I’m ashamed to say I don’t really know what kind of tree it is, possibly some kind of willow, but I do know that despite it’s great age and poor state, it is still growing vigourously.

Over the years it has dropped lower and lower, branches that at one time I couldn’t reach are now at ground level. The huge trunk is split and each year more and more of it overhangs our field.

Mowing is a nightmare. I’ve lost count of the number of times it’s nearly knocked me off my mower. Doing any work in that particular corner is a real problem. I’m not very tall, but even I should really be wearing a hard hat.

Every so often we attack its lower branches with a saw, loppers and a lot of optomism. Yesterday was such a day. After dinner, quite out of the blue we set about it.

You don’t realise just how big a tree is until you have to cart it away in a wheelbarrow! Peter’s sawing days are really over and he found some of the branches very tricky even with me sitting on them.

Anyway after a couple of hours we did feel to have made some head way, and rewarded ourselves with a sit down and an ice lolly.

Today we are both aching and sore with blisters, nettle stings and blackberry scratches. We’re getting too old for this.

He really is in remarkably good nick considering the shaky start we had with him. I’m really pleased.

This hot, end of summer weather is just great, but it’s spoilt by the number of wasps about.

I’m sure they are attracted by the apple trees in the garden, but you only need to have the door open for a moment and they’re inside the house.

We like the door open in summer, originally it was for the cats, but now they’re gone we like it open too, and have a bead curtain for the purpose of keeping the insects out.

It works pretty well most of the time, but not it seems for wasps. Needless to say once inside they prefer the kitchen, and seem reluctant to leave even when the window is open.

I’m no cook and trying to make tea with 4 wasps buzzing round your head is no fun. The air is often blue, I hope no-one can hear me!

They have an un-nerving habit of sitting on the drawer and cupboard handles and the handle of the kettle, not to mention cutlery waiting to be washed up.

I have a horror of putting my hand on one and getting stung. (Yes, I’m a wimp) So the mantra of the moment is ‘look before you touch’.

To be honest, it didn’t really matter, as I had no energy anyway,  everything seemed a huge effort.

Then Tuesday dawned, clear, warm and sunny. What a difference 24 hours makes. Suddenly my ‘get up and go’ had returned and I got loads of stuff done.

Nothing major, just lots of little jobs, which can be just as demanding as big ones. Yes, I was tired by the end of the day, but it’s a nice tired, a satisfied tired, for several jobs well done.

I’m sure that sunshine and blue sky lifts your spirits, and this in turn improves your energy, state of mind, well-being. Here’s hoping for an Indian summer.

Bring it on!

The day started quite well. The hedge trimming gang turned up as promised, finished the job off, and cleared up pretty well given the size of the task.

I got the mower out after lunch, but it wouldn’t start as the ignition just twisted round in the ‘dashboard’ as I turned the key. No sign of life.

Fortunately this has happened before and Peter was soon able to fix it by meddling around in the engine and tightening the ignition switch from behind the bulkhead. I think it’s just a quirk of our machine, so that was soon sorted.

I started mowing and things were going well, until the cover on the cutting deck fell off. Once again this has happened before, but this time the little clip that is supposed to hold it in place was nowhere to be seen.

We searched the grass in the surrounding area, but talk about a needle in a haystack!

Peter to the rescue once again. He mended it with the metal bit of a spare keyring, in place of the missing clip.

The rest of the mowing was uneventful, but very slow due to the mole hills that are EVERYWHERE.

It started off as just a regular Tuesday, until  around 9am when I heard the unmistakable sound of a chain saw coming from the direction of the pub.

At last, just 9 weeks to the day since first contact, and 5 weeks over schedule, the pub hedge is being cut. It seem my musings of the other day are unfounded.

A small army of fit young men, armed with chain saws and hedge trimmers set about reducing it’s 20-25 feet height to about 7 feet and its vast depth, could have been 8 feet in places, to  more sensible dimensions.

They got rained off at lunch time, but resumed in the afternoon despite the weather and by teatime the job was almost done. They’re coming back today to finish off and clear up.

They have one of those machines that just eats chunks of wood and then spews it out as fine chippings. What a piece of kit that is. Even so there’s a lot of hard physical work goes in to a job like this, goodness knows what the bill will be. Glad it won’t be coming our way.

They appear to be doing a very good job, but having said all that, when they go there will be a lot of fall-out for me to clear up. But at the end of the day it is a huge improvement and not before time.

We are told the new landlady is very keen to have the hedge under control too. However we get the impression that she thinks the brewery will arrange, and pay for it every year. Although the hedge belongs to the pub and the pub belongs to the brewery, in previous years it has always been the responsibility of the tenant to maintain it. Watch this space.

Even more good news, I’ve got my lawn mower back, but haven’t had chance to try it out yet due to rain and hedge matters. Having had the shower mended last week I feel we’re on a roll!

It started quite badly with a harsh winter, late Spring and family bereavement. Then when the weather did finally get going I didn’t, but when I did, things just didn’t work out.

First there was a late frost. Initially I thought my strawberry plants had survived, until my neighbour pointed out the black centre to all my flowers. I did try pulling the flowers off so new ones could be produced, but it didn’t work. Result, no strawberries.

The wood pigeons attacked my peas without mercy. What they didn’t destroy from the top, the mole did from below. Result, hardly any peas.

Then there was the sweetcorn, or perhaps I should say, then there wasn’t the sweetcorn. The plants grew OK, but some had tassels and no beards some had beards and no tassels. What’s that about? Result hardly any sweetcorn.

Whilst some of the veg have been a disaster, the flowers haven’t been brilliant either. It’s been so dry. One particular disappointment was my ‘Morning Glory’ (Skylark Mixed).

I’ve always wanted one, and so this year I sowed some seeds. I got 3 plants, which, according to the packet should have grown to 10 feet high and 2 feet across. Bearing their potential size in mind I was careful where I planted them, sat back and waited to be stunned with their blue and white flowers

What a disappointment. Each one turned into a  spindly plant hardly 3 feet high. The flowers were lovely but too few and far between.

Then there was the lawn mower, the big ride-on one. It hasn’t worked properly since 13th June. In the beginning this didn’t matter much as it was so dry the grass wasn’t growing. Needless to say that can’t go on indefinitely in England, and it didn’t.

Consequently the grass in the field is a patchwork of lengths as I’ve had to resort to the electric Flymo to stop it getting completely out of hand, but I’m not fit enough to do it all in one go by that method. The ride-on mower is  in the process of being mended as we speak. New drive belt, new belt for the cutting deck.

Having said that, what does cutting the grass matter when the mole is covering the entire area in mole hills. They are bad enough but it’s the hidden depressions that nearly break your ankle that are the real pain.

He’s everywhere this year. He’s even sent a mole hill up between the stone slabs on the patio. How does he do that?

Finally there is the pub hedge which runs along one side of the garden. It is leylandii and hasn’t been cut for several years, needless to say it is very tall. So tall in fact that I have completely ignored that part of the garden this year.

The pub has been empty for months, in fact it hasn’t really been running properly for years. To cut a long story short we contacted the brewery, Scottish and Newcastle, to get it sorted.

After some time a very nice chap called to say his team would be coming to do the job in 3-4 weeks time. That was on 22nd June, no sign of anyone since.

As it happens the pub was let later that week and we think the brewery have passed the job, not to say the expense, on to the new tennant, who has  probably  been horrified at the potential cost and put it on the bottom of their ‘to do’ list. Result, hedge still out of control.

We did manage to cut our hedges for another year. The garden always looks so much better when they’ve been done. Now the whole world can see my mole hills!

I know all of this isn’t the end of the world, and that there are a lot of people in much worse circumstances, but nevertheless, gardening for me this year has been a pain, not a pleasure.

For about 9-10 weeks each summer our house is invaded by ants.

There are small crawling ones, large flying ones and medium flying ones. They appear from various points in the skirting board throughout the downstairs rooms and head for the nearest source of light, which is usually the windows.

We also have them outside in the garden. Both sets seem to emerge in waves, periods of calm are punctuated by periods of intense activity when the room and garden are awash with them.

Needless to say, as much as I hate killing things, when they are in the house I have no option. Yesterday I watched a medium one on the kitchen windowsill writhing in agony as the effects of the insecticide took hold. It didn’t make me feel good. But it did make me think, what’s the point?

The outdoor ones don’t fare much better. They launch themselves into the sunlight only to be picked off by the waiting sparrows who perform wonderful aerial acrobatics as they pluck the ants out of the air.

What a futile existence. I have mixed feelings about them to be honest. Whilst I freak out when they’re all over my living space, I do admire their social structure.

If I disturb them in the garden, they rush around frantically trying to save and protect their eggs. In the house they send out ’scouts’ before the main wave emerges.

As much as I find them fascinating, I do feel sorry for them and wonder at their purpose, but I certainly don’t want them in my house.

I’m beginning to feel a bit ‘got at’, though I know this is nothing compared to what some people have to suffer. Nevertheless, I have had better times.

Perhaps because of all this, or perhaps just because I’m getting old, I  don’t seem to have got going this year, and the good weather was a long time coming too. Eventually summer did arrive but now I’m all behind.

Parts of the country are whispering the dreaded ‘D’ word, drought.It doesn’t seem two minutes since we were battling with floods. Ah the vagaries of the British weather.

I’ve tried to do my jobs in order of urgency, so at least everything is sown and planted. Now just the weeding to catch up on.

Sadly this isn’t without it’s problems as I’m having a few health issues, mainly with my hands, which makes weeding a little tricky.

Previous experience leads me to believe I am suffering from a combination of trigger finger and carpel tunnel syndrome, not major problems I know, but quite debilitating and occasionally extremely painful.

So, there we are. I wonder what else life has in store? Perhaps it’s best if we don’t know.

Maybe it’s because it’s been a long hard winter, or perhaps it’s because I lost my mum, my cat and one of my oldest friends within a few weeks of each other. Who knows? All I know is that unlike previous years I’ve found January and Febuary to be very, very hard work.

We’ve had a few nice days in and among, but generally speaking it’s been cold wet and miserable, and everything is behind.

I have tried my best to look after the wild life in the garden over these cold dark weeks. I’ve already told you about the moorhen, and I saw a hedgehog a couple of nights ago.

Today we had a squirrel on the bird feeder. I have seen him before but never for such a long visit. He was pinching the nuts and burrying them (not very well) in the lawn. In between he ate a few. He is very cute.

I’ve mentioned my little robin friends before. We certainly have 3 who live in the garden. That’s the largest number I’ve seen together at any one time, so I suppose we could have more.

Anyway one of them at least likes to wait for me outside the backdoor and fly down to be fed. I always oblige with a handful of porridge oats.

I noticed the other day that one of them was looking less than handsome. His feathers were a real mess, I don’t know if he’d been in a fight or something.

Well today my little puckered friend came to the birdfeeder at the same time as one of the other robins.

At first I thought there was going to be a fight, but to my surprise the normal robin began to feed the disheveled one. Now I know he can feed himself perfectly well because I’ve seen him do it, but on this occasion he was asking to be fed.

What’s that about then?

Well I feel the same way about buying plants/seeds/bulbs by post.

Why?

Well I’ll tell you why. With the exception of last years red geraniums and begonias,
everything I’ve bought by post has been a disaster.

The latest one being the pansies and hyacinth bulbs which I ordered at the end of last year. Basically, the pansies are all dead and the hyacinths, which didn’t flower for Xmas as promised, can’t even stand up straight, and instead of being yellow are a sort of off white colour.

If I even think about buying plants by post again, please shoot me!