Yawn Yawn Wakey Wakey 2025

@Ante1 , sorry to read your sad news about your great aunt but good that the funeral went as well as these events can be. Enjoy your walk with Max.

 

Morning all.

Happy Birthday to @Songbird - your sunflower pot sounds gorgeous.



Lovely snowdrops @Busy-Lizzie - I don’t see many about around here, nor in my garden unfortunately.

Let’s all have a lovely day today - perhaps today’s the day we can all see a bit of sun, or at least have some fresh air.

 

Have a lovely day @Songbird

 

Happy birthday @Songbird
OH is off to bushcraft this morning and I am looking forward to a stint in the greenhouse. I shall take a flask of soup with me and 'potter'.
Enjoy what promises to be one of the better days this month!

 

Glad all went ok, @Ante1. Hope you are feeling better, @Tui34.
Happy birthday, @Songbird! Have a lovely day.
We have glorious sunshine here today! It was forecast, but I’d given up believing in those.
So we are out for breakfast and a walk, even if it means squelching through wet grass. I really need some exercise, and there is a yellow weather warning for tomorrow, which well happen.
@Ladybird4, you have put an idea in my head! I think I might take some of the hollyhock seeds and poke them into any gaps at the bottom of the rear wall of the house! It’s very sunny along there, and we certainly get our share of weeds and wild violets in the paving cracks, so it should be worth a try. The ones I see every summer by the roadside are growing in between the pavement and a wall, it doesn’t look as if there would even be any soil to support them, but they come up every year. Right beside the traffic lights where we often have to stop, so I get a good chance to admire them!
Looks like I might get out to garden this afternoon, OH informs me that there is rugby on.

 

Yep, Wales v Ireland first then the Calcutta Cup today - third round of the Six Nations. Sis and BIL went down to Twickers on Thursday as he had a meeting to attend.
I am waiting a delivery of Snowdrop woronowii in the green today. I have mainly Galanthus nivalis with the glaucous leaves so I thought I would have some of these broad green cultivars to make a contrast in the garden. Cakes are done and cooling and, look, it is elevenses time.

 

Good morning all.

Happy Birthday @Songbird I hope you enjoy your day.

It has rained but there is now a glimpse of sunshine in a rather grey sky. I hope to do some gardening later.

Gary, the village handyman has come to redo the short path to the summerhouse and enlarge the patio where the table and chairs are. I had thought of going to the monthly farmers' market in the village hall but his van is blocking the drive and I don't want to disturb him as we have waited several months for him to do the work. He is very popular in our village!

 

We had a very wet night and there are puddles. We've been here 8.5 years now and don't get puddles. No gardening again then.

I have finished my forck but it won't do for dancing. I put cap sleeves on it and when I lift my arm the bodice rides up. Serves me right for not doing sleeveless. i shall try batwing next time. Don't want to be sleeveless till the warmer weather arrives.

Happy birthday @Songbird. Enjoy your walk ing and pottering @Ante1 and @Penny_Forthem. Hope you feel better very soon @Tui34. Nothing wrong with sitting sewing or knitting. It can be very Zen.

@Ergates the best hollyhocks I have seen were all self-seeded in poor, gravelly soil along a wee lane in Verteuil-sur-Charente. They were tall, full of flowers, varying shades of pink and red and rust free tho maybe that arrived later in summer after we'd gone. I grew them in my Belgian garden in the poor soil in front of the barn, south facing, and they did very well but always got rust. I might just try them here this year.

Have fun, whatever you're doing today.

 

Thank you everyone for your birthday wishes, a nice surprise from everyone. Cake here….. help yourself folks.

 

Good afternoon,

It’s a lovely day here, too. The sun is shining, the breeze has gone and it’s mild. It almost feels like spring. It’s certainly tempting some of the spring flowers to open up.

Happy birthday @Songbird. I hope you are enjoying your day.

It’s a good day for pottering, so I hope those of you getting into the garden manage to do all you plan.

We had another fund raiser at church today, this time in aid of a local dog rescue charity. I don’t know the exact total yet, but it will be around the £300 mark. It never ceases to amaze me how generous people are. We hold these fund raisers monthly for different causes, and always seem to do well, even in these difficult times where money is tight.

My cold seems to have gone as quickly as it came, and OH is much improved too, so we were able to help out at the fund raising event, doing the raffle again. We do really well for donated raffle prizes, with some good prizes.

I’ve only managed to grow hollyhocks once. They didn’t appear the following year, so I’m assuming the soil was too rich for them. Yet foxgloves will grow happily in the same area. Perhaps I should try again.

 

It’s a decent day here. Visited my Aunty and popped to a nearby garden centre on way home. I ummm’d about some bedding plants for pots but decided to wait a month when there will be more choice. I did rescue an Escallonia (Donard Seedling) from the bargain bench though - decent size £4.50 reduced from £12. That will be perfect in a spot I have which has half sun.

 

I've had a decent 2 hours in the greenhouse, cleaning, tidying, sorting and sowing some seeds.
Couldn't find the connector for the heated trays, till I remembered I'd put it in the airing cupboard - where else?
I've sown some chillies (own saved seed), a few Tigrella tomatoes, various herbs, Gazanias and Carnation chabaud.
It's a start!

 

We seem to be having April showers. Clouds with silver linings most of the morning and just teeny bits of blue then very blue as OH and I headed to Les Sables to rescue a garden table from a bric-à-brac sale and then heavy showers as we arrived home. Blue and sunny again now.

Stopped by the gendarmes on the way home. Nice chatty chappy but not too bright (and they let these people have guns!). Tried to tell us Belgian licenses are not valid in France but we'd checked with the Prefecture when we first arrived and have since applied for French ones but the bureaucratic mills grind exceedingly slow here. Breathaliser zero so that's OK and the table is just the right size for my new herb garden tho that won't be ready for ages yet. At just 20€ it had to be pounced on.

New trousers cut out and OH is about to watch the rugby so I'm off to sew.

Well done for both cold and fund raising @Blue arbour. Bargain @AuntyRach.

 

I've had a good day as well as it's been warm and sunny today. Spent over 4 hours in the garden doing various jobs, laying small stepstones in the wall border, planting 3 Carex between them and pruning an old shrub rose. I even hung the washing out which did get nearly dry so that's a bonus.
Relaxing now with a glass of wine, waiting for dinner to cook.

Glad everyone's seemed to have had a good day and Happy Birthday @Songbird.

@Obelix-Vendée, bit confused, are you talking about gun licences or driving licences? Pity about the new frock not being suitable for dancing.

 

Driving licenses @lizzie27 but yes, police and gendarmes are all armed with hand guns and sometimes I see patrols in town with more serious hardware.

The frock will be fine for summer as it is cotton and I don't plan on doing any alemana in normal day to day activities.

OH has managed to cut some of our grass before retiring to watch the rugby. I shall inspect tomorrow to see just how deep the beef divots are. It should be mild, warmish and dry, but I've heard that before.