(Monday, 18 and Tuesday, 19 May 2020)
The problem with skipping a day of writing my updates is that I seem to end up with the problem of see-sawing between having too much to tell you and then brain freeze, where I can’t think where to start. 😂
This is probably partly because when I went out for my walk with the girls, I took 82 photos… 82!!! Mark also took some great pics of his work in the garden and the dogs and then add to that some of the lovely group and individual photos I was sent by our team designated ‘Selfie Queen’ and I am spoilt for choice.
As a group that walks/skis/socialises together we have discovered that for the most part we are utterly crap at selfies. For example, I have numerous pictures of the top of my head with the group in the background. 🙄 When the Selfie Queen is in attendance, we get great photos… of ALL of us. The girl has skills! 👍 😂 👑
I think the solution might be to include a few of the pictures in this update and then make a separate blog entry for the walk itself, including some info on location, maps and stuff. It might be useful (or even interesting) for some people to have a more detailed entry on it than I can fit in one update. It really is one of the most stunning walks and deserves an entry of its own!
Whilst I was out expending equal amounts of energy walking and nattering, Mark was working in the garden here, mowing, strimming and edging. When I walked back up the drive to the house much later in the day, everything looked picture perfect as a result of his efforts. It was a lovely way to return home! 😍
We both spent the next day in the garden again. Mark was working on the newly straightened and improved steps and path in our garden, filling in the gaps in the slabs that had appeared over time or been damaged by the heavy snowfall of the previous winter. I started on planting out the balcony plants… finally!! It’s become a bit of a labour of love since it seems our compost and containers have been contaminated by the dreaded vine weevil. I’ve had to pull everything out and either replace the soil or sift through picking the little sods out.
Sadly, we’ve lost a lot of plants including one of the rhododendrons that I’ve mentioned before, but also the beautiful clematis that climbs out of a barrel and up over the wall on our front deck and entrance. I picked out 48 large weevils from the barrel alone! I lost count in the end, but it was somewhere way north of 60 in the end and I haven’t finished yet. 😢
I’m deploying a few techniques that I found online to deal with this and hope that the combination will adequately cover the problem. Firstly, pull all the soil out, sift through it and pick out the grubs. Secondly, lay out the cleansed soil on a windsurfer sail on the ground and let the birds do their thing. I guess any groundsheet would do, if you don’t happen to have a windsurfing sail to hand 😜
Thirdly, put any plants that may have a chance of survival in a bucket of water, covering as much of the plant as you can and leave them there for a minimum of 12 hours… apparently the little critters can’t swim. 😉 Finally, replace the soil, plant up and water with nemotodes. Technically, you should dispose of all the plants and the soil but we don’t have that option, so I’m hoping that this will work. Time will tell, but I have everything firmly crossed that this will do the trick.
Needless to say we were a bit tired and achey after all this physical effort, so I think we actually managed one of our best night’s sleep in a while! Just in time to get up and start again! 😂
Stay safe everyone xx
