The problem with colour blindness

I took this shot yesterday morning between the showers, after all the storms of the last few days they are still a few leaves hanging on the walnut. We have had a lot of rain but nothing like they have had in the North. Most of the rivers around her, principally the Great Ouse will burst their banks in the next few days, but this is normal and infact essential as it supplys nutrients to the fields or levels as they are known, I will get some photo's this year to show you.

As regular readers will know we are in the long process of decorating the house, well the current project is the staircase. The last stage of was to be laying a new carpet. Last Tuesday was the day, Sharron was away in Leeds when the man arrived to lay the bit on the landing at the top of the stairs. I chatted to him as he lay it it looked really good, if a little lighter than I thought it would, but the light at the top of the stairs is not good. Anyway when Sharron got back, excited to see the progress, she took one look and told me it was the wrong carpet. In fact when we checked with the supplier it wasn't even made by the same manufacturer! I felt a total idiot but in my defence my memory for colour is hopeless as is my ability to match shades of greens, browns and reds. we have painted part of the staircase Olive (I know this as it say's so on the tin) depending on the lighting it is either green, muddy brown or dark grey. Anyway the carpet people were really nice and are going to replace it soon.

I am a tennis widower again this week, Sharron is working as an official at the ATP masters at the O2 in London. I always miss her when she is away but at least I only need to turn the TV on to see her.

Spoils of toil

The 'in bloom' group (soon to be renamed) had designated yesterday morning to finish clearing the beds at the entrance to the village. This is part of a project which I am in charge of to regenerate the area. The major task yesterday was to remove a very large dogwood, we removed one a few weeks ago so I new what we were in for. Anyway it took me 2 hours with a mattock to get it out. Rather than dump it we relocated it at the back of the site behind some silver birches, I thought the winter contrast of the white trunks against the red stems of the dogwood would look good. Whilst I dealt with the dogwood Andy my colleague was clearing one of the herbaceous beds. As you can see from the photograph he removed a lot of plants. This is the barrow load that I rescued. It contains a hebe, several clumps of flag iris and a lot of euphorbia all of which are destined for a new home in my garden. All gardeners enjoy aquiring free plants so you can imagine how I felt taking this load home.

After all the high winds and rain of the last few days the house and garden appear remarkably unscathed. In fact the only damage I know of in the village was a friends flagpole snaped off within the tabernacle (the base of a wooden flagpole), I am please to say plans are already afoot to replace it as it is a bit of a village landmark.

A wet Friday

Greetings from a wet and miserable Cambridgeshire, as you can see the leaves on the Walnut are turning a lovely autumnal hue. The more observant will also see that the blue plastic bag that was stuck in the tree in spring is STILL there, although it is gradually breaking up.

Last evening I went down to London, Sharron was having a leaving drink as she is changing job's so I thought it would be nice to go and meet the members of her old team I hadn't met before. To get to London took about an hour on the train into Kings Cross and then I walked down to The Globe theatre on Bankside next to Tate Modern on the South of the Thames where they were meeting which took about 40 mins. I don't go down to London very often. Since we moved here 3 years ago I had always lived and worked there. Now when I go there I feel depressed, the noise , congestion, and just the taste of air makes me feel so lucky that we live where we do. It is strange how quickly you change, my pace of life has definitely slowed down and I just can't handle all that frenetic rushing about anymore, I just can't see the point.

Anyway when I got to the bar it was really nice to meet her old team and even nicer to find that several of them read this blog. I actually spent most of evening discussing gardening which was great. I was asked for suggestions on veg you can grow in flower borders when your not allowed to expand the veg plot, Swiss Chard for instance. I also suggested Cardoons to someone as an alternative to globe artichokes in a small town garden as they take up a bit less space. It was a lot more fun than the usual " and what do you do ?" conversations you normal get at these events.

Before I went down yesterday I ordered some plants for next year. My shopping list was:

6 x Allium giganteum
75 x Allium aflatuense (purple sensation)
12 x Kniphofia

and free with these come with

30 double daffodils
and
30 Pinocchio tulips

Which will sort out my spring window boxes

This forward planning is because we are planning a garden party next summer and I want to make sure the garden is going to look fantastic. I have lots of plans for plants I want to get and changes I want to make so watch this space.

I'm back. hen's and pots.

Firstly sorry about my absence from the blogosphere for the last couple of weeks, we both had some time off and have been working hard decorating our stairway. Not the easiest of jobs at the best of times as what seems to be a straight forward job never is in an old house. When you remove the wall paper huge lumps of plaster come with it and none of the door lock fittings are standard so you need to file them out to get the new knobs to fit (even the guy in the shop thought they were all standard!) The other interesting problem is how to paint the stairs with paint that takes 18hours to dry when you live with 2 cats and a dog? We did end up with a cat with a cream stripe up her side, quite fetching actually.

This photo shows you one of the problems with keeping hens, She is sitting in one of the planters I use for Blueberries. She has excavated down from the rim, removing the Blueberry in the process to make her own dust jaccuzi. So I have replanted the Blueberry elsewhere and left her with her new spot.


The late warm spell has been good for some of the local farmers allowing the rape to get a good start.


A lot of people object to fields of rape, but one advantage to fields like this one is that it attracts the woodpigeons away from my cabbages. This view is looking back towards the house across the grass fields at the bottom of the garden.