Dreary January

image from Freepik

Both January and February can be such dreary months in the garden, can't they?  Especially, if like us, you didn't get round to tidying up the borders before the bad weather set in!  To be fair, though, I took these photos on Sunday and although it was chilly, the sun was shining brightly 🌞  

What dragged me out of the warmth of the house was spotting the flower on this rose ~ once again the lovely Eustacia Vye is putting out a bloom!  We'll ignore the thistle that's taken root in the tub 😉

Then I noticed that one of the rhubarb plants, Goliath, is also starting to put in an appearance.  I was a bit annoyed, though, when I saw that it appears one of the neighbourhood cats has been digging in the bed 😒  I think we will have to build a cage around the bed this year to keep the little buggers out!

On my way over to the other side of the garden, my eye was caught by the shining white flowers on this hellebore.  The plant label has long since disappeared, I'm afraid, so I don't know which variety it is.

I was sidetracked by the beautiful little hellebore on my way to have a closer look at the pretty pink flowers on this viburnum.  Although it does have a plant label, alas the lettering has completely worn away but I think it may be Dawn.  It's been flowering for a little while and seems to be starting to go over now, but nevertheless it's continuing to add a welcome splash of colour.

And back indoors I saw that this pretty pink-tinged succulent, the name of which I have absolutely no idea, is putting out a spray of little flowers too!  I suppose the motto is that even "dreary January" can have some little spots of loveliness 😊 

Reading round-up: October 2025

image from Clipart Library

Mr Pottermack's Oversight (a Dr Thorndyke novel -British Mysteries Collection): R. Austin Freeman

Pontifex, Son and Thorndyke (a Dr Thorndyke novel -British Mysteries Collection): R. Austin Freeman

When Rogues Fall Out (Dr Thorndyke's Discovery) (a Dr Thorndyke novel -British Mysteries Collection): R. Austin Freeman

Dr Thorndyke Intervenes (a Dr Thorndyke Novel - British Mysteries Collection): R. Austin Freeman

For the Defence: Dr Thorndyke (a Dr Thorndyke Novel - British Mysteries Collection): R. Austin Freeman

The Penrose Mystery (a Dr Thorndyke Novel - British Mysteries Collection): R. Austin Freeman

Felo De Se? (Death at the Inn) (a Dr Thorndyke Novel - British Mysteries Collection): R. Austin Freeman

I'm very pleased with the amount of reading I managed to achieve during October ~ it does rather make up for my lack of enthusiasm earlier this year!  As you can see, I am still reading the British Mysteries Collection ~ or to be more accurate, re-reading them.  I'd forgotten just how many stories are in this collection, and they aren't exactly short stories, either.

Adrian usually goes up to bed a fair bit earlier than I do (I'm very much more of a "night owl" than he is 🦉😄), and that's when I do most of my reading.  I've been finding, though, that I'm also reading more during the day rather than putting the TV on, which has to be better I think 😉  I don't know if I shall get through so many books this month, though, as I've just finished one crochet project and have started on a new one!

I still haven't got round to dusting her, but thought you might like to see how Miss Schlumbergera's blooms are coming along ~ she is just so pretty, even with a light covering of dust 😊

Still a very bad housewife!

image from Freepik

Nothing new there, Sharon, I hear you say 😉  To be fair most of the house is fairly tidy, but alas the same cannot be said for my little corner of the living room 😏

I have a very bad habit of just piling stuff up to "look at later".  Unfortunately "later" tends to become very much later indeed, until it reaches the point where the piles are in danger of toppling over 😳

Since we are fast approaching the time of year to start using the log-burner, I shall have to gird my loins and make a concerted effort to get my corner properly tidied up!

In less chaos-related news, my faithful little Schlumbergera is putting out lots of buds again...

and ten days or so later, those buds are growing very nicely indeed 😊 More Schlumbergera progress to follow ~ and perhaps I'll even dust the poor little bugger 😉 

Somewhere that is a lot tidier is the dining room!  Do you remember the stack of crates filled with books that I'd weeded out from the craft room?  When I had my recent GP appointment, since we were getting the bus I suggested to Adrian that we could fill up my trusty shopping trolley with some of the books and drop them off at the library, which we duly did.  When they were handed over to the Librarian she was absolutely over-the-moon and thanked me many times, which made the downsizing "trauma" very worthwhile indeed 😊

We explained that we would bring the rest of them down gradually, since we don't drive and would have to transport them in the shopping trolley.  She was amazed that we'd hauled them there by bus and said that she would see if her colleague, who was at lunch, would come and collect the rest of the books to save us having to schlep them down one trolley-load at a time.  Adrian had a call from said colleague a couple of hours later, and she came and collected all the book-filled crates shortly after.  So not only did we rehome the books all in one go, we also got shot of the plastic crates at the same time since we didn't have any further use for so many of 'em 😏   

Nothing whatsoever to do with my lack of housewifery skills, but I thought I'd show you the potatoes I've started to harvest.  I'm very pleased with the crop so far ~ this is from a couple of plants.  I'm going to grow potatoes again next year but in large tubs rather than the raised beds.  As I mentioned previously I am intending to scale back somewhat over the next couple of years or so.  I really don't want to stop growing altogether, though.  At the moment, I'm still in the process of deciding how many of the raised beds in the kitchen garden to eventually dismantle but it's proving to be a hard decision to make!

Dahlia day!

You'll be pleased to hear that I did get round to doing some actual work in the garden last week, not just stroll around taking photos 😏  I was out there all day on Wednesday, which was a glorious day, and I made my first job getting our old duvet washed and hung out ready to go in the guest bedroom in due course.

I then took a deep breath and made a start on the poor dahlias, which as you can see from the photo above were once again left out all winter 😳  I didn't bother taking photos of all the tedious emptying out of the pots and rootling around to ~ hopefully ~ find tubers that hadn't rotted away, especially as I had 19 pots to rootle through!  Needless to say they didn't all survive my shameful neglect but, somewhat amazingly, 12 of the poor little buggers did!

 As it was such a lovely day I made the most of it by sitting myself beside the arbour, rather than lugging the pots into the greenhouse, and emptied them into the wheelbarrow  ~ which I filled up twice!  I can't remember if I told you that we decided to keep the bed along the wall in the little front garden patio area after all?  Anyhoo, that's where I tipped the old compost.  I usually keep my old compost as "bulk" to top up beds and borders as needed, replacing the by-now exhausted nutrients in it by adding a good sprinkling of chicken manure pellets 😊

Then it was into the greenhouse to pot up the tubers.  Some were able to stay in the same size pots they'd been in last year, with a handful needing to move up to larger ones.  I decided to make more of an effort this time by adding a drainage layer in the bottom of the pots.  As I only had a bag of rather fine horticultural grit, I thought it prudent to put something in the base of the pots so that I didn't lose said grit out of the drainage holes.  I had a supply of strawberry mats that I don't now use, so was able to cut them to size for all the pots.....

then slung in a scoop or so of the grit.

Look at that lump of, well I don't know exactly what it is to be honest ~ granite perhaps? ~ that was lurking in the bag! 

Three or four of the tubers are already sprouting and hopefully all 12 will grow.  I would have added some chicken manure pellets just to "beef up" the compost to give the tubers a good feed but I've run out.  I've ordered a couple more tubs so will sprinkle some over the pots they arrive.

I had to re-do two or three of the labels as the writing was starting to wear away.  I was left with one pot, though, where the label was totally illegible so had to work out which variety it was (turned out to be Prinzessa) through a process of elimination ~ luckily I was actually organised enough last year to keep a list of what I had on the computer 😆

What I'm left with now are:

Bahama Apricot (orange)

Cafe au Lait (pale pink)

Cafe au Lait Twist (creamy-white/pink)

Creme de Cassis (purple)

Grand Prix (lemon/white)

Mikayla Miranda (purple)

Peaches & Cream (yellow)

Prinzessa (creamy-yellow, pink tipped)

Purple Gem (purple)

Souvenir d'Ete (orange)

Tyrell (orange)

White Aster (white)

I'll keep you up-do-date with their progress!

After I'd finished the mammoth task of dealing with the poor dahlias, which as usual took me far longer than I had anticipated, I decided to try my luck sowing some sunflower seeds.  I was inspired by seeing the sunflowers that my Dad is growing, so thought I'd have a pop at it myself.  Vincent's Mix, as the name suggests, is a mixture of different colours and flower shapes, so it will be interesting to see what (hopefully!) comes up 😊 

By the time I'd sorted out the dahlias and sown the sunflower seeds, I was too tired to do anything else on Wednesday.  Thursday wasn't anywhere near as nice a day; although the sun did shine quite brightly later on, there was a pretty chilly breeze out there!  I was very tempted just to have another lazy day, but in the end decided to bundle myself up in layers and get on with setting the strawberry supports in place before the plants got any bigger.  It was definitely easier to do with the plants now being raised up in pots and more separate from each other.  I'm hoping that this will help them get more air circulation, and avoid the mildew/mould issues I had last year.

There's still lots to be done in both the front and back gardens, but I feel that I've at least made a fairly good start out there now 😊  

Before I finish off this post, I must just show you what I hauled all the way back from Leeds with me ~ three lovely new houseplants from a super shop not far from the hotel we stayed in 😀  The one in the photo above is, at it states on the label, Gynura Purple Passion.  It caught my eye as I thought it was quite an unusual-looking plant.

This is Coffea Arabica (coffee plant).  I was attracted by those lovely glossy leaves.

And finally, here's Monstera Adansonii Monkey Mask.  I did have a very small one of these but sadly it died so I thought I'd have another try at growing it, this time starting with a somewhat larger and more established plant 🤞

I packed the plants tightly together for the journey home and thankfully they survived pretty much unscathed.

The shop I bought them from in Leeds is called Nice Things, and really is chock-a-block with very nice plants indeed!  Sadly they only ship to mainland UK addresses, so I had to be very good and only allow myself to be tempted by three plants.  Trust me, though, I could have bought very many more had we been travelling by car 😄 

War of attrition

image from Clipart Library

I've got gnats!  Well not me personally, you understand, it's my poor houseplants 😱 They are bloody annoying, as I'm sure you can imagine, and at the moment I am waging war with yellow sticky traps pushed into the pots.  It's incredible just how many of the buggers the traps are catching, with some plants being much more badly affected than others.  The plant with the biggest infestation is the ctenanthe division I took when I repotted Laura's plant last year ~ and funnily enough Beverly has had the same issues with the division I gave her, too.  I didn't notice any gnats when I was manhandling the original plant, so I am assuming they were lurking in the new compost 🤷

Methinks I will need to be a tad more proactive, though, to try to get rid of them completely.  I really don't fancy having to repot all the plants that I did recently, so after doing some internet research I'm now considering my options.  Diatomaceous earth seems to be a frequent recommendation, along with the sticky traps which I'm already using.  I'm actually very familiar with diatomaceous earth, as it was something that I used to help keep my chickens healthy back in the day.  Every time I cleaned out their house, I generously sprinkled the stuff around on the fresh bedding to help keep mites at bay.  It obviously worked as my girls never had any pests of any kind!  Remembering back, I also hurled about with gay abandon another product, called Stalosan, which was a pink (if I remember correctly), powdered, disinfectant ~ I rather liked the smell of it 😄

After my research, I think I have come up with a suitable plan of action.  The first step will be to tackle the plants that were repotted recently by replacing the top inch or so of compost.  Then spread a generous layer of diatomaceous earth over the fresh compost, and top with fine grit to make it more difficult for the gnats to reach the soil to lay their eggs.  I still have a fair few more plants to repot, so I think that I'll add some grit to the compost to make it a bit more free-draining.  I shall also try to remember to make the effort to water from the bottom of the pot where possible!

Wish me luck, and I'll let you know in due course how my "banish the fungus gnats" campaign is progressing 😉

Christmas-Every-Day

image from Freepik

I trundled over to Kirkwall yesterday to pay my annual "Mother Christmas" visit to Beverly, where I then spend time hanging the fruits of my gift-wrapping endeavours for her to open one each day during December.  It's a rod I made for my own back tradition that I started a good number of years ago, before Adrian and I moved up to Orkney.  Beverly very rarely came south for Christmas, a combination of her working shift patterns and the unpredictability of the weather for travelling at that time of year.  I came across the idea when I was idly surfing Pinterest one day, and thought it would be a lovely idea to do for Beverly to remind her that we were thinking of her even if we couldn't be together 😊

I can't show you all the little gifts laid out ready for wrapping, just in case Beverly takes it into her head to read my blog for once 😉  Suffice to say, the two bags above were stuffed with all the little goodies I came across for this years Christmas-Every-Day.  I keep wondering when she will grow out of it but she shows no sign of doing so thus far ~ and she'll be 34 at the end of this coming January 😏

Ta-daa ~ everything hung up ready for this year's tradition to begin!  It didn't take too long to get the job done, despite the "assistance" of Belle, one of my grandkitties 😉  The cats are also the reason why the little parcels are rather bunched up, rather than dangling more elegantly 😄

Adrian and I had both planned on going to see Beverly but unfortunately he wasn't feeling too well.  He had the first of the two shingles vaccinations on Wednesday and it's left him feeling very tired and "flu-ey".  He would normally have carried the stash of little gifts for me, of course, but I was able to get everything packed into my trusty shopping trolley.  There was plenty of room on the bus over to Kirkwall, so I had a seat near the front and tucked my trolley in beside me 😊

I had a lovely couple of hours with Beverly, and got the 12.26pm bus home again.  I get on and off the bus at Tesco in Kirkwall, and I suppose it takes me about 10 minutes or so to walk from there to her flat.  By the time I'd got home and had some lunch, I didn't really feel like doing much else so had a lazy afternoon.

I did finally get something done with my little air plants, though.  I bought them when we were down south back in September, and managed to get them home unscathed!  I propped them up in a pot with one of my succulents until I'd decided how to display them ~ and there they sat for three months 😏  As you know I'm currently sorting out my craft room (aka the dumping ground 😉), and in one of the boxes I was emptying out I found the perfect little vintage container for them.  It was something I came across when I was sorting through stuff at Mum and Dad's earlier in the year.  Dad had no use for it and said I was welcome to take it 😊

It's stamped on the base "Hillstonia" and although I haven't been able to find much information online, it would appear to have been made by a company called Moira Pottery.  I was a little confused when I read the Wikipedia article as it said that the Hillstonia range was for forcing bulbs and containing plants ~ I couldn't quite see how you could get bulbs into the very slender opening along the top of the container!  However after I did a general search for Hillstonia pottery, I came across an identical container to the one I have on Etsy.  The seller there describes it as a posy vase, which makes much more sense 😄

I don't know where my Mum got it from but I suspect it came from my Great Aunt Mary, who had some interesting items.  I now have a number of things that were both hers and my Grandma's (Mary's older sister), none of which are worth very much monetarily but are nevertheless a lovely link to that older generation.

My little air plants sit in the posy vase beautifully, with that narrow opening firmly holding them upright.  I've placed it on the kitchen windowsill, which should hopefully remind me to check them regularly to see if they need spraying/soaking! 

Being sensible

image from Freepik

Although it's not my natural state of being I have been pretty sensible following on from the very annoying leg mishap of last Saturday 😏 I had a hair appointment on Monday and although we caught the bus down, we actually walked home.  We had only just missed a bus so rather than hang around for an hour, I felt that I could walk home if I took it very slowly ~ which I did.  I suspect that this very slow walk actually helped, along with the Ibuprofen and periods of resting the leg over the last few days.  I've also been able to get out in the garden for a couple of hours or so at a time, albeit with me sitting down to work and Adrian doing the digging!

I mentioned previously that I was moving the strawberries.  Although I managed to get half the bed done fairly well, I managed to get myself into a right old pickle with the rest of it *sigh*  Luckily for me, Adrian came to the rescue and volunteered to do it for me ~ I think he could see how frustrated with my efforts I was becoming!  As you can see, I've only got half the strawberries actually moved into their new accommodation thus far but I'm hoping to finish the bed over the next few days.  It's a job that I can do sitting down so that's an added bonus at the moment 😉

Before "leg-gate", Adrian had finished the newly-extended raised bed in the new patio area.  We started to move the plants from the path border that ~ fingers crossed ~ we will be grassing over next year.  He dug them out for me and I then planted them in their new home.  The soil in this bed was still pretty wet which made it a not-very-pleasant exercise, to be honest.  Still, needs must, and at least we made a start on the job even if our gardening gloves and tools ended up covered with sticky mud in the process!

 

I've also made a start on bringing in my tender perennials.  These argyranthemum Grandaisy Pink Halo were planted in an old wheelbarrow which I had in the kitchen courtyard over the summer.  They grew very well and I'm hoping that they will survive the winter in the greenhouse, ready to be put back in the garden next year.  They are very pretty plants, and flower for months.  I think they are extremely good value for money.

Ta-daaa!  I actually remembered to take an up-to-date photo of Miss Schlumbergera ~ I hope you are duly impressed with my memory 😄  I would have liked to have knelt down to take a slightly better photo but decided not to risk having to get back up again, so just bent my knees as much as I dared!  You can still see how pretty she is looking, though, despite my lack of photographic skills 😊

A self-inflicted lazy weekend

image from Freepik

If only I had been doing something sporty ~ alas I was only changing our bed 😯

Saturday started off well and I was planning to carry on with what I had been doing during the earlier part of last week, i.e. working in the garden in the morning, and continue tackling the mess in my craft room after lunch.  I decided to be a bit sensible, though, and have a somewhat "slower" weekend as we'd both been working hard during the week.  We almost always Komp with my Dad either Saturday or Sunday, depending really on which day suits him best.  This weekend it was to be on Saturday, so I thought I'd strip off our bed and get the bedding in the washing machine whilst I showered, breakfasted, etc.  We then chatted with Dad and as time was marching on somewhat by the time we'd finished, I decided to remake our bed and only do an hour or so in the garden.  So far, so good 😏

I got the fresh bedding on the bed and was just straightening up Adrian's pillow ~ leaning across from my side of the bed ~ when I felt, almost "heard" actually, a popping sensation in the back of my right leg!  Omg, my lovelies, pain shot through said leg and I had to sit down very quickly as I felt decidedly odd😧 I just sat there for a few minutes sort of rocking myself back and forth in an effort to calm down ~ it sounds mad, I know, but it did work!  I gingerly felt my leg and nothing seemed out of place, as it were.  I was worried that perhaps I'd managed to somehow tear a muscle but on reflection I think I must have just given something a good "pull", as I'm sure I would have been in much more (and continuing) pain if I'd done anything more serious.

So as you can imagine no work has been done either in the garden or craft room these past couple of days.  I'm a tad annoyed with myself, to be honest, as I had been on such a roll all week 😒 My weekend has instead been spent alternating between resting my leg with a soothing heating pad and gently walking around the house, coupled with taking plenty of paracetamols.  The leg is still pretty sore, and feels as if the back of my knee/top of calf/lower thigh are bruised.  Who knew that doing something as simple, and everyday, as leaning across a bed could cause such discomfort!

I have resigned myself to doing less than I had planned this week.  I do have a hair appointment later this morning so will be doing more walking today.  I am going to be sensible, though, and get the bus so that I am not walking all the way from our house down to the shops, and will also use my walking stick for a little added support.

As I said earlier, though, it is very annoying 😒 

Anyhoo, enough of my tales of woe!

I'm not sure if I mentioned that our Christmas decorations had been languishing in the store room, untouched, for quite some time?  I kept telling myself that I really must sort through them as we haven't really decorated the house for Christmas much at all since we moved here.  I finally got a "push" when the activities organiser (I can't remember her proper title!) at Hamnavoe House (the residential elderly care home here in Stromness) put out a call asking if folk had any decorations they could donate.  Adrian brought the crates in from the store room for me a couple of weeks back and I went through them.

I was pretty ruthless and managed to gather a fairly large crate of things to donate, plus a couple of larger items that wouldn't fit in said crate.  As we have family coming up this year for Christmas I will be making a concerted effort to decorate the house, and may well decide that some of the things I kept this time can actually go after all😉  

And finally, I thought you might like to see how the schlumbergera is doing.  This photo was taken a couple of weeks back and I'm really pleased that the promise of flowers it was showing then haven't disappointed ~ I'll try to remember to take an up-to-date photo to share in my next post 😊 

Stacking up

After a few hours working in the garden I really don't feel up to doing anything that could possibly turn out to be even a teensy wee bit strenuous ~ so as you can imagine my decidedly patchy housework routine has gone completely out the window yet again 😄

That's not to say, though, that I've just been vegetating in front of the TV of an evening 😉 I have in fact been plugging away at the Christmas gift blanket I started back in August.  I estimate that I'm about two-thirds of the way through the body of the blanket but I confess that the making of it does seem to be crawling along somewhat *sigh*  It's also not as wide as the bonus blanket, and I don't really know why.  I can only surmise that I made a longer starting chain for the BB and/or used a slightly larger hook perhaps?  This is, of course, a good lesson on why I should keep proper records of the things I make for future reference!  To bring it up more to the dimensions of the BB, I guess I'll just have to make a wider border.

It is a very pretty blanket, though, and I am pleased with how the colour combination has turned out, but I rather think it will be quite some time before I tackle another interlocking block stitch pattern 😄

To make matters worse, my butterfly mind keeps flitting over to the latest blanket Beverly has asked me to make: a baby blanket for her friend.  Said baby is due in February, I believe, so provided I get a wiggle on with the Christmas gift blanket I should be able to leave myself enough time to make this one.

pattern from Dada's Place

This is the pattern that Beverly has chosen, the Rainbow Ruffle Blanket by Dada's Place.  Dragana has lots of lovely, free, patterns on her blog as well as many more in her shop.  I came across this particular pattern quite some time ago and it's been sitting in my stash of patterns waiting to be made since then.

Beverly decided to keep the colour palette very simple and neutral rather than the rainbow colours used in the pattern, and also to have the blanket made a little larger.  I got the yarn from my usual go-to supplier, Wool Warehouse.  It's King Cole Cottonsoft DK which, as the name suggests, is a 100% cotton yarn and comes in 100g balls.  The main body of the blanket will be in the lovely pale green shade, Sage, with the ruffles in Oyster.  I'm not very good at estimating how much yarn I'm going to need if I alter the size of a project from what is stated in the pattern ~ hence all that leftover yarn from Olive's blanket that I still haven't used up, despite making the bonus blanket 😲  At least anything that may be leftover from this ruffle blanket can be put to good use for making more dishcloths as and when I need them😉

So as you can see, the projects are starting to stack up a tad.....goodness knows when I'll get the guest bedroom blanket finished!  

Whilst I was very good and didn't let myself be tempted to add to my decidedly not-insubstantial yarn stash, I did succumb to the allure of a tapestry kit that I'd had in my WW wish list for a while.  After all, how could I be expected to resist the rather pleasing 15% discount 😏   

I had been planning to repot the houseplants in the living room on the days I can't get out in the garden, but I guess I won't now be disturbing my schlumbergera any time soon!  It seemed to just suddenly be full of buds although I should, of course, have been expecting them to be putting in an appearance now that we're into October.  The flowers are a very pretty pale pink, and really add a cheerful note to the long, dark, days of autumn and winter.  Oh well, Miss Schlumbergera will just have to wait until she's finished blooming for her repotting ~ I've still got plenty of her companions to keep me occupied in the meantime 😊 

Every little helps!

image from Clipart Library

I've managed to get some more houseplants repotted over the last couple of weeks.  Ever impatient, I'd like to get them all done and dusted ASAP, but I really do need to take every opportunity to get on in the garden that I can before the weather makes it too difficult and/or unpleasant.  As I've only got one pair of hands, I'll just have to be satisfied with perhaps getting one or two done each week ~ hopefully, though, I'll have them all sitting in nice fresh pots of compost by Christmas😏

Aspidistra are very slow-growing plants.  This one lives in a corner of our bedroom and I've had it a number of years.  It always amazes me how it seems quite content to be in such a dark area of the room!  Quite apart from the poor plant needing fresh compost, I was quite keen to repot it into something a tad less weighty.  The terracotta pot it was in is surprisingly heavy for its size 😯

I was a little taken aback when I decanted it and found such a small amount of root.  It seems happy enough, though, and does put out new leaves.

I put it in a similar-sized pot but this one, being plastic, is nowhere near as heavy!

I've had this rhipsalis for a few years, too.  It was in the living room previously but once the porch was finished, I moved it out there.

It wasn't too bad, root-wise, but it was very dry ~ oopsies!  Rhipsalis are rather brittle plants so lots of little pieces broke off during the re-potting process.  I decided in for a penny, in for a pound, and knocked off as much of the old, dry, compost that I could without causing too much destruction!

I put it into a larger pot, although it isn't a helluva lot bigger which means that it still fits in the original saucer that it was sitting in before.

Back in it's place in the porch, guarding the log pile 😄  With it being a trailing plant it looks much better in this new, taller, pot.  Rhipsalis are also slow-growing, apparently, although I wouldn't describe this one as such.

That's all the upstairs plants repotted now, along with all but one done in the porch.  It's a really good start but I do have a fair few more to get through!