On the way home after a meeting at the seaside the other day (and I really do question my decision to take on a couple of big pieces of consultancy work which are proving to be very restricting), I spotted these chaps (what is it about donkeys that always makes me want to cry?) relaxing after their summer of giving children rides along the beach.
Seeing them reminded me of my early days as a trainee social worker when the then purveyor of the donkey rides used to farm his donkeys out during the winter months to anyone who would have them. Visiting a family in a part of town with now long gone streets of two up two down terraced houses, I was greeted at the door by one of the children with "Come and see what we've got". They'd taken one of them in. Literally. The donkey was living inside the house with them all.
Close to home, I stopped again (brazenly ignoring the "Private track. Keep out." sign) to snap this view of my favourite local landmark looking hazy in this most unseasonal weather.
Whilst I was out doing my consultancy thing, the mister had been busy adding glass panels to a little garden project. Remember this "before" picture of the bottom of the garden, when the old fencing was being taken down?
Here's what that corner looks like now.
The grassed area has been re-turfed, the wee summerhouse is in place and just needs some final tweaking (and a table and chairs for inside), and the shrubs and trees are recovering from some, it has to be said, brutal hacking. Oh yes, and the adirondack chair has finally been painted and given its first airing. After languishing in the garage for three years.
Progress, methinks.
At long last.
“September. It was the most beautiful of words, he'd always felt,
evoking orange flowers, swallows and regret.”
(from Darconville's Cat by Alexander Theroux)
There are no orange flowers or swallows here, just the second flush of pink roses
and the occasional flutter of orange.
Regrets? Plenty, of the "things I meant to do this summer but didn't" kind, which means only one tick on the to do list.
Make that two ticks on the list.
Transformation (hopefully) of the (very neglected) garden has (finally) started though it's undoubtedly going to be a case of getting worse (yet another tree has had to be chopped down) before looking better.
Apparently, it's my birthday tomorrow. (I'm trying hard not to focus too much on the number involved).
Cake will be expected.
Now I can't get that number out of my head.
A hundred and eleventy something or other.
Blimey.
Need.
Cake.
Now.
We popped down the road to Saltburn by the Sea the other day for lunch.
Welsh rarebit (predictably) for me,
followed by a rather generous crème brûlée. This was the day after lunch here and a couple of days after a visit to Betty's for a strawberry cream tea.
By the way, both of those scones, which came with a pot of strawberries, were mine. Himself had his own.
As if all of that wasn't enough, I somehow felt the need to produce a batch of berry muffins using strawberries and blueberries. (*See? I told you this post was mostly about That!).
Work in the garden hasn't started yet (that's happening next week, weather permitting) but the pond has been cleaned which I'm sure was appreciated by the four surviving fish (ghost koi and orfe).
These are much bigger than they look in the picture - the ghost koi just visible on the left is at least a foot long - and especially when compared with the tiddly new arrivals which were introduced to their new home yesterday and haven't been seen since. Hopefully the big boys didn't think lunch had been served!
As for leaving work, that turned out to be a bit of a damp squib. Given the time of year, the campus was very quiet and I was the only one in the office so it was just a case of collecting those last bits and pieces, removing my name from the door and remembering to take a photograph on my way to the car park.
Seems I haven't quite retired, though, as I've been approached by a couple of organisations to do a bit of consultancy work which will probably keep me busy until (and hopefully pay for!) Christmas.
I was intending to start listing the two boxes of work related books on Amazon but maybe I'd better hang on to them. At least until Christmas.
It seems that we've found someone who's willing to take on the mammoth task of rescuing our garden but he's unable to start work until mid August. In the meantime, some of the casualties of winter and the recent re-fencing activity have been chopped down and dug out, sadly all of them established screening shrubs which admittedly had gotten out of hand. There are now gaps. Lots of them. Suddenly the neighbouring houses feel much closer than previously.
At the weekend we made a trip to one of the local garden centres (the smallest one which specialises in plants rather than gazebos, fancy hammocks and giant buddhas) to buy some fillers for the gaps in the pots here.
Nothing fancy, just the usual selection (pelargoniums, lobelia, fuchsia and such like) and a few herbs. I'm sure they'll look a lot better once they're established. Dog permitting, of course.
Meals have become a tad problematic with this warm spell as I'm trying to avoid anything that requires cooking in the oven. Cue one of our hot weather standbys (actually, this is an all year favourite here) - good old stir fry.
Add a pack of ready marinated tofu, serve with rice and Bob's your uncle.
I've seen pictures of blondies but have never tried them. So with the planned spot of gardening put on hold due to rain and general laziness, I opted to make these, adding chopped chocolate and walnuts. I tried one as they were cooling and, whilst the texture was fine with the right amount of squidginess, I think they're missing something tastewise. Maybe dark chocolate (I used milk) would do the trick.
I don't read half as much as I used to (I'm still working my way through Winter's Tale which is taking so long I keep forgetting who some of the characters are) but probably still buy as many books. This was a recommended read somewhere, and years ago I did enjoy the author's Hideous Kinky, so it's now in the to be read pile, along with the rest. The blurb on the back promises sun-scorched hillsides in Tuscany and an intoxicating journey of self discovery. Just don't expect a review anytime soon.
For a baby sized cardi and beret. I can't make a start as the pattern hasn't arrived yet.
It isn't really a new rose, I think we've had it for two years, but I wanted to stick with the theme! There's very little colour in the garden at the moment, with all of the chopping and digging out that's been going on, so, even rain spattered, these blooms are a welcome sight from the kitchen window.
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Thanks for your comments on the previous post. I'd have to say it's quite a scary step, this going down the voluntary severance route, and I worry wonder about the impact of giving up a (very comfortable) salary and how I'll adjust to not having a job which occupies so much of my time. I have visions of not being able to join in the discussions when I meet up with my still employed friends because all I can offer is what happened on the latest episode of Deal Or No Deal and that I've knit the back of a sweater! Maybe you can give a gentle nudge if it seems I'm losing the plot.
Plans to revamp our neglected little back garden have been talked about for at least 2 years and probably longer. It was a bare plot (the house was newly built) when we moved here and a lot of effort went into laying turf, building and populating a pond, establishing paved areas and a path, and planting.
Almost twenty years on, and with our enthusiasm for gardening having waned over time, it's in a sorry state. Faced with all of that empty soil, I made the classic mistake of overfilling it and you only have to look at the narrow borders to see that the shrubs and trees have had to jostle each other for space and light, with their long, misshapen, skeletal arms which only manage to bloom, if at all, in the last couple of inches. Then there are the self planted aliens that made themselves at home and flourished, and those others that have simply vanished without trace.
Part of the problem with the garden is the odd shape. Whilst small, there isn't one place where you get a view of it all. It has no depth, running behind our garages at the side of the house, which wasn't an issue when we backed onto a field but now we're overlooked by houses, built far too close and too high in our opinion. Of course, there's nothing we can do about that (apart from move house which the mister is passionately agin) but we can do something to improve the outside space so that we can actually enjoy it.
And so we've taken the first step by having most of the fencing replaced. What I hadn't understood was that this would involve the rather brutal removal of some of those afore mentioned shrubs and trees (and thus providing some of those afore mentioned neighbouring houses with uninterrupted views of life chez nous).
Part of the bomb site, after four loads of debris had been taken to the tip.
A view of work in progress from the bottom corner of the garden, looking past the garages towards the pond and house.
Where plant and fence become one.
But I'm quickly realising that this unplanned decluttering is a good thing, forcing us to think about what should be kept and what really has no business to be there at all.
The warm spell seems to have brought everyone out into the garden. Even us. We'd planned last year (and probably the year before) to do a lot of much needed work in the back garden but, predictably, we didn't make much progress. Well, if I'm honest, we didn't make any progress. So we are hoping to get on with it this year. We've had estimates (eye watering!) for replacing some fencing, the patch of grass will be re-turfed and I have plans for a new shed to replace the existing one which we bought as a playhouse for the kids when they were little. I don't think anyone has ventured inside it for years though I seem to remember it was carpeted and has book shelves and seating. Then there's replanting to do to fill gaps and replace some mature shrubs we lost over the winter, plus general tidying up.
But there were signs of some old favourites coming to life as we pottered today, with the Boo in charge of plant pots.
(Periwinkle)
(Whitebeam)
(Weeping pear)
We were observed by Percy, a one time regular visitor to the garden who reappeared recently, sadly with his left eye missing.
Of course, someone disgraced himself by falling into the pond.
At least we now know he can swim.
