More done than it seemed!

Last week was a pretty mixed bag, weatherwise, but despite feeling that we didn't get much done, more was actually achieved that I had at first thought.

I think I mentioned that I was going to relocate the old wheelbarrow from the other side of the garden across to the new patio?  I got it moved ~ no easy task as the front wheel is bent to one side! ~ and emptied out, ready for new plants to be installed.  I've ordered a selection of alpines (along with a few herbs for the back garden) from Shire Plants, as I'm going to make a mini rockery in the wheelbarrow.  I also wanted a couple of low-growing plants to finish off the black wooden planter on the right and I really didn't have anything suitable I could "shop" from the garden. 

However, I was able to use what I already had to finish off this side of the long raised bed.  Unfortunately we've had to put some of the netting panels from the old kitchen garden beds around some of the new ones as a cat (most likely Mr Grumpy from next door 😒) has been digging in it.  As I said, I got this side planted up and then topped off with bark chippings.  Although it's not a fool-proof topping, the cats don't seem to like to dig in it as much as they do in nice fresh soil!

The dwarf buddleia and erigerons were temporarily being housed in the planter on the patio.  The little variegated shrub (which has lost its label, unfortunately) to the left of the hypericum was in the back garden, in a bed which I am going to plant up with herbs in due course.  I was worried for a while about the little rowan tree, in the centre of the bed, that I had uprooted from the other side of the front garden.  It was looking very sad and dropped all it's leaves, but I'm happy to report that it is looking much better now and is putting out fresh new foliage 😊

I also relocated another hypericum from the planter on the patio, which has now planted in the other side of the raised bed, next to the hypericum which has been there for a little while.  The fencing is still in place around this side of the bed as I can't really get any more plants moved into it until I've dug up another rowan ~ which is still on the other side of the garden 😖

I moved another plant from the back garden, which I can't remember the name of, to replace the two wooden blocks that I'd put there to try to keep the cats from digging.  Needless to say, they took advantage of the freshly turned over soil and have dug in there again 😠  Much as I don't like to crowd out my plants too much, I think I will have to put in a fair few more to try to fill the gaps as much as possible.

We finally got the old wall border emptied out ~ of course, I've forgotten to take a photo of it in its bare state 😄  I really wanted to keep the lupin plant that was growing in the corner next to the escallonia and Adrian managed to dig it out with a fair bit of root still attached.  I drastically cut it back, just leaving these small, fresh, shoots.  I was amazed at how much liquid came out of the stalks when I cut them!  I didn't know that lupins retain such a lot of water.  The plant seems okay, though, so fingers crossed that it will survive being treated so brutally 🤞

The rosa rugosa, which we inherited when we bought the house, is going to have to go I'm afraid.  Lovely shrubs as they are this one was such a terrible thug, sending up new shoots all over the place.  I got it all cut down ready for Adrian to dig out at some point soon.

I had a "supervisor" whilst I was cutting back the rosa rugosa.....

it sat on my leg for a good couple of minutes before flying off.  I guess it just needed a little rest before carrying on with its day 😊

I also repotted all the new pond plants, something which I should have done when they arrived to be honest but didn't really have time right there and then, so I just plonked them into the water!  I was glad to finally get the job done, and I'm happy to report that the water is also starting to look much clearer now.  

I turned my back for a couple of seconds and found that another butterfly had taken advantage of somewhere to have a little sit down!  Good job I noticed before I sat back down on my gardening stool, otherwise it would have been a squished butterfly 😄

Christmas Every Day: Days 2, 3, 4 & 5

image from Freepik

As promised here are the gifts for days 2, 3, 4 and 5 of Beverly's CED:

She has two cats, so virtually anything cat-themed is a safe bet!  This was one of the little gifts I bought when we were in Leeds visiting Sam in September, and it sits squarely in the "simply decorative" box...

the first of the "fancy toiletries"...

some more "edibles"...

and a piece of "kitchen paraphernalia" that ticks the "practical" box, too 😉

More to come next week!

I woke up at stupid-o'clock yesterday and just couldn't get back to sleep, not least because my nose decided to be very annoying by sneezing and running in never-ending copious amounts 😒 Being the lovely wife that I am (😄) I decided to get up so that I didn't keep Adrian awake.  It's not often that I'm up early enough to see the start of the sunrise, even at this time of year, so thought I'd better take a photo to commemorate this unusual occurrence 😉  

Views from a garden

image from Freepik

When I was out in the front garden taking photos a couple of weeks ago ~ and depressing myself with how much work needs to be done this year 😉 ~ I also took some snaps of the more distant landscapes.  I never tire of the views from our house and garden, we really are so very lucky to live here 😍

Our neighbour has had the tree surgeon in recently, so we now have even better views.....

and it's easier to see down into the harbour.

The sheep very obligingly decided to mill about just where the gap between two houses is so I could take a photo of them 😄  This is the spot where we get the bus driver to drop us off when we've had a jaunt out to Kirkwall.  We're lucky here in that if it's safe to do so, then the drivers will let you out even if it's not an official stop.

I took this photo some weeks back.  We often have spectacular sunsets and sunrises ~ I just wish I was a better photographer!

Such a treat!

We had a fish and chip supper on Saturday, the first takeaway we've had since March 😋  The Peedie Chippie van usually comes through to Stromness on a Saturday but, of course, has been out of action for most of these past few months.  It was lovely to see them back on the road again, and judging by the socially-distancing queue plenty of other folk were glad to have them back, too 😉  Adrian queued for about 45 minutes, and he said that by the time he'd got our order the queue was as long again behind him!  They serve up delicious fish and chips, and I always have a little pot of mushy peas to go with my supper.  The portion size is very generous, so much so we quickly learned that one supper was plenty for the two of us!

Isn't it funny how the little things that we always took for granted become so much of a treat when we can't have them so readily 😊

A dreich day

It's wet, chilly and grey.....and sadly, no view of the sea today.  Still, on a day like this there are no feelings of guilt for not getting out in the garden 😉  I've got things I could pootle about doing in the house but here I am, surfing the web instead LOL  Oh well, it's good to have some slow days mixed in with the busy, busy ones! 

 Our boy is back home where he belongs, too.  Beverly picked up Matty's ashes for us from the Northvet surgery in Kirkwall, as the Stromness surgery was closed for a few weeks during lockdown.  Amber and Nikki's ashes are both in little wooden caskets but I think this pottery container is much nicer.  All three are now in a cupboard in our bedroom and the plan is that whichever one of us pops our clogs first, the dogs' ashes will go in our (joint) plot at the same time.  Might all sound a bit morbid to some folk, I guess, but Adrian and I have always been open about our wishes for when the end comes.  Hopefully, though, we both have a good few more years left on the clock 😉  

Definitely autumnal...

...and yet there is still beauty to be seen in the garden borders.  Some folk find autumn to be a rather sad season, where the voluptuous bounty of summer rapidly fades away, but really it's just the garden taking off it's clothes and pulling on it's pyjamas ready for the long refreshing sleep of winter.  And before we know it spring will be here once more, and we can renew our friendships with all of our beloved plants 😊

I love the glossy red hips of rosa rugosa ~ as do the blackbirds if the half-eaten remains left on the lawn are anything to go by!  These are actually growing in our neighbour's garden but we get to share the beauty of their blooms.  The hips always remind me of my Mum telling me how much Dad liked the rosehip syrup I had as a baby 😄  I wonder when ~ and why ~ giving rosehip syrup to babies stopped being a thing?  I know it certainly wasn't something I gave to the gruesome-twosome almost 30 years ago (omg, how can my kids be nearly 30 years old 😲), so things must have changed sometime between the early 60s and early 90s.

I was having a poke around in the ornamental garden that is currently masquerading as a wilderness when I spotted that this poppy had decided to have a second flourish of leaves ~ and pop out a flower bud, too!  I have read that if they are cut back after flowering is finished then some poppies will have a second flush in August but I think this one has left it a bit late this year!

Apologies if you are arachnaphobic ~ I'm not that keen on the eight-legged little beasties myself, to be honest.  This one, though, wasn't really scary despite it's looooong legs and apparently isn't even a spider!  It's a harvestman according to the RSPB, and they are Opilones, which is a group of arachnids closely related to spiders 😉

Moving swiftly on from that little natural history lesson...

...take a look at something that's much prettier than a spider-that's-only-pretending-to-be-a-spider, a sweet little potentilla Pink Whisper.  The bees really like potentillas, I guess it's easy for them to get to the pollen with those flat open flowers.

This is potentilla nepalensis Miss Willmott.  It's a very different-looking plant to Pink Whisper despite them both being in the potentilla family.

Autumn is, of course, the season for asters.  This is aster novi belgii Jenny.

The verbena bonarensis is still going strong.  We've had some high winds but it seems to cope admirably.  I love the way it is rising up behind the montbretia, and the contrast of the blue against the orange 😊

Despite being moved all the lupins bloomed, and some have even put out a second flush of flower spikes.

More of those beautiful rosa rugosa hips, this time in the bed beside the pond.

It seems that the sedums Autumn Joy turn a deeper red every day.

Fungi-opolis!

We've had masses of these cute little fungi this year.

I don't know anything about fungi, I'm afraid (other than the ones in the supermarket are very tasty 😋), but have been told that these are probably from the Coprinellus family.  They like to grow on or near rotting tree stumps.

And finally, I couldn't resist taking a photograph of the view from our house.....we are very lucky to live here 😍

Odds 'n' ends ~ and a longer walk

 

I think this is a crane fly ~ it was just sitting on our draining-board the other day, so I helped it on it's way out the back door via our bug catcher.  There are a lot of them about at the moment, hanging off walls and windows!

Yet another bee I've rescued from the porch, one of many that have come inside these past few months.  Our porch, as you may recall, is in dire need of renovation with lots of holes in the woodwork which spiders like to fill with their thick webs.  Naturally, these spots are where the bees seem to head for, where they get tangled up in the webs.  They then get very "buzzy" and I try to rescue the ones I hear ~ not always as easy as it may sound as they usually aren't that co-operative LOL

Anyhoo, I emptied this one out in the alpine bed and it seemed none-the-worse for its little adventure 😊

The broccoli has gone mad, puffing out the netting like an old lady wearing a hairnet over her curlers!  I was obviously too late to stop the cabbage white caterpillars ~ the leaves are covered with the little blighters.  I've decided to admit defeat and leave them to it, but next year the plants will be netted as soon as I put 'em in 😉

There didn't seem to be much point in leaving the netting in place, so I took it off before the wind and heavy rain we had yesterday.  It's not a pretty sight, is it 😮

This, on the other hand, is a very pretty sight ~ I'm so pleased that this rose has survived!  It was a "new home" gift from my sister and had previously been planted on the ornamental side of the front garden, in a border facing east.  It wasn't doing well over there at all and I thought I would lose it altogether.  I moved it into the south-facing kitchen garden border, cut it right back, gave it a good handful of chicken manure pellets ~ and hoped for the best!  It has settled into it's new position really well and is now producing these beautiful blooms, with the promise of more yet to come.

Despite the awful weather we had yesterday morning, it was lovely in the afternoon so we took ourselves off for a walk towards town.  I felt good, so decided to go a bit further than the day before...

...and made it all the way to the ferry terminal 😊  We sat on a bench near the John Rae statue and had an ice-cream.  It was lovely, like we were on holiday.  Blue sky, blue sea, sunshine and a warm breeze ~ what more could anyone ask for! 

I'll admit it was a bit of a struggle walking home again, but not as much as it had been last week.  Adrian popped into the Co-Op, so I continued on and waited for him on the bench beside the war memorial.  We are blessed to live in such a beautiful place 😍

A little walk

Adrian and I have re-started our little walks again now that we aren't so busy in the garden.  I'm terribly unfit (and being so overweight doesn't help) but prior to the big lockdown project I had gradually been able to go a little further every day.  Once we started on the kitchen garden project though I was just too exhausted to get out for a walk.  Of course, I am now back to square one with the distance I can cover but at least I'm getting out there again ~ even if I'm finding it somewhat knackering at the moment!

I remembered to take my camera with me yesterday.  It was very overcast so the few photos I took aren't that great.  This is a view over the harbour, with the Hills of Hoy in the distance, just a short stroll from our house.

Stromness War Memorial.  The figure represents either a grieving widow or mother (I've seen her described in both ways) holding a wreath

Self-explanatory, really LOL.  The stonework is rather lovely.

This is as far as I could manage yesterday, just a little way on from the "welcome to Stromness" sign.  I went a little further today, though 😊

I took a photo from a different angle on the walk back home ~ it's a better view of the lady from here.

 

And here we are, back home once more.  I didn't bother taking my camera today as I knew I wouldn't be going much further along than yesterday.  Hopefully it won't be too long before I'm able to get right down into the town (and beyond!), taking photos like a tourist 😉