Not you but him

I thought I'd get into the garden early this morning (well, before 9) before it got too hot to work. It's already too hot.

But look!

I propagated this hydrangea myself! I cut a stalk off our existing plant and stuck it in water. Everyone on the internet said how easy it was but this is me, notorious plant killer. So I am very pleased. I shall do more this year!

On a very hot afternoon I made pizza, and rhubarb and white chocolate blondies.

They were meant to be blonder but I only had dark brown sugar. They tasted nice anyway.

And the world thanks Belgium!

From Twitter

American friends please know it's not you, it's him.

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Our upstairs Alexa - hm, I wonder if it's the heat - anyway most days she stops telling the correct time round about midday. If you ask her the time she gets it right but denies all knowledge of a false display. "I don't know the answer to that."

Later in the day she corrects herself but it's anyone's guess when that will be.

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We are hosting a church barbecue on Sunday. I decided to clear out the garage so we can put MiniToo there making space for someone to park on our drive as space is limited on the road. Honestly I thought I was the household hoarder.

At least five odd gardening gloves, more wood than in a forest - "You never know when it will be useful" - old cables, hosepipes that leak (I assume as we have a new one), and miscellaneous bits. Oh yes, two strimmers because, "The old one stopped working so I bought another and then repaired the old one, which I prefer." To be fair, that does make sense. 

P.S. You can tell I'm a proper gardener now as I keep finding twigs in my bra and hair.

Everything else is football

I watched the England v Mexico World Cup game this morning with Husband. It happened in the middle of the night but the BBC was showing the whole game at a reasonable hour. I will never say football is boring again! It was a stunner! Very tense and stressful but England hung on to go through to the quarter-finals against Norway.

Quite interesting fact: an English player who wasn't involved in the match was given a yellow card and also got injured. Quite an achievement.

Still on World Cup news I see Tr**p phoned the president of FIFA to ask him to review the ban on a US striker so he is able to play in the US game against Belgium tomorrow morning/this evening depending on where you are. The not-at-corrupt FIFA president agreed it could be suspended for a year. This seems to have succeeded in turning every impartial fan into a Belgian supporter.

In gardening news both a butterfly and a bee landed on me today at the same time. The bee mistook my flowery t-shirt for the real thing and then buzzed my nose when he realised his mistake.

Eight years ago we were in France celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary by re-creating our honeymoon.

As happy as a dog with one tail

This is why I should wear gloves while gardening.

I finally managed to pop into Zac's this week to check on the plants. Some had died, some were fighting, and some were actually flowering!

I repotted some and brought this poor little thyme plant home with me to look after though I think if it's relying on me it's chances of survival are minimum.

I spotted this plant sign, and other similar ones, and was very tempted to buy some.

But now the news you've been waiting for!

Before

After

I started on 6th June and, hot spell excepted, have been working on this front patch since then. Last weekend GrandSon3 worked on it for me; this weekend GrandSon2 did another two hours. Finally I can say, "It's finished!

And, yes, it does look lovely and was worth the effort. (I can say that now it's finished.)

I'm as happy as Louie is!

Could have been different

Why did nobody tell me, when I was in careers talks in school, that I could be a food historian?

I would have loved that. Although when I was in school I hated history so it probably wouldn't have made much difference. I wonder if they had food historians in those days. Openings would have been limited I suppose and I'd have to have been very good, and I was never very good at anything.

I was in the top set but nothing special. I sort of scraped through most things, as I continued to do through life. Reasonable but not brilliant. I would have liked to have been brilliant.

But I was the clever one while my cousin was the pretty one. I would rather have been pretty.

Nevertheless, my life has turned out excellently. I am very happy. (Odd depressed days excluded of course - although as someone said, "If you don't have the bad you can't appreciate the good.")

Speaking of good I saw this excellent poster the other day.

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An email this morning from my MP after I emailed him to tell him I was going to leave the Labour Party. It looks like a personal email suggesting that yesterday evening he was sitting sobbing over my resignation, so obviously it was carefully drafted.

He does offer to meet me (for 45 minutes) if I'd like to properly talk. 

I won't take him up on that. The time to talk was when he should have been supporting Sir Keir Starmer. Also, he's a smooth-talking politician and I am useless in face to face conversations so would end up signing over my life savings, or buying him lunch.

Being mistaken for Kim Kardashian

I am turning into Husband. He says I'm not turning into him; I'm just getting old.

Husband is prone to falls these days. Yesterday I was tussling with a big slab when physics came into play and I flew backwards. Bruised my hip and my arm. Then I walked into an over-hanging rose branch and a thorn caught my eyelid.

Meanwhile Husband had come out and noticed that the car was running. It seems I'd not turned the engine off four hours earlier. I had locked it so you would think Minitoo would have enough sense to switch herself off.

Last year Husband left Minitoo with the engine running - and I believe unlocked - in the M&S car park. So you see why I say I am turning into him.

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When I left the house this morning to go to walk with Daughter and Louie there was a van parked across the road. As I walked down the steps a man got out. He was dressed in black with the hood of his hoodie up and his head down. "They've mistaken me for Kim Kardashian," I thought, "and they're going to kidnap me."

I have no idea what KK looks like so chances are they don't either hence the mistake.

But they didn't kidnap me.

What is the collective noun for lots of jellyfish washed up on the beach?

The other morning there were three woodpeckers outside the front door.

Don't mention the figs

Husband: "Don't get grumpy with me because you're hot!"
"I'm not grumpy with you because I'm hot: it's because you keep telling me what to do while sitting around doing nothing!"

GrandSon3 spent three and a half hours working solidly over the weekend, sieving stones for me. He was a complete star.

Yesterday I began the final digging over and removal of any remaining roots. Husband passed on the way to his RSV jab. "You could get GrandSon2 to do that; he wants to earn money as well."
"No, it's too hard for a young lad." Much better a 73-year-old granny does it! I enjoy hard manual labour sometimes; it's satisfying. Although the time this front bit has taken me is making my enthusiasm wear a bit thin. 

Now you're probably bored with my photos of progress on the front bit but it's as much for my records as anything. Blogging is for me primarily. Although I do love comments and getting to know readers.

I have finished putting down nearly half of the first layer of stones. I needed to empty the buckets before I could do the other half. It is almost there. (I keep telling myself!)

Over the weekend I planted two hydrangeas. I'd bought them for where the bamboo used to be but decided to put them on the other bit instead. Disappointed that the one with the name Wim's Red turned out to be white, but that's fine for where I've put it now.

I wanted to dig up some day lilies and other plants that were taking over the place but I didn't want to throw them out. So . . . I transplanted to the tiny bit of earth outside our gate. And it worked!

And speaking of lilies . . .

Not to mention figs.

Larks ascending

I occasionally get a comment from Anonymous, usually a judgemental one suggesting the way I behave isn't Christian.

I'm not sure if it's a serious comment or not, and I suspect Stu. 

Anyway, just saying it's interesting that people prefer to remain anonymous when criticising.

Now here is Lark Ascending, a fairly new rose in my garden, from David Austin.

And here's a very cute little lamb.

It's cooler today but still warm and sunny. I am psyching myself up to go and dig a hole to plant a hydrangea. Or get back to sieving stones.

Oh, and here's my first dahlia! If you remember I ordered four plants but two never grew, and one has been eaten away completely. This is my triumph! Albeit slightly snail-eaten.