Pre-Easter Weekend

 

So this weekend I've been tackling my own garden before we get down to laying turf in Julia and James's garden next weekend (over the Easter weekend). This is the front garden all mowed and edged just before the rain came in for the whole afternoon - why are my days off wet and my work days nice and sunny??

And this is the back garden mowed and edged on Saturday morning before the rain & hail kicked in and the bird house acorn popped up on the garage wall complete with fake bird because trying to manage it at a height of 2m isn't going to work for me!

So here are some images of said hail, boy did it come down! Like bobbly snow! So much so it collected outside the backdoor 🥶

And because next weekend is potentially going to be busy I thought I would put up the Easter decs in the porch today!

And it's been productive on the gardening level as Dad came by and managed to dig out the two fuchsias that I've been trying to kill off because I'm fed up with them after all these years, too big for where they are growing and prone to the fuchsia gall mite which leaves them looking awful. So now the ground is clear for me to plant some ornamental grasses which I bought a few weeks ago, Festuca Intense Blue! Should be good.

More Still Life Weather!

 

So in preparation for another wet Off Friday I froze some water in a tub and placed this pink gerbera on top and then added a little more water and popped it back in the freezer over Thursday night into Friday.

Setup in the studio with the 77D fitted with the 60mm macro lens on the tripod legs and had a good session as the ice melted. On occasion adding the smallest extension tube to the mix.

It whiled away most of the morning and then played in the afternoon with this daisy type flower:

This was sitting in a small bud vase with my tinfoil covered box behind it for a rather unusual backdrop.

All in all a good camera day :-)

Still Life Weather!

 

So as this weekend, including my Off Friday, has been mostly wet weather I took the opportunity for some still life photography to keep me from getting too bored. Using my lightbox and various props I spent most of the morning and some of the afternoon taking photos. Including playing with some old sweet film wrappers in front of the built-in flash...

This is one such example using a piece of red film - naturally! Really like the effect and cheap as chips too although now the Quality Street brand from whence these pieces of film came have moved to recyclable wrappers so glad I saved as many colours as I could whilst they were still available. This set of old bracelet beads were shot on an old box covered in scrunched up tinfoil which makes for a quite interesting background. All in all it whiled away time on a day where going outside was out of the question.

Saturday saw me and Julia shopping up at Bluewater, mainly for New Mum items for James's sister who is about to have twins!! So lots of useful but perhaps less exciting toiletries for her and the new bubbas when they arrive next week (via a C-Section) and some time saving bits for her like dry shampoo and hairclips because new mums don't have time to fuss about washing their hair! Julia and James are excited to become Auntie & Uncle - especially Julia as she has no siblings and sees James's brothers and sister as her own.

Sunday has been brighter weather for once, been outside briefly in the garden but still too early to do much beyond a little tidying up and trying to hopefully kill off a couple of old fuchsias that I'm looking to replace with alternative plants because they are rife with that fuchsia gall mite. Hoping that if I can kill them off then digging them out will be less of a challenge. Fingers crossed ;-)

Shopping & Plant Supports

 

So this weekend has been about nipping up to the top shops for a nose around and to get some fresh air away from the bloody rain and shoring up the daffodils and crocuses which are being battered by the crap weather.

Using some thin sticks and garden wire I've managed to hopefully hold them up, for now at least or until more grow and are outside the rim of the wire. Weather is beginning to get on my nerves, too much rain and wind and whilst I'm grateful we've no snow or floods I'm looking forward to some decent dry weather and time to get out in the garden and start planting up this years flowers.

Got two sets of modular planters to utilise rather than individual pots, those with bulbs will be left to settle until next Spring rather than planting on top of the bulbs like last year. Going to focus on zonal geraniums and petunias as you get a lot for your dosh with those plants and they need little looking after other than watering and deadheading.

Also going to plant a couple of hanging plants, Lobelia most likely, in the plant rack on the yard wall rather then keep buying artificial plants which fade in time and last year's lot had pots which weren't supposed to be outdoors - something that wasn't made clear when I ordered them from Amazon! Pre-ordered a stack of self-watering pots which will hopefully stop the water running down the wall. Maybe I need the bigger size for the wheelbarrow to replace the spring bulb pots?

Have also managed to squeeze a resin bird into the bird house so it looks like it's in use but not! I'm not a bird lover per se plus having to put it up at a 2m height is going to be awkward for me so opted for the faux look! At the moment the acorn house in indoors but once the yard bits go outside I'll hang it up somewhere where I can see it :-)

And the narcissi in the front garden are now blooming, like baby daffodils 😍

And on my second trip to the shops today I bought some more of the windmills to go into the garden to replace the others which have faded although they have lasted a lot longer than I'd anticipated! I love windmills! Also bought these two blue ornamental grasses, probably to replace the fuchsias that I'm looking to dig up given I'm fairly sure that the disease they had last year is unlikely to have disappeared. Plus they are getting hard to manage, very woody and lots of thin branches everywhere. These grasses are evergreen and need minimal maintenance - what's not to like? If they are successful then I may look to pop a few more in here and there, they provide quite good ground cover.

Feeling frustrated at the moment that there isn't much to be doing outside and not enough decent weather in which to do it. Most of any nice weather often coincides with me  working which isn't very helpful. I feel jealous of those for whom retirement is already a reality and feel like somehow I've been left behind. There never seems to be the opportunity for what I want to do on my down time.

Packing up work for good cannot come soon enough!

Spring is Sprung!

 

So Spring has started to make its presence felt in the garden with my bulbs shooting up and in some cases blossoming :-) Miniature Iris, Crocus and Snowdrops to mention a few.

Some have even started to push through the lawn although now I'm thinking I should have planted them closer together rather than spreading them out. And the wind/rain isn't helping as it's knocking them over when the stems are quite delicate.

Even the Hellebores are getting in on the act - I transplanted two from Dad's garden last year, one each of the purple and white. It's been quite slow going but I have new leaves and in the case of the white plant, some buds!! Looking forward to seeing them bloom, although nicknamed Christmas Roses they rarely flower at Christmas but are another sign that Spring is coming.

The rest of the bulbs planted last year are all coming up and buds are beginning to form, should see some daffodils soon from the pot I bought to go by Mum's sewing machine last year. They were planted into the garden where I would see them flower. I love daffodils. I have a mix in the garden of mainly daffs and tulips, even the alliums got planted into the front garden from last years pot - they were a disappointment, all white even though they were supposed to be mixed and instead of a collection of blooms I got one at a time pretty much. Lets hope they do better this year. Bluebells are the other bulbs popping up everywhere and I'll have a riot of blue a bit later.

At least its a sign that Winter is receding - evenings are staying lighter and hopefully better weather is on it's way.

Dad's 86th Birthday

 

So this is us all around the table at our usual haunt to celebrate Dad's 86th birthday and a good excuse to catch up with my brother and family.

The boys get taller each time they visit, especially George who is towering over all of us now.

After a lush dinner we went back to Dad's and had some cake:

Here it is before we lit it, a Maltesers one 😋

Not the best of images, think on wide angle my hand, or someone else's got in the way, but it's the memory that counts! Dad about to blow out the candles and cut the cake.

We had a good catch up, including Annie who got her Christmas treats from the boys who had wanted to see her open them. A game to find her treats and some treats of course! Annie being Annie proceeded to bite most of the game but she'll get the hang of it eventually! She's a clever cookie 🐶

January's Bits 'n' Pieces

 

Finished this Granny Square finally, after a collection of other more pressing crochet projects. This little coverlet was to take into work for over my lap as the air-con had been broken for some time and so the office days were bordering on the fridge end of the thermometer 🥶 As luck would have it, by the time this was ready to take into the office the air-con had been fixed and so it's sat in my locker ever since!

Having got Dad to buy me a cordless combi drill/screwdriver for my birthday to use instead of the old electric drill, this was my first project. Drill more holes in the sides of this single part of the wardrobe so that the shelf Dad made could be lowered, thereby attaining more storage space above the bagged up Christmas Tree. I've restacked the shelf since snapping this so there's even better use of the space and whilst I don't need any more Christmas decorations at least I have room for the ones I may inevitably buy 🤣

So a couple of snaps here of the Spring Bulbs starting to sprout out in the garden and the yard pots. Gotta love a snowdrop, they are the quintessential sign that Spring is around the corner. The others are a variety of crocus, daffs from last year, miniature daffs and grape hyacinths and tulips and there is more to come from the front garden. Hoping to see a riot of colour when they start to bloom which is still a month or two away.

Prepped this wooden sign ready for Easter using some coloured pencils I bought rather than the crap tiny felt pens included in the pack from The Works. Quite pleased with how it's come out, it can hang on the porch door when I decorate for Easter 🐰

And this weekend's DIY was to put up my 40th service certificate having finally received it from work. Suspect it's a generic fill in one seeing as how despite the firm logo it just mentions "your company" rather than naming the firm and isn't quite as nice as the 25th service one, although it did come framed. Once I'd managed to hang this I decided to finally tidy up the utensil rack in the kitchen which I put up years ago with just a couple of nails which ended up bent out of shape as it's on an outer wall which is much harder to nail into than the internal walls - which are hard enough. Managed to get the old nails out and drill into the holes left behind, a couple of raw plugs and screws et voila - now it's nice and sturdy. No threatening to fall off the wall every time I reach for something! Mind you, looking at the state of the nails I pulled out I'm surprised it's stayed up on the wall this long 😂

So this is January's "what I've been up to", obviously it's included my birthday, 59yrs young this year and another step closer to retirement. As my birthday always falls on a busy working week I was not only in work but in the office too, along with some cakes and sweets. Out to dinner in the evening with Dad, Julia and James at The Honourable Pilot and then back to Julia and James's for a cuppa and some cake. And to see their latest DIY project - creating more of an obvious lounge space. 

Let's see what February brings, hopefully some better weather and lighter evenings, the Dockyard reopens at Half Term so a visit is long overdue. Maybe a visit from my bro' and family for Dad's birthday.

Whistlestop Catch Up

 So having realised the last time I posted was for Annie's birthday I thought it best to give a summary of the time in between rather than lay it all out!

Fireworks:

So Julia and I did the Scouts Fireworks on Friday 3rd November followed by us, James, Dima and Charlie doing Leeds Castle on the Saturday

Christmas Lights @ Bedgebury:

So Dad, Me, Julia and James spent a chilly evening walking around Bedgebury for the Christmas Lights, Dad and Me snapping away on our respective cameras. Excellent evening!

The next day Dad & I did the Wartime Christmas @ the RE Museum.

I had a go at a honeycomb decoration kit over a weekend which proved far more difficult than I envisaged and having got the Xmas decs out to put up found that my Christmas Tree was finally without lights for the first time in its 10yr service. Amazon came to the rescue as usual and a new tree was delivered the following day - this one 6ft but a pencil slim design - excellent.

We had a visit from my 'bro and his family and we went out for our usual meal @ The Honourable Pilot.

Santa Run & Santa Paws:

So this is a quick collage of the few phone snaps taken of the local Scouts Santa run on the 17th December.

And this is us with Annie meeting Santa @ Dobbies - she's always so good bless her!

The Big Day!

So this is us having dinner out on Christmas Day, again at The Honourable Pilot - lush. Back to Chez Bailey afterwards and having left the camera at home this is a still from a little video of Annie getting help with her presents!

So we've had a good Christmas and my break is almost at an end - last day today in fact (01-01-2024)! I'm not quite as miserable about returning to work as I'd anticipated but that might change come tomorrow morning! At least it's only one day on site as it's a short three day week for moi and I wonder how Joanne will settle in her newfound four day week albeit still working a full 37hr 😱

Oh and on a rather disappointing note this is the 2023 camera stats...

Just over 800 images less this year than last year and that was disappointing enough 😭 Didn't even break the 2000 mark. With no family challenge anymore and camera club hanging in the balance once again it begs the question of whether this is the future rather than a blip? Maybe I need to retire to give me more time out and about with the camera 📷 Seems everyman and his dog/cat are going down that road.