Ravendale House

As much as I love my garden and all the plants in it, I’m not quite so keen when it comes to house plants. Having said that we do have a very old Xmas cactus that must be 25 years old if it’s a day and we did have a lovely cyclamen, but that died a couple of years ago, and all my attempts to replace it have ended in failure.

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All our married life Peter and I have liked a nice car. For some people it’s an exotic foreign holiday, for others eating out at fancy restaurants, but for us it has always been owning a good car. Our current one is a Mazda MX5 and we both love it to bits, in fact it’s the 4th MX5 we’ve owned in the the last 20 years, and this particular one will celebrate it’s 3rd birthday in a couple of weeks time.

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Being at school in the 1960’s I was taught ‘domestic science’ by the feisty and fiery Miss Barbara Hirst, who drilled into me that peas, beans and lentils are pulse vegetables, a fact I will never, ever forget. However, today I want to talk about peas, beans and wind, a bi-product of lentils.

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On the 29th January I took part in the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch for 2011. Today I received a leaflet through the post showing the results, and I thought it would be interesting to compare my sightings to the nationwide averages.

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That’s one of Peter’s favourite phrases. Being a self-taught website designer he encounters new problems every day which he has to solve. He’s learnt a huge amount over the years but still insists “every day’s a school day”, and so it is with lawnmowers.

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Isn’t nature a wonderful thing? If I was ever in any doubt, what happened yesterday would have changed my mind.

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Things have been happening apace here, so I thought it was about time for a general update. Now where shall I start? The weather perhaps.

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Whatever your opion of the monarchy, one thing’s for sure, we Brits certainly know how to do a royal wedding.

Good luck and much happiness to Wills and Kate.

You don’t realise how big something is until you come to cut it down. The old tree was a good example of that, but this time I’m actually talking about my buddleja globosa which is another casualty of the harsh winter.

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We love tomatoes and grow lots every year, and this year is no exception. We grow the plants from seed and germination is not usually a problem. In fact they are normally trouble free, but this year has been a bit different.

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