Your day (apart from gardening) what took place ? 2024

Exploring the new neighbourhood and enjoying some glorious weather

We took a short bust ride to Morpeth, a charming market town with an impressive park complete with a castle and a medieval garden planted in honour of William Turner. The plant labels were great, showing the Latin, common and medieval name of the plant. Very interesting!



We have visited Morpeth before to break a trip to Alnwick, so should have remembered that for some reason, Morpethians are most reluctant to feed visitors. When a Sambuca is closed on Saturday lunch time you know it's bad.

Anyways, Barluga was open and we feasted on lamb shank (The Child, who crammed the humongous portion somewhere into the wispy being of hers, plus pinched my bread and half the fries to mop up the jus) and burger (me).

The Antique market in the old court was wonderful. The Child bought a Halloween- worthy hand made nightgown (linen and lace) and I indulged in tiny silver sugar tongs that in afterthought are probably for some other purpose, or for very small lumps of sugar (but at £2, I'm not questioning them) and we heroically resisted porcelain bedpan and medical equipment.

Today we explored the local paths and I swear the sign was green and just because it didn't quite say "public footpath" doesn't mean it was out of bounds.

And just because the path took us very near the farmhouse, past their garden and tractor and between the sheep pasture and the barn doesn't necessarily indicate a private road.

The old farmer who caught us driving his fancy farm buggy (no, he was driving the buggy, not us) however did clearly inform us that we were on private land. No fear, I was prepared for these kind of situations armed with decades of devoted study of Enid Blyton books!

To my utter disappointment, our friendly(ish) dialogue didn't end with the old farmer showing us around his farm and inviting us to sample the cakes his missus was baking in the warm kitchen, but at least he warned us that his neighbour is fond of whacking backs so we turned around. Thanks a lot, Famous Five

As an afterthought, basing deeper understanding of a foreign country on childrens' literature will at some point backfire

Anyways, a lovely autumn weekend

 

Went for a bit of a bike ride to check out Glasgow's newest bridge, now known as the pointy bridge. Just pedestrian only but it's been needed for ages. There's another small road bridge that should be opening fairly soon too

 

Nothing as exciting as others! Finished cleaning the inside of the glass roof of the laundry/shower room. Easier said than done....but done. Polished the wood in the sitting room. More than you could imagine but great to give them a glow again. Sorted out the stored apples, so many not storing so well this year. Put the rotting ones out in the orchard for the mistle thrush, foxes and hopefully not too long the field fares/red wings.

 

I took a trip to Canterbury this morning, and spent rather more than I had expected. Struggled with more bags than was probably safe to manage on a bus (yes, it's quicker than any other form of transport available to me). When I arrived home, my wife, just on her way out, found a chocolate wrapper in my jacket pocket.
Fuel for the mule!!

 

If a chocolate wrapper was all she found, then she has nothing to worry about.

 

Cleaned the oven, bought the triple chocolate gateux for Christmas, defrosted the freezer so that i could do the Christmas foods next month.

 

I am quite pleased that I finished recaning a chair. It was a buggerlug to get the old cane out because it had little headless nails, staples running lengthwise down the 1/4 inch groove and lots of glue. I just need to stain it now to match the other chairs in the set.

 

@CanadianLori Fantastic! Over 40 years ago we recaned the chairs which will use in our kitchen around the table for all meals. So much history and so much learning and love went into the work.