlbaHn0/Tmd9oFlU2PI/AAAAAAAACSQ/9gvMI9AAr2Y/s1600/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B301.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 240px; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5649622385206548722" border="0" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CMTKSlbaHn0/Tmd9oFlU2PI/AAAAAAAACSQ/9gvMI9AAr2Y/s320/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B301.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><div>a bit like this kitten did!<br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rlr1z8ntarI/Tmd9opKghEI/AAAAAAAACSg/BvgwUYbnhUU/s1600/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B310.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 240px; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5649622394757743682" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rlr1z8ntarI/Tmd9opKghEI/AAAAAAAACSg/BvgwUYbnhUU/s320/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B310.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><div><br /><div>Inside or outside everyone has something to sell<br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GXKh220TSok/TmeDHMhrJKI/AAAAAAAACTY/AjC4gMFi0K8/s1600/Marrakech%2BSouk%2Bsquare%2B2011.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 192px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5649628417204364450" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GXKh220TSok/TmeDHMhrJKI/AAAAAAAACTY/AjC4gMFi0K8/s320/Marrakech%2BSouk%2Bsquare%2B2011.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div></div><br /><div><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yIwIQsewyP8/Tmd1QDhU-mI/AAAAAAAACQ4/Nu983C1Vevk/s1600/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B030.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 240px; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5649613176243026530" border="0" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yIwIQsewyP8/Tmd1QDhU-mI/AAAAAAAACQ4/Nu983C1Vevk/s320/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B030.jpg" /></a><br />A little further away from the main square and souk the veg stalls were a bit more basic <br /><div><br /><div><br /><div><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-REsgWCxdnug/Tmd1QpruamI/AAAAAAAACRA/rUz_F22lrTQ/s1600/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B065.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5649613186487183970" border="0" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-REsgWCxdnug/Tmd1QpruamI/AAAAAAAACRA/rUz_F22lrTQ/s320/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B065.jpg" /></a><br />-sometimes!</div><br /><div><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-w06w5CvlkYs/TmeHiRSbipI/AAAAAAAACUo/j1kHbAJxm9I/s1600/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B098.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 240px; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5649633280385583762" border="0" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-w06w5CvlkYs/TmeHiRSbipI/AAAAAAAACUo/j1kHbAJxm9I/s320/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B098.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div>Nightime in the Jemma El Fna. </div><br /><div>A vast almost empty square during the day, a busy, bustling, endlessly entertaining source of food and snake charmers at night.</div><br /><div><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-O3pvl9_Ut4Y/TmeAzoq8TuI/AAAAAAAACTQ/1tI2L_33Cvs/s1600/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B608.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5649625882138791650" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-O3pvl9_Ut4Y/TmeAzoq8TuI/AAAAAAAACTQ/1tI2L_33Cvs/s320/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B608.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div>All the stalls are the same price and serve pretty much the same food - tagines, couscous, kebabs, salads, chips(!), almost too much to choose from. You sit on benches at tressle tables with your 'Morrocan serviettes' (squares of paper!) and order your food from the multilingual staff. It's quick, it's cheap, it's generally hot from being cooked immediately and it's good! </div><br /><div></div><br /><div>It's worth running the gauntlet of the stalls just to hear the comments they come out with to entice you to their particular stall - hillarious!</div><br /><div>"Come, come - cheaper than Tesco"," my stall not just any food...my stall M&S food", "lovely jubbly food", "Jamie Oliver eat here", "better than Asda price", " 'ave a butchers at what we got!", "bluuuuddy luuurvley food!" - how could we resist?</div><br /><div>I'm guessing they watch British TV for all the food-related adverts then?!</div><br /><div><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--tVRW4uKnQw/Tmd9o-z2KnI/AAAAAAAACSo/Gfu3r8lvhwk/s1600/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B188.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5649622400568273522" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--tVRW4uKnQw/Tmd9o-z2KnI/AAAAAAAACSo/Gfu3r8lvhwk/s320/Marrakech%2BAug%2B2011%2B188.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div>So there you go. A brief tour of the heart of Marrakech - and I haven't even started on the mosaics, the carvings, the Majorelle Gardens, the Ozoud Cascades........! :)</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>Nutty Gnomehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06146296943319504785noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6292808539041077623.post-47519050876087636022011-08-05T11:13:00.012+01:002011-08-05T17:08:21.895+01:00Himself gets expansionist ideas!Don't get me wrong here - I'm not talking about annexing France or invading Wales, just something a bit more, well, <em>modest</em> really! <br /><div></div><br /><div>Let me take you back to late spring of last year........!</div><br /><div>As we stood on the planks on the as-yet-to-be-completed veranda, a strange look came over Himself's face. He paused, then sucked in through his teeth in a 'there's a bit of problem' sort of way before sighing and saying (in a very Eyore sort of voice) "Pond's not big enough".<br />I coughed and spluttered for a bit before conceding that, actually, he was right! Now that the tea house was up and the extent to which the veranda covered part of the pond was fully obvious, the pond was diminished and out of proportion. </div><br /><div>I sighed. I knew what this meant ......I would have to extend the pond!</div><br /><div><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vrstHM_2br0/TjvM6LRlfhI/AAAAAAAACKA/V1LHrs8cpjo/s1600/Julsy21st%2Bgarden%2Bphotos%2B131.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5637324658415336978" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vrstHM_2br0/TjvM6LRlfhI/AAAAAAAACKA/V1LHrs8cpjo/s320/Julsy21st%2Bgarden%2Bphotos%2B131.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div>However, I had a cunning plan. I called on my friend Sarah, who has the strength and endurance of an Amazonian woman! A few weeks later Sarah came over for the day and we dug. I had already cleared the beach, stones and plants from in and around the edge of the pond and Himself and I had freed up the liner and underlay fleece, folded it back over a plank and weighed it down with the stones I'd removed.</div><br /><div><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_lJEeYrJ2rw/TjvM6pR_DXI/AAAAAAAACKg/JuLsKEWYV0c/s1600/September%2B2010%2B010.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5637324666470075762" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_lJEeYrJ2rw/TjvM6pR_DXI/AAAAAAAACKg/JuLsKEWYV0c/s320/September%2B2010%2B010.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div>We filled innumerable trugs, emptying them into the nearby barrow which Sarah then hauled up the garden to dump on a tarp for use later on.</div><br /><div><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zQzlKX1q-z0/TjvM6RdSo1I/AAAAAAAACKQ/XD3isqbGK4M/s1600/September%2B2010%2B008.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5637324660075045714" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zQzlKX1q-z0/TjvM6RdSo1I/AAAAAAAACKQ/XD3isqbGK4M/s320/September%2B2010%2B008.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div>It was hot, heavy work as it was all sandstone. The topsoil is only about 12-18 inches deep in this part of the garden - yeah, I know ...which fool would want to put a pond where the bedrock is so close to the surface? Same fool that would want to put a pond under trees!!!</div><br /><div>That'd be me then! </div><br /><div><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RLAo03YhQX4/TjvM6QLgwNI/AAAAAAAACKY/Zhx8bXWzhE4/s1600/September%2B2010%2B009.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 240px; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5637324659732037842" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RLAo03YhQX4/TjvM6QLgwNI/AAAAAAAACKY/Zhx8bXWzhE4/s320/September%2B2010%2B009.jpg" /></a><br />Pond extension hole finished, work then ground to a halt on that project as other things in the garden took priority.</div><br /><div><em><strong>Ten</strong></em> months later, with a party deadline looming, we realised that we couldn't put it off any longer just because we weren't <em>quite</em> sure how to do it. So, taking a deep breath........<br />we built a temporary pond on the lawn using our largest groundsheet, some random planks and old bricks. We used the pond pump to take the water out of the top pond and into the temporary pond.</div><br /><div><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-P2JE01d2OmU/TjvU9llRWWI/AAAAAAAACKo/uxO4GQDV5ZY/s1600/DSC00373.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 240px; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5637333513109854562" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-P2JE01d2OmU/TjvU9llRWWI/AAAAAAAACKo/uxO4GQDV5ZY/s320/DSC00373.jpg" /></a> </div><br /><div>Taking enough water out to get the level to well below the original shelf level so that we could excavate under the liner where the old and new parts would join up.<br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ScqRn9JZ7y8/TjvU-Q5ZrQI/AAAAAAAACLI/0xRoDK3Iybw/s1600/DSC00372.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5637333524737010946" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ScqRn9JZ7y8/TjvU-Q5ZrQI/AAAAAAAACLI/0xRoDK3Iybw/s320/DSC00372.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div>We cleared out all the zillions of leaves and bucketloads of gunk that had accumulated in the hole whilst we'd ignored it and Himself barrowed back down the garden some of the sandstone that Sarah had barrowed up last year. </div><br /><div>We then put it all through a griddle to separate out sand and stones - the stones were then used to make foundations in a new path I was building elsewhere (all will be revealed on that little task later!) </div><br /><div><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-j3zPB-TMeXs/TjvU90w4o2I/AAAAAAAACK4/KcWSG3gxRYU/s1600/DSC00381.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 240px; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5637333517185098594" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-j3zPB-TMeXs/TjvU90w4o2I/AAAAAAAACK4/KcWSG3gxRYU/s320/DSC00381.jpg" /></a> </div><br /><div>and the sand was used to line the hole, the new shelf and the bit under the liner where the two parts would meet.</div><br /><div><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qZDblgdZ5s8/TjvU9z83sXI/AAAAAAAACKw/_Uj1HKa-QZY/s1600/DSC00375.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5637333516966932850" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qZDblgdZ5s8/TjvU9z83sXI/AAAAAAAACKw/_Uj1HKa-QZY/s320/DSC00375.jpg" /></a> </div><br /><div>Whilst Himself was grovelling about under the liner, I took the opportunity to sort out the 'rockage' in front of the waterfall as I'd never been totally satisfied with it. I cleared everything out except for the rocks that we'd hoisted into place - I'm not daft, I wasn't even going to <em>think</em> about moving them!</div><br /><div><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JLkgeFkE1s4/TjvU-MrbYLI/AAAAAAAACLA/7Eni4fMWz30/s1600/DSC00371.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 240px; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5637333523604660402" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JLkgeFkE1s4/TjvU-MrbYLI/AAAAAAAACLA/7Eni4fMWz30/s320/DSC00371.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div>I cleaned the base, put new fleece underlay in place and had a happy time arranging new rocks until I was satisfied with how they looked. The frog who lives behind the left-hand big rock kept popping up to glower at me to try and get his water back, but we weren't to be rushed on this.</div><br /><div><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PJ7UDZFOCvw/TjvtCT_JG-I/AAAAAAAACMI/KVHsEX4aZfE/s1600/DSC00377.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5637359982564940770" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PJ7UDZFOCvw/TjvtCT_JG-I/AAAAAAAACMI/KVHsEX4aZfE/s320/DSC00377.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div>Somewhere along the line it was decided that the bottom of the pond ought to be de-gunked ....a luuurvely job!</div><br /><div><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3e-6MNiXOfU/TjvtCrfEyaI/AAAAAAAACMQ/eCGBqbS2-BQ/s1600/Image0017.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 240px; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5637359988872890786" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3e-6MNiXOfU/TjvtCrfEyaI/AAAAAAAACMQ/eCGBqbS2-BQ/s320/Image0017.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div>and I had to be <em>very</em> careful not to lean too far over !</div><br /><div><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-I1KObRnb1ao/TjvtC3gee1I/AAAAAAAACMY/T1O6z93mOIA/s1600/Image0019.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5637359992099994450" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-I1KObRnb1ao/TjvtC3gee1I/AAAAAAAACMY/T1O6z93mOIA/s320/Image0019.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div>The bit that had put us off doing the extension was the joining of the new liner to the existing liner. In the end, it was just like doing a giant 15ft long bicycle tyre puncture repair! I haven't got any photos of the process as we were more concerned about getting it right than getting it photographed! We had to clean, de-grease and scour the old liner, apply glue to the edges of both liners, wait for it to go tacky then stick a special sealant strip one one side, using a decorators' roller to press it down and get any air bubbles out, whilst making sure that there were no kinks, twists or creases in the liner or sealant strip - easier said than done when the liner isn't a straight edge and you're pressing down on sand! </div><br /><div>Himself had, naturally, worked out how to get round this. He used chalk to mark where to glue the liner and created a solid base underneath where we were working by using a strip of hardboard propped up on wood - with stakes driven into the base of the extension to make sure it was secure (never knowingly overcomplicated or over engineered!) to rest the liner edges on and give us something solid to work against. He's good!</div><br /><div>We then had to position the 2nd edge on top of the sealant strip, hold it in place, peel off the special backing paper and roller the 2nd liner onto the 1st liner all at the same time ...a tricky business!</div><br /><div>It all then had to be left overnight to go off - but covered by a tarp in case of rain as we weren't allowed to let it get wet at this point.</div><br /><div>The following day was crunch time. We laid out the fleece underlay then carefully unfurled the joined liner and eased it out into position - you can see the fold where the two liners join, running between the 2 large rocks of the original pond. Then we pumped the water back into the pond and waited with baited breath to see if it leaked.</div><br /><div>Of course it didn't leak - Himself was in charge!</div><br /><div><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CFe_oWlzkIk/TjvanZzB7_I/AAAAAAAACLw/MedOlFQ24Pw/s1600/16-05-11%2BTPO%2B002.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5637339729058983922" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CFe_oWlzkIk/TjvanZzB7_I/AAAAAAAACLw/MedOlFQ24Pw/s320/16-05-11%2BTPO%2B002.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div>A couple of weekends later, when the water hadn't gone down at all, Himself declared that he was satisfied with the seal and started making the pond edging. He excavated enough sand and soil away to be able to put wooden strips in to fold the liner over and give a good, solid edge for me to put rocks and stuff on - naturally the rough wood had strips of fleece on top so that the liner wouldn't get ripped.</div><br /><div><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RNS3mzrmpkQ/TjvtB5S1fpI/AAAAAAAACL4/9RPPRyPnrwc/s1600/05.06.11%2B065.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5637359975399784082" border="0" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RNS3mzrmpkQ/TjvtB5S1fpI/AAAAAAAACL4/9RPPRyPnrwc/s320/05.06.11%2B065.jpg" /></a><br />He built a measuring 'thing' to ensure that the edge was level all the way round.</div><br /><div><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0uY5Dpl2gsY/TjvamkUkxgI/AAAAAAAACLY/YT1FjhIqkNE/s1600/05.06.11%2B073.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5637339714704164354" border="0" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0uY5Dpl2gsY/TjvamkUkxgI/AAAAAAAACLY/YT1FjhIqkNE/s320/05.06.11%2B073.jpg" /></a><br />Then he tucked the liner into place and backfilled with sand and soil.</div><br /><div><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oboE0mNY-nM/TjvanDmzqYI/AAAAAAAACLo/t1vRcdAiyAg/s1600/05.06.11%2B077.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5637339723102136706" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oboE0mNY-nM/TjvanDmzqYI/AAAAAAAACLo/t1vRcdAiyAg/s320/05.06.11%2B077.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div>Me? I was busy on the inside of the tea house - but I was happy with my waterfall rockage!</div><br /><div><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5duqxH7JgSI/TjvtCNhINTI/AAAAAAAACMA/f7VRzzO2HUg/s1600/08.05.11%2B017.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5637359980828439858" border="0" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5duqxH7JgSI/TjvtCNhINTI/AAAAAAAACMA/f7VRzzO2HUg/s320/08.05.11%2B017.jpg" /></a><br />It's ended up a bit of a long post, so I'll leave the arty-farty finishing off stuff we did until next time!</div>Nutty Gnomehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06146296943319504785noreply@blogger.com42