General Chat

Ceanothus always reminds me of my father Ginnie, he had a very large one in his garden. I had a bottle brush in my last house but one, it always did very well.
The gardens in the new house are a totally blank canvas. The front garden is just a large square of lawn with literally not a single plant in it. The back is on a steep slope. It has a large rockery which did have some plants in, but I have added a lot more. We are going to put some steps in the slope . The bottom part isn’t exactly flat, it is just lawn with a very narrow border, totally empty of plants. There is a greenhouse, so we are going to make a veg patch, then dig the rest if the lawn up and make a winding path with lots of beds. If only we knew what we were doing :-D

Hello all ,
Nice to have some sunny weather for a few days hope you are all enjoying it and it isn't too hot for you.

Linda how nice for your hubby to meet his friend and have catch up. Shame you had to stay behind. You must be looking forward to having a working kitchen again. You have both done so much in such a short time really .

My roses have really bloomed well and the Ceanothus has lovely blue/lilac flowers on .
Really pleased with the garden now and hopefully it will have more colour soon .
I brought a Bottle Brush plant a while ago and it had never bloomed but this week it has and there are 2 lovely bright red 'brushes' on it . Heres hoping for more :-)

Take care all.
Ginnie

After a cloudy start, the sun came out and we have had another very hot day .
One of OH’s friends from his old walking group came to see him, so they went out for a walk and lunch. I stayed here because the kitchen fitter was here, although he left before lunch to go to another job.

I also needed to be here because all of the materials to renew the en-suite bathroom were arriving. They are now stored in the garage for a couple of weeks when hopefully the plumber will turn up.

The new curtains for upstairs turned up this morning as well. OH put the ones in our bedroom up, then this afternoon, he put up the new pole in the second bedroom and they are up as well. The other two bedrooms haven’t been decorated yet, so they can wait.

I hope that Florence arrived safely

Safe journey Florence..
Yes my postal vote was in the post last week.

Safe journey tomorrow, Florence!

AG, the midges came here too as it is now windless! From gales to nothing, one extreme to another. But I have closed all the windows.

Yes, my postal voting form arrived on Saturday.

Posted my vote on Sunday, though of course it wouldn't actually leave here until Monday (yesterday).
With the alterations to constituency boundaries, we're now in a different constituency, which is a bit annoying!

Not that my vote will make any difference to anything.
In any case, I don't believe a word of what any of the candidates say.


It was nice and sunny here this morning, but now it's cloudy, windless and therefore very midgy, so I'm busy with indoor things.

Better day here and I managed outside in the garden. I had bought 2 lovely roses last week and they needed a pot so daughter bought 2 more ceramic pots in a beautiful sea green colour. & now they are both looking good in their new homes against the fence.

My big rose plant in the corner that's 3 years old now has lots of new leaves etc but so far no buds :-S I always get loads of roses on this plant and they are a ruby red so maybe just a bit slow this year because of the cold weather?

So that's all the planting I'm doing this year and just want all the plants to be in full flower now and it will look beautiful in the garden.

Haven't received our postal voting cards yet and the council said they are being sent out tomorrow but it doesn't give much time to get them sent back does it. I wont be back until Saturday so if they do come, daughter will have to go to town on Monday and hand them in to make sure they get to the right place before Thursday.

Any other postal voters received their cards yet?

Right off to heat up my veggie curry and put on the rice with a couple of poppadums yummy.

Hope everyone looking in is well and ok

Florence in the hebrides

Oh Yes!

Bladeless in the living room and another in the bedroom.

I’ve not turned on the downstairs one yet but expect to have the bedroom one on as it is above the living room and gets more of the late sun.
It’s 25.1 in the living room but there is a breeze creeping round the curtains.

Oh gosh names, that's very warm! have you got a fan?

It is 24.4 in or living room and the curtains have been shut all afternoon ( it gets the afternoon sun) and is rising.
The suggested temp for tomorrow is now 28. Must get a comfy chair moved into the kitchen for the afternoon.

:-D :-D :-D :-D what a numpty I am as just realised I posted on another thread about "heat alert" and not this thread doh!!! Senior moment lol off to have coffee.

Afternoon all

I just typed a post and it whooshed :-S :-S

Anyway was saying to all those experiencing a heatwave, take great care and stay hydrated. use good factor sunscreen too.

My grandma always drew the curtains mid summer to keep the rooms cool and also stop the sun from fading her good furniture!

Florence in the hebrides

It's good that you have such a well insulated house, Linda. Is it better than your previous one?

Today we were supposed to have a cloudy morning, which would clear and reach about 21 degrees.
We've had the cloudy morning - but it still hasn't cleared, at almost 3pm, and the temperature is 17.5 according to my car.

However, it is dry, so I'm going out to spray weed killer on my gravel drive.

I hope you enjoyed your mushroom bolognaise, Florence!

I hope that it is hot enough for everyone :-D

It is 25°C here. I am pleasantly surprised with the house as it is staying cool. Only the dining room was in full sun this morning, but with the patio door open and the curtains pulled across, that stayed cool as well Some houses seem to be like greenhouses in the heat, but this one isn’t thank goodness.

It is going to be hot overnight. I do have a few tower fans, but I managed to get one of the bladeless ones a couple of weeks ago while they were an Aldi special. I have just set it up and it seems to be good, so I will give that a try tonight.

:-D :-D :-D what song will it be? " I'm singing in the rain,"

Afternoon all. Well its warmish out of the wind but only 15 degrees but pleasant. I do have washing out and I stripped my bed too so the wind will dry it all :-D

Think it may rise to 18/19 degrees by Wednesday and then when I return on Saturday, its raining and 11 degrees....back to normal!

My first red poppy has bloomed and I'm so chuffed as thought they were all dead. There are several more tucked inside the plants ready to burst open as well. :-D

Im noticing the grass has started to grow again and the daisies are fast appearing so at least the rain helped new growth. It was looking very bare and brown in places.

Was decluttering the fridge trying to use up stuff and realised a whole punnet of mushrooms unopened, So making a huge pan of mushroon bolognaise which will mean plenty to freeze for another time. I'm using a pasta sauce with chunky veg and adding extras to it. Cant wait for that later on.

Well machine is nearly finished, so better get on with hanging out the bedding whilst the sun is shining....yay :-D

Florence in the hebrides

don't you feel a song coming on Linda?? :-D

Monday and Tuesday are supposed to be 25 °C here,but then by Wednesday it starts raining again, so I won’t be complaining about the short heat spell, or composing about it either :-D

Warning! One it two of you are going to need to get your earplugs ready - cos some of us are going to be composing of the heat next week :-D

It is windy here as well Florence, but warm and sunny at the same time.

I have been trying to unpack some of the kitchen things into the new cupboards, but the fitter hasn’t finished putting doors and side panels on some of them, so I am limited to what I can do. I can already tell that it isn’t all going to go in :-( I have a lot less cupboard space here than in the old house. That is because the large fridge and freezer are taking up room in the new kitchen, but they were just through the door from the kitchen into the garage in the last place. I will have to keep shuffling things around until I can find homes for everything
I have just ordered another shelf for the fridge. It has a silver bottle rack which I don’t need as we don’t drink copious amounts of white wine or Champagne :-) It would be far more useful to have another glass shelf. The spares department were rather bemused by the fact that I was ordering a replacement shelf for a brand new fridge.