Honest Scrap award

Honest Scrap award

As I mentioned last week I’ve been awarded this by Allison @ A Tasteful Garden!

She says that the rules which apply to it can be broken if you dare…which is good as I do!

Brag about the award…well doing this post is surely doing just that.

Include the name of the blogger who gave it to you and link back to them…which I’ve done above.

Choose a minimum of seven blogs that you find brilliant in content or design…here’s where I dare break the rules as I really am reluctant to do this as I think that all my lawn lounging friends blogs fit the bill here.

That said means that the next rule isn’t appliciable so I won’t mention it.

Lastly I should list at least ten honest things about myself! Mmm okay…

As you will have realised I’m not really 5 but 62.  The only things that I remember about being around 5 are watching the Coronation on TV and having my tonsils removed.

Blue has always been my favourite colour,  however I’ve never owned a blue car but I did once buy a pair of blue suede shoes.

Her voice sends a shiver down my spine and makes me weak at the knees!

My mum always tutted at me for eating apples including the core and pips, and yes I still do!  My dad always peeled and cored his.

I’m always reading several  books at any one time. At the moment they include The Judas Sheep by Stuart Pawson and Billy Connolly, Journey to the Edge of the World.

I rarely wear a wristwatch. I own two automatics which means that when I do  I invariably have to sort out the correct time and day/date.

I’ve never broken any bones or have any scars.

I’ve worn glasses for just about as long as I remember.  I used to get hayfever so I’ve never tried contact lenses, which I’ve never really fancied anyway.

I’ve always wanted to do this but definitely not this!   Well would you?

Taking on an allotment two years was like a dream come true as one of my few  regrets in recent years was not having a garden.  It’s a simple pleasure but one that truly is one of my best ones.

November plotting

There have been plenty of good weather days recently so I’ve been making the most of them working on the plot.

Yesterday I moved my non-flowering Iceberg rose to a new spot just across the pathway from the Valentine Heart rose. I’ve done this in the hope that it’ll be happier there and look like this next year.

I also planted out the Michaelmas daisies now that they’ve finished flowering and been cut back.

It’s been good to see that the pot marigolds are still flowering,November pot marigoldsand I shall be growing lots of them again next year. A  sunflower even started blooming again last week, although the flowers were only a few inches diameter.

I’m leaving the sweetcorn stalks standing through the winter  then I’ll crushSweetcorn stalksthe stems and put them in the bottom of the compost bin once it’s been emptied.

As well as sunny days there have been plenty of wet ones so conditions have been ideal for the fungi which have appeared all over the plot!Plot fungi

Sadly I have to say that when I arrived at the plot on Monday it was clear that there had been an act of vandalism! The peanut bird feeder was lying on the ground empty and in a right state. Luckily it was easy to see who the villain was as it had left it’s muddy paw marks all over the place. I won’t be replacing this feeder but will continue to top up the seed one for the smaller birds to enjoy.

Have a good weekend!

An up, down and up week!

My week started well enough last Monday as the sun was shining and I spent the morning working on the plot.

A couple of weeks back over on Allotments 4 All Betula had made this suggestion and the idea of donating to my good cause Thrive was agreed on. On  Tuesday morning I set up this JustGiving page for her, and as you can see we’ve raised £120. With the extra donation that I ‘ve promised and  added GiftAid amount that will take the total to over £150, and needless to say we’re well pleased.

Wednesday was the real down day! I spent much of the time on the phone on various  personal/family/business matters and basically got nowhere.  On Allotments 4 All a member who’s an  internet troll decided to try and cause mayhem with endless pointless topics and offensive remarks.  I ended up going to bed early with a headache, then woke up in the middle of the night realising that I’d not only not done a draft for my Thursday entry here but also lay there wondering what the heck to write about anyway.

Thursday morning I walked to the library and on the way met Tyson who’s a wonderful fluffy white, blue-eyed Huskie just like this one. He’s a youngster but getting noticably bigger every time I see him, and as his owner said thankfully less boisterous as well.

That lunch time Daffy phoned me to see if I was okay as she’d noticed that I not been commenting on blogs, including hers, for a couple of days nor done my Thursday entry!

Yes I’m okay I told her…I’m just having one of those weeks with too many minor niggles!  No, niggles not giggles! Chatting with her always brightens up my day.

Yesterday was a so-so day but the real plus point was that Allison@a tasteful garden has given me a honest scrap award! You’ll see that she says that I’ve got gardening prowess which made me smile somewhat quizzically.

Glo (Porcelain Rose) emailed me and listed several of what she thought were my minor niggles.  I would quibble with her over the suggestion that my running out of tea and biscuits is one as that would definitely have been a major catastrophe!

Today was a beautiful sunny day so I spent a very pleasant and productive morning on the plot.  More about that in a forthcoming post.  Whilst there Joe kindly picked and gave me this bunch of chrysanthemumsRed chrysanths

So it’s been a bit of an up, down and up week, and please don’t remind me that it’s Friday the 13th next week!

A final flourish

The relatively good, and warm,  weather lately has certainly provided a final flourish thanks to some pot marigoldsDSCN1831and the rose Valentine Heart blooming again! DSCN1811

Plot neighbour George likes growing flowers such as these Michaelmas daisiesDSCN1823He’s very kindly given me a small clump which I’ve planted near the shed.

The pallet patio window box has been planted up with mini daffodils and white crocus, and under the wood chips is wire mesh to stop any wildlife having a dig!DSCN1818As you can see the hydrangea  is now looking somewhat faded.

As I walked towards the site gates during the week a grey squirrel scampered across in front of me and climbed up the willow tree. That’s the first one I’ve seen there although Trevor at the other end of the site has had problems with them in the past.  Glo’s not the only one with a mouse as twice recently I’ve turned back the compost heap cover to see one scoot out of sight!  Both bird feeders were hardly touched for ages but the one with peanuts has started to be used again and I stood watching a magpie pecking away at it the other day.

I’m sure that you’re all wondering how I got on with the Jerusalem artichokes. Well I have to say that I’ve eaten a small amount twice and I really found them rather bland. Thankfully  I wasn’t blown away by them either!  I think that I’ll just dig the rest up, keep some of the tubers to replant next year and enjoy the plants and flowers.

Autumn Fires

As we’ve had a couple of rather good bonfires on the allotment site recently I thought that this poem was rather appropriate.

Autumn Fires by Robert Louis Stevenson

In the other gardens

And all up the vale,

From the autumn bonfires

See the smoke trail!

Pleasant summer over

And all the summer flowers,

The red fire blazes,

The grey smoke towers.

Sing a song of seasons!

Something bright in all!

Flowers in the summer,

Fires in the fall!

This poem is from the collection A Child’s Garden of Verses, which first appeared in 1885.

Have a good weekend!

Tomorrow I’ll be 5…

Captain Flighty

as last year it was my 4th birthday!

Thanks to Glo (Porcelain Rose) my birthday celebrations started a month earlier than expected, and if you want to hear the frogs singing Happy Birthday then click here.

The past year seems to have flown by despite, or perhaps because of,  me nearly being a full-time man of leisure.  Much of  my time is  now spent allotmenteering and blogging which give me a great deal of pleasure and satisfaction.

Thanks to my friends here,  especially Daffy,  Glo and Nikki,  recent birthdays have been especially enjoyable and it looks like being the same this year!

And if you’re wondering about the picture above it’s not young Flighty!

Ups and downs

Mrs K is one of the few people who regularly comments here who doesn’t blog and a while back I found out why not when she made this comment. I always admire people like her who freely give their time and effort to do more than just donate to a charity.  As I promised in my reply to that comment I said that I would mention her good cause PMR-GCA UK North East.

With the clocks changing this weekend it starts to get colder and darker which means that I’ll feel my aches and pains more in the coming months.  One way of brightening up my days is looking at good blogs, and especially ones that put a smile on my face. Here are a few that have done just that over the past week.

Carrie’s post The Duality of Autumn really highlights the ups and downs of this time of year, whilst Daffy likes to go to the movies.

Perhaps you’d prefer to stay at home looking at Re’s lovely illustrated book, which would surely be accompanied by a cup of tea from the teapot wearing  Disgruntled’s snazzy gentleman’s tea cosy and a plate of The Homely Year’s delicious looking chocolate brownies or Allison’s pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.

Our pets seem to be obvious to it all as you can see with Alison’s cat Kiki finding a suitable hot spot or like Uphilldowndale’s puppy Spud zonking out on the sofa!

If, like me,  you find that it all gets a bit too much some days do you wish that you could just do what the animal is doing in Nic’s terrific photo!

Some of you may wonder why I’ve not included a certain hilarious post that had me laughing out loud on Tuesday morning, however rest assured that I will do so,  probably in the post after next.

Have a good weekend!

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