My plans are threefold

 My plan today is threefold. 

1. Hang out washing.

2. Continue with project garden tidy-up

3. Meet up with L* and her boyfriend this evening (with G* and B* too of course) for pizza this evening. 

[G - husband, B - eldest daughter, L - youngest daughter]

I'm looking forward to seeing L. The last time I saw her B and I had travelled over to her university to help proof read her dissertation. She was a bit stressed, we spent all day in a cafe with me buying coffees and lemonades and lunch to keep us going. So it'll be nice to see her and just have a catch up. She's heading off down south with her boyfriend for various events. He lives down south with his mum and dad having finished university last year. So we probably aren't going to see much of her until graduation in July and I really miss her!

The garden is looking much better, although I managed to flatten our tiger lilies as I was trying to get to some nettles and ivy that had sprung up at the back near the fence. Honestly, you only have to look at a tiger lily and it collapses. I also noticed Coco had flattened some other tiger lilies to make herself a little bed in there 😂

They are very squished.

Because I have been so diligent with the weeding, there is no long grass anywhere, so I saved some for Coco. She loves to eat that grass and apparently it is good for her. Here is her little pot of grass haha.

Anyway, I must go hang that washing out.

Have a lovely day.

Sarah x

So dry!

It's been so dry here for a while, which is unusual.  We live up in the Pennines and its main feature is drizzle, year-round drizzle.

But now the streams are drying up, the moorlands are suffering terrible fires and the wildlife are starting to suffer.

If you don't have a pond or any other water feature in your garden, in particularly hot and dry weather think about putting a bowl or tub of water out in your garden for passing wildlife and birds.

One very hot, dry year mum had a hedgehog drowned in her drain as it tried to get to water and got stuck facedown.

We put a shallow tub of water in the garden for any thirsty creatures and we've just had a frog wetting it's skin in the tub I put in the garden (with a stone added to help him hop out) being amphibians, they need to keep their skin moist.

Just enjoying the sun and garden

Gardening

Our garden was a bit of a jungle when we got the house.  Nettles and all sorts of things were growing.    Reeds growing here and there and all kinds of very deep rooted things.  Sadly even after working hard at weeding and clearing they soon come back.

Four days ago I cleared a small rockery area and a path.

A couple of days ago, G and I worked very hard (back breaking hard) to clear an overgrown area.  We revealed stones and flags we didn't know we had!

Branches that need taking to the tip

Today I worked hard to clear an area of the garden, got some nasty nettle stings, but it looks so much better now!

Lazy Saturday

It's lovely to be lazy, to rest and relax sometimes. To have nowhere to rush to, nowhere to go, no-one to see. We've not had much of that recently.

So I've had a nice time this morning.  Done a bit of reading, a bit of praying, a bit of pottering, a bit of gardening, a bit of sitting here typing this.

I've been to Bible college this week, I really enjoyed it.  The topics covered the Cross and prophecy.  I loved it.  I was particularly exercised by the teaching on the historical cross and the 'current' cross and it's effect on our lives.  Christ died once for all and our sins are eternally dealt with, but there is a daily application of the cross to our lives - carrying our cross, etc.  Very good. Lots to think about.

We had a lovely evening with G's mom and dad on Thursday, eating out at a local Tapas restaurant. Lots of fun.

Last night we had a couple view our house.  They live on my mum and dad's street. It seems a strange move to us, but we don't care the reasons LOL. Hopefully someone will buy soon!!

Today I've been pottering in the garden.

My hydrangea bush is blooming nicely...LOL amusing shot of my toes too.

Even a horrid fly is made beautiful by its surroundings :) (Click on the picture to see better)

My gorgeous dahlias - it's a constant struggle to stop the slugs devouring these.

I love my garden, but I am no expert.  The bare patch below was full of gorgeous happy pansies.  They were healthy and beautiful, but then one by one they started to wilt and die, so did a number in my pots.  I watered them regularly.  But no, they still wilted.  So I researched and found out that it could be a number of things.  Digging discovered a number of tiny worms - some tiny white ones and also some slightly bigger brown ones.  I then researched how to deal with them, but our local garden centre didn't have what I needed. 

So I dug them out, rinsed the roots (which were eaten up), removed the top few inches of soil and repotted the pansies with some rooting powder in new compost in a couple of pots.

As you can see above, some have revived, but some are just brown sticks.  My pansies failed last year too, it's very frustrating.  But IT'S OK TO FAIL! :)

My other plants are doing well (ignore the tall grass, haha).

Happy days. x

Colour amidst the grey

It's cold, grey and damp today.  But I've managed to get out into the garden and hopefully we'll get some colour here and there.  My winter pansies are fading a bit so we need a bit of colour.  After planting out my narcissi daffodil bulbs that I'd saved in my shed I was itching to get out again and plant some primrose, snowdrops and tulips that I'd bought with my Christmas money.

Unfortunately, this photo is a bit blurred (I took it on my mobile phone camera), but it gives you an idea.

Today is going to be catching up on ironing whilst watching Pretty Woman and taking down the Christmas decorations

The house is fairly peaceful, the girls are busy and G is out at church helping with some sound equipment.

Yesterday's cooking went well (if you don't know I'm doing a journey into loving cooking!).  The fajitas were lovely.  I made my own spice mix with cornflower, cumin, paprika and chilli powder...no cayenne pepper because the girls don't really like food that is too hot and spicy, I also added some garlic, red and green peppers, and mushrooms.  We had guacamole and salsa (not homemade!), cheese and lettuce with it.  Delicious.  I might try my hand at burritos next time, just need to get the right beans, etc.

A tour around my garden

Some close ups of some of my lovely flowers.  Warning there are a LOT of pictures!  I'm really enjoying the garden this year.

I must point out that these are close ups because if I do wider shots you might just see the weedy bits of the garden and we can't have that can we?! :) Plus, I broke the lawnmower and I am sure I saw some gazelle in the resulting long grass the other day, I wouldn't want to scare them off with my camera flash.  However, the gazelle might attract lions, then poachers...perhaps I need to borrow a lawnmower off someone.

One day my garden will be splendid enough for a wide-angle photo...that's if it hasn't been decimated by the hunters and tourists on safari. :P

This hanging basket is dangling from my bench-swing.

A pretty basket I was given

I planted this in its pot a few years ago, it blooms wonderfully, but I think it needs re-potting once it's finished flowering.

One of my flower beds - pansies everywhere in my garden. :)

Look at the lovely huge pansies - the area behind has just recently been dug out and planted, it was all overgrown.

Hanging on the shed.

Boots watching the guinea pigs - the hutch is just to the right of this picture.

 More pansies in my flower beds and pots.

Another picture of the area we recently cleared.   There are flowers other than pansies here - you can just see the edge of a Dahlia to the left! LOL

Pots at the front of the house.

White rock overflowing.

There was a bit of a gap under the fence next-door put in next to our drive, just added a bit of extra soil and planted some flowers....lovely!