Oh, My Days!

Having watched Ken and Alice swooping in and out of the laundry room yesterday, their beaks clogged with gobbets of mud, I ventured therein myself towards the evening to have a nosy and see if I could locate exactly where they are building their nest. For yes, dear reader, they have decided to take up residence! Here, to be precise... ...right across the end of the handle of my red dustpan and brush, hanging  from a nail on a beam. Nothing like advertising your presence to the enemy with a dash of bright red, I thought, but then can birds see colours? Are they like dogs that can see only shades of grey? Anyway, Ken and Alice have been adding to the nest today, so fingers crossed eggs will happen and then babies. I am trying to ignore the pile of poop already accumulating in front of the immersion tank. There was a slight altercation when another pair of swallows arrived and went in for a recce of the joint. A stand off ensued with Ken getting all high and mighty and pointing his wi...

Accessing our laundry building has become a bit of an extreme sport of late on account of the swallows that may, or may not, be deciding to use the roof beams inside as a jolly good place to build a nest. They swoop in and out like house buyers on repeat visits.  ‘Do we like the layout, Ken?’ ‘I don’t know, Alice. It’s got washing facilities and a running buffet of chicken food and fat balls, but the neighbours seem a bit nosy.’ ‘It’s warm and dry, though, Ken. Nice bit of solid beam. You like a bit of solid beam for your building, don’t you?’ ‘I do, Alice, I’ll not deny it.’ ‘Shall we try another visit, in what...3 minutes’ time?’  ‘Yes, Alice. Let’s. Perhaps bring Bill and Edwina. They know a good nest site when they see one.’ ‘True, Ken. But let’s not forget they also like hot tubs and Toblerone...’ I’ve been trying to get a photo of the swallows, resting on the electric cable that connects the house to the laundry. This is the best I can do, I’m afraid, ...

I was reprimanded this morning in the supermarket for not standing in the appropriate spot with my trolley whilst waiting my turn for a checkout aisle. I stood where I have always stood - I have been very good about observing both social distancing and shopping etiquette in these strange times. Therefore, I was startled (as appeared to be my fellow shoppers judging by the popping of their eyes and raising of their eyebrows) to be yelled at and told to ‘STAND BACK!’ by this grouch of a customer service assistant. I got several looks of sympathy from my fellow queuees, and I left the supermarket feeling, to be honest, offended by the woman’s attitude. But perhaps that was just me being a bit thin skinned. Perhaps she was in a bad mood for reasons I didn’t know and I should accommodate that, you know, in the spirit of ‘don’t judge others until you walk in their shoes.’ Anyway, I was home just after 8 a.m, my own mood set to ‘grouch’ for the rest of the day. So I sat with cups of tea doi...

Lots of gardening today - planted courgettes and leeks out into the would-be rose bed for a start. I have netted and fenced them well against cockerel shenanigans because woe betide Magnus and Tootsie of they lay even the END of a beak anywhere near my veg. I cleared the barbecue area of weeds - it will need a fresh layer of gravel or slate chippings. I rather fancy the idea of building a pizza oven there. Went on to dig out a HUGE sod off holly-type bush because it was becoming rampant and I didn’t much like it anyway, and it’s MY garden and I’ll replace it with something I do like. It took some hefty wrangling to remove, this holly thing, using fork, spade, secateurs, brute force and rolling around the ground in a very undignified manner until the bitter death - the shrub’s, of course, not mine. But it has gone now. I’m thinking hellebores as replacements. Or a comfy wooden garden seat. And then I moved the tomatoes, chilli peppers, squash, cucumbers and kale into.... ...the new ...

In little more than two weeks’ time it will be four years since His Lordship Malarkey and I moved from the middle of a town in the middle of Kent to the wide open spaces of the Shropshire countryside and Damson Cottage. Four years! Can you believe? I can’t.  The garden, when we arrived, was mostly trees and grass. There was a small fruit cage in a corner, with three compost bins by its side. There was a shed. Five water butts. A dilapidated hen house. Five newly planted fruit trees, looking a bit whippy, and a couple of small, shallow and, to my mind, pointless ‘raised’ beds.  And now? Well, the shed has a new window, so has morphed into a potting shed. The whippy fruit trees are now between 8 and 20 feet tall. One of the ‘raised’ beds has been planted up with lavender. The other had vanished beneath the greenhouse....oh yes! The greenhouse! As I write, Andy is just executing the finishing touches - the automatic vent openers, the gutter and down pipes and the staging. ...

I’ve been a very bad and inattentive writer. I haven’t done any proper writing for ten days now. But I have reasons! And they are: 1) I got involved in a project organised by my workplace to take cream teas to the local old people’s  homes as part of the 75th VE Day anniversary celebrations. Could anyone make something arty crafty to go into the cream tea parcels, along with the tea, scones, jam and cream, they said? I could make some lavender bags, I said. We’ll be sending out over 100 cream teas, they said. Okay, I said. I made 98 lavender bags before running out of lavender and losing the feeling in the end of my needle ‘n’ thread pushing finger... ...so I also made some of these. Cup of tea coasters... This effort occupied several days. I have also been unfurloughed, so am back at work for two days a week. It has been bliss! 2) The rose bed, I have realised, is unlikely to be filled with roses before autumn, because I want to see the roses I am buying and not buy the...