crafting

Long Overdue Catch Up

greengirlgardener3 Comments

I was intending to write a Six on Saturday today given that the garden is waking up and there’s more to share, but then I realised I also wanted to write about our holiday so I’m combining the two (along with any other random thoughts that may enter my head!) But first, a holiday! Yes, that’s right, we actually managed to have a holiday, and in a different country at that!

Hubby was unexpectedly given three weeks holiday because the days needed using up, so we took the opportunity to book a short break in Gran Canaria. It didn’t turn out to be a simple as originally planned – we were due to fly out on 10th March (so we should be there now!) but a mix up in the holiday meant we had to bring it forward a couple of weeks. Much thanks to my boss for being so flexible in letting me change my holiday!

Anyway, Gran Canaria was the only one of the four main Canary Islands that we hadn’t been to, and we wanted somewhere with (pretty much) guaranteed sun. As it turns out, we pretty much could’ve been anywhere hot because we barely left the complex. After so long without a sunny break, we just wanted to chill out and recharge our batteries, and we were only there for four nights so we weren’t there long enough to get bored of lying around.

I just have to have a quick Brexit moan!

A stamp in my passport for an EU country. Honestly, it made me feel a leper! Anyway, it is what it is! I need to get over it, and currently there are far, far worse things happening in the world. As you can see, we flew out on 24th February which is the day that Putin decided that millions of innocent people needed to have their lives disrupted, at best, or ended at the other end of the scale. It was incredibly surreal to be lying on a sun bed in the sun with people going about their normal holiday lives around us, whilst a war was being waged a few hundred miles away.

I didn’t take many holiday photos because there’s only so many hotel photos you want/need, but I did snap some of the greenery around the hotel with a future Six on Saturday in mind.

There’s the obligatory palm tree and sun picture which I took as we were waiting for our tranfer back to the airport so I could remember the last bit of sun. Next to that, a beautiful bloom from around the pool. I don’t know what this is, but they were in pots all around the pool and in the sunlight the colour was amazing! Underneath that an impressive cactus and next to that, the olive tree of dreams. I have one in a pot that looks nothing like this at all!

On our first full day, we were treated to a visit from this beauty.

I tried really hard to get a photo that represented the vivid colours accurately, but I didn’t manage it, so I resorted to filters to get it to look something like an approximation of reality. The butterfly was beautiful, and huge! It was at least the size of an adult palm.

Typically for us on holiday, we managed to find a cat.

We joked that she looks like Tink’s grandma! Lovely as it is to find a cat to fuss, it’s still always good to get home to our girls waiting for us in their new basket.

It’s a month or so till our next holiday and we have to leave them again and I’ve recommenced my healthy eating and exercise regime. This week we discovered Pinch of Nom’s Diet Coke chicken, except we did it with Pepsi Max Cherry and Quorn pieces – absolutely delicious, full of veg and very low in calories – nutritious and delicious!

Back home, and spring has definitely sprung and what says spring more than daffodils?

Unfortunately the rest of my daffs have been flattened! Ordinarily this would really upset me, but, whilst I’m not happy about it, the reason for their flattening is good (and there are a few which look like they’ll recover). The week after we got back from Gran Canaria, our neighbour had the biggest of his trees chopped, most of which they did from our side, and the clean up involved a petrol powered leaf blower which caused the aforementioned flattening!

They chopped loads off, but I have to admit (especially as we contributed half to the cost) to being a little disappointed that they didn’t chop more. The height has been reduced significantly, but I was hoping they’d thin the trees out more too. However, it’s better than it was before, there’s already more light in the back of our house (and my home office is in the back bedroom that you can see so it’s not insignificant) and we remain to see how much more sun we get in the summer. Incidentally, I think I’ll look into getting a petrol leaf blower because our patio has never looked so clean, I’ll just be more careful around the daffs!

There are more and more signs that the garden’s waking up appearing almost every day. I always try to say to myself around this time of year, that I must appreciate the fact that we’re on the up again, days are getting longer, the sun is gearing up to shine on us and new shoots are emerging, because seemingly in no time, we’ll be past the longest day and heading back down. For now though, let us not think about that because it’s a long way off.

First is my polemonium which I bought to put in one of granny’s pots last year. I thought it had died so imagine my delight when I looked at it today and there’s new growth coming through. That’ll teach me not to read labels – I didn’t know it would die down and come back in the spring. Next to that is the cowslip that I rescued last year after it self seeded itself. It’s got such beautiful sienna edged petals – I’d never seen a cowslip that wasn’t bright yellow. Underneath that is one of my raspberries which has some leaves. Fingers crossed that I might get some fruit this year. Finally, beautiful flowers have appeared on my cherry thing! I got this from QVC last year, and I can’t remember what it is, but it’s some sort of cherry blossom,

Unfortunately, with flowers that you want, come plants that you don’t! The weeds have started growing again already!

There’s even some herb Robert growing on my little sleeping dragon!

Finally, I’m going to leave you with a picture of my latest cross stitch which I got framed recently, purely because I’m really pleased with it so I want to showcase it!! Indulge me if you will.

That was a lot of info in one post – hope I haven’t bored you all silly! I’m off to order a takeaway now – hope you all have a great weekend.

It’s been a while ….

greengirlgardener3 Comments

I’ve missed a couple of Six on Saturdays and haven’t seemed to find the time to write any other time for a while, so I thought I’d use some of the bank holiday to write a quick catch up on the last couple of weeks.

My new love of Lego continues. I succumbed to ordering 4 Privet Drive, the house that Harry Potter lives in with Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon and Dudley and it’s fab. You can make Hogwarts letters come flying out of the fireplace like they do in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and Ron’s blue Ford Anglia really does pull Harry’s bedroom window out as it does when Ron, Fred and George come to rescue Harry in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. You can even open up the side of the house to see inside the cupboard under the stairs which was Harry’s bedroom until he went to Hogwarts.

I also treated myself to a newly released set – Winnie the Pooh’s house in the Hundred Acre Forest.

The attention to detail is fantastic. Pooh bear can sit on the log outside his house and inside he can look in the mirror when he can do his stoutness exercises and obviously there are honey (hunny!) pots galore.

I’m super excited that Lego have just announced some new Harry Potter sets being released on 1st June. I’ve already ordered the Hogsmeade set which includes the Three Broomsticks pub and Honeydukes sweet shop, but I can feel a couple more purchases coming on!! Honestly, we need a bigger house so I can have a Lego room.

We could also do with a teddy bear room! I treated myself to a new bear called Theo last weekend when I went to Webbs garden centre.

He’s currently living on our bed. I did buy some lottery tickets this past weekend thinking that we could see if our neighbour would consider selling us his house so we could make a Lego room and a teddy bear room and a gym. We did win, but I don’t think he’d sell it to us for £30!

My actual reason for going to Webbs was to choose some plants to go in Granny’s pots that I inherited. I tried to choose plants that either had a relevant name or that I thought Granny would like.

On the left of these first three pots is poppy Beauty of Livermere which I thought Granny would like. She was a very cheery person so the bright red of a poppy seems appropriate. She was also born between the wars so a poppy is relevant. In the middle is a fuchsia. My Grandad loved fuchsias and they remind me of visiting them both when I was a child. This fuchsia is one of six that arrived from QVC. Unfortunately they’d been tipped upside down by Hermes so I’m trying my hardest to help them recover. I’ve put a little fairy in the pot with this one, which was the worst hit, to watch over it. On the right is a patio rose called Sweet Memories.

On the other side of my raised bed we have, on the left, hebe Golden Pixie. Granny had a hebe in her front border which she told me someone reversed their car into. In the middle is geum Pink Petticoats which, again, I thought Granny would like. Finally on the right is polemonium Stairway to Heaven with obvious relevance.

I love how they look arranged around my raised bed, with the two lily pots at the head.

I also bought this rose …

… because it’s called Sheila’s Perfume – Granny was called Sheila. I haven’t decided where this is going to go yet.

While I was planting these up, I spotted some movement out of the corner of my eye so I went to investigate, and found this friendly little robin.

Now I know it’s not unusual to see a robin whilst you’re gardening, but I’ve never had one let me get this close and for so long. It really seemed interested in what I was doing. My Mum said it was my Grandad popping in to see what I’d done with his pots. They were his and Granny’s when he was still with us, and he was the gardener really, Granny maintained them after he’d gone, and now I’m going to continue doing that.

I also inherited this stool which makes me think of Granny and Grandad every morning when I get up.

It’s been around for the whole of my life, and I remember sitting on it when I was small enough to do so! It came from Kenya when my Great Uncle (Granny’s brother) was working there. It’s not worth anything to anyone else, but to me it’s priceless.

I’ve been doing quite a bit of crochet too. I finished my Picnic on the Beach blanket which was a cal (crochet along) by Coastal Crochet.

And I’ve made quite a bit of progress on my D’Histoire Naturelle blanket which is a Scheepjes cal.

I should now be doing the next cal which is the Picnic by the River cal also designed by Coastal Crochet, but for Little Box of Crochet. However, I’m being patient with that one because I’m busy crocheting something else which I can’t tell you about in case the intended recipient reads this!

Moving back to the garden, and it’s coming back to life slowly but surely. Everything seems to be taking longer this year, probably because it’s been so cold and dry. Here’s a collage of colour for you – Welsh poppy, geum Totally Tangerine, pieris in full on show off mode, honesty and two different erysimums.

Finally, I’ll end with some pics of our visit to Hoo Farm last week. We’ve been here a few times and it’s always a good day out. They have lots of animals, and many of them are rescues or old animals that are living out their last days in peace. They’ve also added a walk through dinosaur section called Hoo-rassic World since our last visit which was fun.

Right, I’m off to do some more speed crocheting as the decidedly autumn weather outside has put the kibosh on anything outdoorsy!

A little bit of this and that

greengirlgardener2 Comments

I didn’t do a Six on Saturday post yesterday so I thought I’d compensate with a general round up post today instead. I did go into the garden yesterday, phone in hand ready to take six photos, but it was just too cold and miserable to be out there so I gave up and came back in to the warm.

It’s been an odd few weeks, most of it spent enforcedly indoors, and not just because of inclement weather. My hubby works in the local hospital. He’s in catering and, at the beginning of the first lockdown he was still working but was relatively safe from the virus as he was mainly working in the kitchen then all of a sudden his hours completely dried up and he didn’t work again till January this year. When he went back his role changed and he found himself on the frontline having to visit wards and, inevitably, at some point during February he had to work on a covid positive ward. As you might imagine, that didn’t end well. This virus is so virulent that he didn’t really stand much chance against it and he succumbed. Luckily, being on the frontline meant that he’d received his first vaccination so his symptoms were very mild, in fact, he only really knew he’d got it because he got a positive result on a routine lateral flow test that he was taking twice a week. This was then confirmed with a pcr test. So, we entered our first ten day isolation.

During this time we did everything we were supposed to do – we slept in separate bedrooms, used separate toilets and kept our distance as much as possible, which is tricky unless you live in a mansion! He was fine, he had a couple of days when he cleared his throat constantly (and I mean constantly – if I hadn’t known he was ill, I’d have thought about banishing him from the house) and he was more tired than usual but other than that he had no real illness and continued with his usual exercise and housework routine. It was a real relief when we got to the end of the isolation and could go out for a walk. We headed to Kingsbury Water Park and, oh my goodness it felt good to be out and further away from home than the end of the garden! It was a gorgeous day too – hubby was in short sleeves and even I was warm enough without a coat.

On the Monday and Tuesday after our isolation finished we had the remainder of our double glazing replaced and had our back door replaced with French doors. We’d had to rearrange this from the previous week because we obviously couldn’t put the guys at risk.

I just love how the new French doors have opened out the kitchen, almost bringing the garden inside. I can’t wait to be able to throw them open when it’s warm enough to do so.

Whilst the guys were here I coughed a couple of times, but not enough to make me think anything was amiss, especially given that we were outside of our isolation period. However, over the next few days I felt worse and worse. With hindsight, I think I was in denial. I knew that there was no way I could’ve caught anything in the normal way because, other than that walk in the park where we didn’t go near anyone, I hadn’t left the house. I was considering options such as some germs having come into the house on a delivery or in a food delivery or even a new allergy. I just didn’t think it could be covid because we were out of the isolation period before I showed even the mildest of symptoms, I didn’t have a temperature and I’d also done three of hubby’s lateral flow tests, all of which had been negative. It wasn’t until my boss heard me coughing on a conference call (I’m still working from home) and made a comment about me definitely having it, that the penny dropped and I thought I’d better get tested.

I went on the government website to investigate how to go about getting tested and I found out that the testing centre that I’d have to go to was in an area that I don’t know and also the other side of spaghetti junction. Now this should’ve been more proof to me that I wasn’t well because I didn’t feel able to drive there, especially not round spaghetti junction, and normally I’d do that without a second thought. I really had brain fog and didn’t feel safe to drive so I opted to have the test posted out to me. It arrived the next day, I did the test and struggled down to the priority postbox (which is allowed) but I was still expecting a negative result. You can imagine my reaction the next day when I got both a text and an email telling me I’d tested positive!

After the initial shock, it was actually a relief to know why I’d been feeling so utterly pants for the previous few days. I thought I was turning into a complete pathetic wimp, but, phew, I wasn’t! I had a proper reason to have felt ill. I feel a bit stupid now for not taking any time off sick because I really didn’t feel well enough to be working, but the stubbornness in me wouldn’t let me give in to it! Thankfully I don’t seem to have set myself back and, apart from a slight cough which can apparently linger for some weeks and a bit more fatigue than usual, I’m back to normal now. I’m glad that I was on the mend by the time I got my positive result because I think I’d have been concerned that I might be one of the unlucky ones who ends up seriously ill, or worse, otherwise.

For anyone in the UK, I have a couple of tips. First of all, as mentioned above, you can get a home test if you don’t feel up to getting to a testing centre – I wasn’t aware of this before. I would also recommend getting a test if you feel unwell, even if you don’t have the usual symptoms. I had the cough although it wasn’t a hacking cough as I imagined it would be, but I didn’t have a temperature and the change to smell/taste wasn’t as obvious as other people have reported, in fact I’m still questioning whether that happened at all. My sense of smell certainly didn’t change (I work in the same room as the cats’ litter trays – twice a day, I would’ve known!) but I did have some cornflakes one day which left a really odd taste and I had a can of Pepsi Max cherry one day and I realised I could taste the Pepsi but not the cherry! Finally, if you are unfortunate enough to test positive, be prepared to be bombarded by NHS Test and Trace! They will text and email you pretty much daily and they will call you multiple times too. I understand that they’re doing their job trying to limit the spread of the virus and I was lucky in that I was starting to feel better by the time they called because I’d been in denial, but if I’d have still been feeling how I’d felt a few days earlier, the last thing in the world I would’ve wanted to do would be answer their millions of questions on a half hour phone call. Oh, and I’d also take lateral flow test results with a pinch of salt. Hubby’s test showed an accurate positive result, but I got three negatives when I was definitely positive for at least two of them. I find it concerning that this is what the government is relying on to keep us safe as schools and businesses start to go back.

Anyway, moving on from covid to more positive news. I have been crocheting a lot over the past few weeks (with a slight break when I didn’t have the energy). I’m currently part way through two separate CALs (crochet-alongs). Firstly I’m doing the Picnic on the Beach CAL by Coastal Crochet which has a new instalment released every Friday. I’m part way through week three of it now and I’m loving how it’s turning out.

Whilst I’m waiting for each instalment on Fridays I decided to start a blanket for which I bought the yarn ages ago. It was a CAL but I’m only just catching up now. It’s the Scheepjes histoire naturelle blanket and I’m doing it in the mineralogy colour way. It’s quite tricky, there are loads of new stitches but they provide great video tutorials so it’s easy enough to learn.

Today I decided it was high time I dragged myself into the garden to do some summer prep. It was still pretty cold out there so I decided to closet myself in the greenhouse and sow lots of lovely seeds.

I sowed Russian Giant sunflowers, Pacino Gold sunflowers, cosmos Dazzler, zinnia Orange King, sweetpeas …

… and tomato maskotka.

On my way back in, I couldn’t resist snapping a pic of my daffodils tête-à-tête. They won’t last much longer but I’m hoping the weather will allow me to go out and enjoy them in the meantime.

When I came back in I made some lunch and wandered into the living room to eat it and found this propped up against my Chilly bottle.

I’d been so concerned about getting my card and present to my Mum whilst I was in isolation that I completely forgot that our lovely furry girls normally get me a card. Well, ok, I know it’s from their Dad really but I’m sure they would if they could!

Right, I need to get off and do some more crochet before I have to go and collect hubby from work so I’ll finish here. I think I’ve probably waffled on for long enough anyway. Hopefully next week it’ll be warm enough to find some Six on Saturday photos.

Have a great week all and stay safe!