Hell's Bells and Buckets of Blood!

It's been one of those sort of weeks here.  Various - big - worries and seemingly insurmountable problems of the sort which keep you awake at nights.  We could do nothing to influence the outcome of one (though fortunately it seems to have resolved now) and the other, well, we will just say a nettle had to be firmly grasped and there was only the option of the drowning man to grasp it and haul out onto the shore . . .

In the meantime we made the most of the dry weather.  Do you remember the old saying: A peck of  March dust is worth a king's ransom ?  Well, we had the dust here and the cold to go with it, but a bit of sunshine too and on one afternoon I was down to my t-shirt when we were logging one of the old ivied ash trees we had felled.  Now it seems much milder and the kitchen was only down to 58 overnight.   It has been hovering around the 51 or 52 degrees C mark, which is not warm enough for cats, they tell me!

We have had the predicted rain now, which the garden did actually need, and although it has stopped me working outside, there are plenty of jobs to do inside, so I am painting one of the spare bedrooms at the moment with the lovely breathable clay paint which covers so much better than limewash, which needs half a dozen coats to cover decently.

 

Oh yes, then there's Himself, in play mode as always . . .  He is in training to be the Fearless Hunter.  He has long been a Fishing Cat, hanging over the pond, dipping in his paw in an effort to grab one of the goldfish.  I came down the other morning to find he had been successful, and there was the evidence in his bed . . . one very dead goldfish.  Uneaten of course, as he hasn't made the connection with hunting and EATING!  He is incredibly loving, and sometimes when he is on my lap I wonder if I must smell of cat nip as he goes NUTSO making a fuss of me.  There is a lot of dear Tippy in him.  The other day one of the boys (probably Alfie) caught and ate most of a baby rabbit, leaving only the scut and a bit of skin and fur.  Well, that has been Theo's Best Toy EVER and he has been batting it all around the house . . .

I finally got around to some breadmaking yesterday, but a few weeks ago I had a sore index finger - it felt a bit like a thorn had been picked up on the top joint.  No thorn - instead it is Arthritis and that makes kneading bread very painful now - so I think next time I see a breadmaker on offer at the car boot sale, I shall get it for making the dough, though I will still prefer to shape by hand and bake in the oven.

Finally, I cheered myself up by buying some seeds yesterday.  Mostly from Lidl (and for pennies, especially compared with the ridiculous prices charged by seed companies in this country.  Lidls also had a good selection of rose bushes on offer and fruit trees too, the latter at £3.99 each.  One chap had put 2 apples, 2 pears, 2 plums in his trolley along with about a dozen roses.  I had to go to a well-known and VERY overpriced nursery chain for my Duchy Original seeds (flat beans).  There, just 20 seeds cost £2.99.  I know they are organic but heck, they should be covered in gold dust for that price!  I took myself by the scruff of the neck and walked past all the other over-priced plants although the double-flowered ruffly Pelargoniums in purples and deep reds were so gorgeous (but at £5.99 they were staying on the shelf!)  It was horrifying enough finding that a dozen small vegetable seeds were £3.99 a tray, and then, for SINGLE flower seedlings for the garden, £1.29 and - for Fuschias - £1.59!!!  Small soft fruit bushes were all £9.99 each.  There must be people who go and buy them but heck, car boot sales are far better places in season to stock up your garden.