A madness of baskets

Posted on July 15, 2019July 15, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Flowers, Garden, Colour, Hanging baskets, Fun, Life, Growing, Environment, Growing more colourfulLeave a comment

A roar of colour, even in late evening light. The triffids have arrived, my hanging baskets are blooming lovely and are growing blousier by the day.

It happens every year, they are not fully grown when I get them, but add water and they burst into life. Plants that I didn’t know were in them are staring to flower, fushias and long trailing pelargoniums. A profusion of colour. I’m probably going to bore you with more of this until the last lobelia dies in the frosts of December! Some of them will survive until spring as they did last year.

Purr

Posted on July 15, 2019 Posted in Cat, UncategorizedTagged Cat Food, Cats, Computer, Fun, Humour, Life, Love, Poem, Poetry, PurrLeave a comment

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Purr, I like you

Purr let me sharpen my claws…

On your leg..

Purr, gimme food!

Purr, gimme water!

Purr, clean my litter tray,

Purr, let me sit here

It’s my computer now…

Purr, that’s a book?

Let me read it.

Purr that’s your food

Gimme some now!

Purr, I’m tired

Let me sleep on you.

Not your lap,

Your face!

Purr I love you

Purr yes I do….

Tour de France

Posted on July 15, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Bike, Cycling, Exercise, France, Race, Tour de France, Yellow JerseyLeave a comment

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This time if year my hubby is glued to the TV for the tour. He watches it every year. For the last few years British riders have won but there is nothing to say it will happen this year. Chris Froome is out with a broken thigh and Geraint Thomas had a fall just before it started but he’s in the race.

The tour travels around France but often starts in different countries. They travel for three weeks. Climbing mountains and doing sprints, time trials and trying to win various jerseys. There is a polkadot Jersey for the best mountain rider, a green jersey for the fastest sprinter and the yellow Jersey is for the best overall rider and ultimately the winner. Who ever it is, as long as he is in the lead when the tour reaches Paris he is the winner. It is exciting to watch.

Glass for necklaces

Posted on July 15, 2019July 15, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Angela, Art, Craft, Creating, Creative, Fun, Glass, Spode, Staffordshire, Stoke, Stoke-on trent, Workshop4 Comments

I made these glass pieces in my friend Angela’s glass workshop. Now I’ve bought them to another friend who is going to wire weave round them and turn them into necklaces. Glass is fascinating. I now want to find out about stained glass and glass blowing. I’m only dabbling my toes into this craft but it’s great. I’m going to maybe get an enamel kiln but that’s another story…..

How I avoid hayfever

Posted on July 15, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Flowers, Garden, Trees, Gardening, Cats, Plants, Birds, Sunshine, Hay-fever, Dappled shade, Mammals2 Comments

This is how I avoid hayfever in our garden. By completely eliminating a lawn. Luckily I don’t have an allergy to tree pollen. Over the years the trees have grown big, but I like having my own personal forest glade with bird life and small mammals like hedgehogs and of course cats who patrol the garden and mug my hubby for fresh cat food. At least that stops them getting interested in the birds…. Tweet tweet tweet pounce! I’m sitting here with a busy road just yards away and although I can hear the traffic it’s not as loud. I can hear the tsee tsee tsee of birds singing. The flap of wings as they look for bird food in the garden. The rustle of vegetation. At the moment I’m sitting on a bench in warm dappled sunlight. I guess this type of garden is good for capturing CO2 and for feeding the birds. We got very few cherries this year but the blackbirds are gobbling the ripe ones up high in the tree. In previous years we’ve made the effort to climb step ladders to get them but this year we are being generous!

A few years ago we rented the garden from the previous owner of our house. She then decided she wanted to build on it, and while she sought planning permission we were not allowed on it except for a four foot strip of path alongside the house, she even painted a line along the length of the path to show where we could go! Luckily she was refused planning permission so after three years we bought the garden off her. But the damage was done. Everything had grown enormously and out if control. We have struggled to get it back to some sort of tidiness.

I’ve been very busy with the election and the mystery play over the last two months so I haven’t been able to sit and chill. But today is dry and sunny, came and ate breakfast out here and since my WiFi seems to reach this far I thought I would write about the garden. No sneezing, my eyes are not running and I don’t feel like I can’t breathe, bliss.

Later I will do a bit of pruning. There are a few stray Ash and Sycamore saplings that need removing. Also I want to try and let a bit more light through.

Gardening, never-ending……

Cherries

Posted on July 14, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Beak, Birds, Cherries, Eating, Fruit, Fun, Garden, Gardening, Humour, Life, Pecking, Poem, Poetry, Red, RhymeLeave a comment

Loads of ripe cherries

High in the tree

Out of reach of human hands

But not from beaks you see.

Blackbirds, pigeons and magpies

Each have their fill

Of sweet red cherries

They have the skill,

Of flying high above me

Pecking at the fruit

Eating all the ripe ones

In their aerial persuit.

Sweet red cherries

Small and round and neat.

I go without

And the birds get a treat!

That word

Posted on July 14, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Brexit, Creative writing, Democracy, Fun, Humour, Ice cream, Life, What if?2 Comments

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Brexit. Such a difficult thing.

I’m trying to work out how to explain Brexit and why I think it’s bad. So I tried to come up with an analogy and chose ice cream… Yum.

Imagine your country had a vote to take back control. The plan is to give free ice cream to everyone. There will be no rules except for ones we set ourselves…

Free ice cream everyone, yipee…

But the farmers are worried as they will get no revenue as the government want the ice cream but don’t want to pay the farmers. People won’t be able to get milk because it is all going on ice cream. Then we realise that if we keep our promise (it was democratic after all) children and adults will start getting obese. People will start getting type two diabetes. People will have an increased risk of cancer…

But it was democratic. The people decided, ice cream for all. Now we could do that, but because of tariffs on flavouring the only flavour available for poor people is synthetic vanilla, made in a non EU country, and to get that we must sell off our farms to that country. So we have all these problems, plus we won’t get subsidies that helped our farmers, especially in the parts of the country that suffer poverty and blamed the EU for it. The ice cream is made, but its not free, the EU won’t help (why would they?) and the ice cream industry goes into recession. Why would you vote for that? A non political party of the ice cream is started, and take seats in Europe, but their plans are very right wing, like insisting on only white ice cream, no chocolate. Things get worse… But 52% voted for it so it must be OK…? Right ?