A lesson for me.

Thanks to you reading this post, I get to brush up on my geography (a blessing given that I got THREE 'ungraded' results for my geography exams - a bit of a blow seeing as how I considered being a geography teacher in my younger years). If I check on the audience view I can see which parts of the world are looking at my blog. Thank you!
I've now got it into my brain that South Africa is not South America. A shocking confession, I know and I hereby apologise for being so unaware of the world.

Having spent yesterday working in a windowless room all day I have a day's holiday today and the chickens are delighted about that. I let them out at lunchtime and popped out into the back garden to top up the peanuts in the feeders. Buck Bucky was so desperate to see what food I had that she ran too fast and shocked herself by taking flight. With a mass of flapping she got herself half way down the garden before finding her feet on solid ground again and coming to a stop. Very amusing.
Now, whilst the others are clearing out the weeds in my herb garden, Buck Bucky is wandering along with a small tomato in  her beak, making her look like a circus clown with a huge red nose. Chickens do the same sort of thing with grapes; so desperate are they to escape from the crowd to keep their rich pickings for themselves that they grab them and race off with little green hooters. I can see them all from where I am typing on the laptop and I can also see my breath in front of me even though I am in the house.
It is 1.5 degrees today which delighted Luke as it means his garlic will be having a happy start to it's growing life.

Now I should be mopping the kitchen floor right now but I am procrastinating because I've still got s glowing nose from having just spent two hours in the garden. I have mowed the front and back gardens for the first time this year (quite early but I always think it's like vacuuming carpets, they always look ten times better for a go over. I've also cleaned up the cat poo from next door's cat. No idea why she bothers using the outdoors though as she stayed in here overnight and deposited a 'present' on our cooker top! I'm sure she does these things to wind up Luke. The reason I have to mop the floor is because I am sure I can smell the other part of her present somewhere and need to get the place fresh again. She's outside on our deck looking at me through the french windows. I've called Jack to let him know that first she was in with me and that now she is back outdoors again but he's out playing golf I think. I also raked up some leaves to clear the borders and then spent a happy half an hour trying to pressure wash the conservatory roof. I ended up abandoning that and just jetting the bird bath clean instead.
Well, thanks for letting me waffle on, time to mop is fast approaching. I won't tell Luke if you won't.

A walk through the weed - quite literally.

 At the weekend we took ourselves off for a long walk across the fields and onto "the wrong side of the tracks". From a churning river, rolling green fields and dense hedgerows, we ended up in a less salubrious part of Cardiff; the first person we met was chugging away at a huge fat roll up - of cannabis! I did take a crafty breath in as I passed. As I don't smoke I quite like an illegal and free second hand whiff of a spliff but don't quote me on that, will you?
Now the evenings are starting to draw out and we've had a day or two of sunshine everything seems to have pushed itself up in our garden. Those fat stems of the tulips are letting me know the circus is almost in town and that within a few months our garden will be full of colour. Yippee.
I won't welcome the weekly lawn mowing that summer brings but that's a very small price to pay for warmth, balmy evenings and sunshine. The raspberries are sprouting forth new growth and there are unfurled leaves on several of my shrubs and my weeping pear which I have yet to find a home for. I'm very excited about the white lilac. I brought it with me from the last garden where it had resided in a large pot because I couldn't bear to part with it and knew we wouldn't always be there. Now it's got a place in the border and is just bursting with bright green tips. Jack's cat loves to fight with the whippy branches so I'm thrilled to see it hasn't stopped it from producing fat bundles of promise. I love the smell of lilac but it lasts such a short time if picked so I tend to spend my time walking past the lilac doing what I did at the weekend when I passed the spliff-smoker; looking nonchalant whilst taking in great lung-fulls for air on the sneak.

Better late than never.

Luke has eventually got around to getting his garlic planted. He has dug over the veg patch and chilled his garlic for a day in the fridge before he plants it. We were going to spend more time in the garden  but the weather is still too wet to do much.I sat outside whilst he dug so as to keep him company but soon got so chilled I wimped out and went back indoors. Having tidied the monochrome border and being chuffed to see the primulas pushing through the earth  I decided that the garden really would have to wait another few weeks before it had dried out enough to not compact the earth when I stood on it. We ended up going to Bath instead to pick up the vintage mannequin I had won on EBay and to visit friends who had moved there a few years ago. If you are checking this place out and are not from the UK do Google 'Bath, England' as it's a beautiful Georgian town with the most wonderful Bath stone, all honey coloured. The Royal Crescent is the jewel in the crown and it's a real tourist trap. It also houses the natural springs which formed the Roman baths which are now excavated and can be viewed. Fascinating stuff.