Monday, Monday . . .

Sadly I tempted fate recently when I announced I was feeling WELL again.  I have come down with a bonzer of a chest infection again, one bad enough to scare me as I felt like I was suffocating.  Anti-biotics have helped and stopped my cough, but my breathing's still not right, so this morning I have started on a course of steroids which I was given to take if I felt I needed to.

 Anyway, on Saturday we had to take advantage of a dry day to get in a car boot sale, and as there was one on our little local showground, as part of the Vintage Rally.  I sat and crocheted in between selling things.  I also had a little wander round, camera in hand, and got completely and totally distracted by one stand with a display of fascinating old objects.  I was there about 15 minutes chatting to the owner, and being shown no end of fascinating things which I attempted (and largely failed!)  I took just a couple of pathetic photos, and all I can tell you of the things below is that the wheel with a handle on a wooden base is for crimping corks before they are put into a bottle.  oh, and I know that the copper mug with a "foot" above it is for putting in the fire ashes to warm ale.  Behind that are some rare (and very valuable) wood planes.

This lady has such lovely vintage clothes, and we often have a little chat when we see one another.   She gets her clothes from a variety of sources, and I told her she would love the Fleamarket at Chesterfield, where my eldest daughter goes for Vintage clothing.

BTW, the blog title today comes from the Mamas and Papas song released in 1966.  I remember it well and can still sing along and remember most of the words.  I have it blaring away on Youtube as I type.  I can see I will have to do a whole post on 1960s music because I am having such FUN playing track after track!!!  (Currently on Scott McKenzie - San Francisco).

Why Tesco lose customers

Despite it being in the most convenient spot in town, with the biggest free car parking area enabling you to walk up into town for other shopping, we have finally forsaken Tesco for grocery shopping for 99% of what we need.  OH still gets his lottery ticket there, and occasionally a paper or something we've run out of, but that's it.  We made this decision a few months back, when the final straw landed on this camel's back.  (I am aware that ethically, we should probably have never shopped there, but convenience does count for something.)

 We had divided our shopping needs between Lidl, specific shops in the town and market, and our fruit and veg from the cut-price warehouse at Abergwili for several years now.  We had long been aware of the poor quality of the fruit and vegetables in Tesco and stopped buying from there - we could get the same close-to-use-by quality for pence at Abergwili.  I recall looking for a cucumber in Tesco once, and the entire stock were soft and bendy, which I pointed out to Customer Service . . .  I tried never to buy beanshoots there because they were guaranteed to expire as the clock struck 12 on the use-by day which we always just a couple of days ahead of when you purchased them . . .  (I'm the only one who eats them, so a bit pointless sprouting them at home).  Broccoli was generally more stalk than head, so weighed heavy.  

We tended to try and buy stuff on a sound offer, and didn't have the wool pulled over our eyes by the "special offers" and "reduced from" deals (especially the "half price" wines).  Latterly, when given come-on vouchers for "spend £30 and get £4 off" or "spend £40 and get £5 off" we would spend pretty well exactly that amount, buy only what we couldn't get elsewhere or was on offer so we could stock up (tins etc) and that was it. 

When I was too busy or unwell to make my own bread last year, we fell into the habit of buying their Spelt and Sunflower loaf at £1.40.  I noticed recently that the price has now shot up to £1.80 and the loaf is 2/3 if not HALF of its former size.  Do they really think customers are that stupid they don't notice? Mind you that works with reduced Christmas cards.  I bought some with cats on, allegedly 40p or something, in January.  Got to the counter and they were 70p - "someone" had moved the stock of those beneath the cheaper price as the cheaper cat ones had already sold . . .  A wee bit cute that. 

For a while they did excellent cooking bacon with ordinary rashers included.  They must have sold too well, at the expense of the normal bacon, because one week we turned up to buy some and it had been put through the mincer.  Well, that WAS the final straw and we have spent very little in there since, dividing our allegience between Morrisons and Lidl.

Our middle daughter has been staying for a few days this week, and we bought some stuff in there and got given a spent X and get Y off ticket, so we spent that today - the exact amount with just tuppence over, then £5 off as we had a £1 voucher for washing powder.  On our way round, I noticed some Sweet Williams for £3.  I love them, but I think that was a lot of money for a smallish bunch of flowers.  Then I noticed smaller bunches, "going over" for £1.50.  They were half the size of the bigger bunches - in other words, exactly the same price for flowers a day away from binning . . .  No reduction at all.  A lovely big bunch of fresh Sweet Williams was on offer in Morrisons for . . . £1.50, so I bought mine there.

When we used to shop at Morrisons (until a couple of years back), the car park always used to be half empty.  Now it is nearly always pretty full . . . 

Redstarts' nest FOUND!

The view is looking across the Towy Valley towards Grongar Hill, made famous in a poem by Dyer.

No photo of the Redstarts' nest, but I DO know where they are nesting, and it was where I had suspected that they would be because they were always by the junk room window and windowsill.  By creeping in close enough to see what they were doing, when I heard the male calling weet-weet this morning, I got a photo of him with a large pale coloured something - caterpillar? -  in his beak.  After a minute of so he flew up to the top right of the window and then came back seconds later with an empty bill.  Our house has thick stone walls - well over 2 feet thick in places - the oldest parts of the house.  Above this window is a big gap with no stone in, from when the window aperture was first put in, around the 1970s I think.  Everything is supported above it, but there is a brick-width gap nonetheless in the stonework.  It is on a ledge on the right where the nest must be.  So . . .  hopefully I can get some better photos.

When we had them nesting here years ago, they set up home in the top of the Cart-shed walls, just under the eaves, in a nook, so obviously they like to feel safe with a roof over their nest.

Spot the Redstart . . .

Here he is.  The annoying thing - the REALLY REALLY annoying thing - was I could hear him Weep-Weeping - or Weet-Weeting - this morning, so I crept in the junk room with my camera, only to find him on the outer windowsill.  Sadly, just as I got the camera in focus, he gave an extra big "Weet" and flew off . . .

And here he is again, only further away . . .

I shall keep trying.

The Frustrated Gardener

I am sure many of you will sympathize with that title.  Gardening here seems to be one long BATTLE.  The unusual weather patterns this spring have caused initial problems. I'd just got started digging and hoiking the grass out of the veg. plot when we had that sunny  - indeed, HOT - week  in March, when it came on to rain and grew cooler.  The odd day of warmer weather soon retarded to cold Easterly or Northerly winds.  The seeds I had optimistically started in March rotted in their trays, despite being in my little plastic greenhouse.  I started them again - and they still didn't appear, but the seed trays grew a good crop of Algae on the surface.  It was late May before I got to start my third lot of runner beans, and they finally grew in June and got planted.  It took two tries for the Courgettes to germinate.  I have planted them out in the past 10 days, and am now down to ONE plant -the others have been slugged.  So the spare plants I had grown (to sell - HAH!) are now being planted in buckets at the front of the house in the hope that the concrete paths and lack of hiding places will deter predators.

My friend Ann sent me a packet of Tomato seeds which were supposed to be blight-proof.  They didn't germinate.  I bought another packet, and neither did they.  I just put the trays on the side and left them, although they did get watered as I moved the watering can to the germinated trays of seeds either side.  FINALLY IN JUNE, with the hot spell of weather, they began to germinate . . .  So now I have a dozen or so plants which are potted on but way behind in the growing stakes.  I am going to keep them inside the greenhouse and hope that they will reward me.

The cool weather has done for the Blackurrants this year and we have a poor crop.  It was just too cool and wet when they had flowers out and not enough insects about to pollinate them.  However, the Gooseberries have done really well, and I have a brilliant crop to pick soon.  Ditto the Raspberries, Loganberries and young Boysenberry, and for once I have a decent showing on my one lonely Blueberry.  The Rhubarb has been sulking though, and I have had just two pickings from 5 plants.

Ah well.  Perhaps next year will be a better year . . .  Meanwhile, at least my French Beans have just broken through the soil.  Hope they don't make a lunch for the slugs when I plant them. . .

So, how does your garden grow this year?

Redstart update

It would appear I have been looking out of the wrong window, for when I took some ironing into the music Junk room just now, I startled the female Redstart, who had been on the outside windowsill . . .  Then the male flew onto a branch nearby and was calling "Weet, weet, weet".  She flew off left, towards the yard.  I crouched down and was able to watch the male, who had two favourite perches in the oak tree which is in our top field, by the stream.  She flew back a little later and was hovering outside the window - long enough for me to see she had a beak full of tiny grubs (like the one in the photos on the previous post) so she has obviously a nest of youngsters, not just eggs. (Well, I suppose she'd still be sat brooding them if they were eggs . . .)

So tomorrow I shall creep in there again with my camera.  Fingers crossed.

RRedstarts - and the annoying bits you can't reach . . .

 

The above wonderful photos are from Wikimedia Commons (which I didn't even know existed until about 2 minutes ago!!!)  Many thanks to the photographer Jerzy Strzelecki.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Redstart

Surprisingly, these topics ARE related.  In the past week I have noticed a female Common Redstart in our paddock.  Today I saw the male, and was lurking by our (grubby) bedroom window, camera in hand, this morning.  Of course, the moment I grabbed the camera was the moment the wretched bird decided it would look for food on the far side of the paddock and then zoom back past me so quickly I couldn't photograph him.  They are obviously nesting somewhere in the vicinity of the paddock - a pair used to nest in a cranny in the top of our old cart shed, years back now.

Anyway, I realized it wouldn't have been much of a photo as the windows were disgusting, inside and out, so I have just been trying to clean them.  Trying is the operative word here, as they are big old sash windows, and there is a bit in the middle (top half of the bottom sash), which no way can you reach from inside.  The bottom half of the top sash requires me to hang out over the window, standing on the inside sill, and hanging on grimly with one hand . . .

So, windows are done, and hopefully I may get to take a suitable photo when the male is lurking again - he was on the Hawthorn bush earlier, right by the stream bank.  Watch this space . . .