Well that was a day!
Cold, but gloriously sunny. Kim drove us first to the recycling centre, where I was able to drop off the old kitchen stuff I've just replaced, the shell of the old lawnmower, and the metal frame of the old sunlounger. YAY! Cleared patio and hall.
And then we headed off to Almondsbury garden centre - a relatively quick and easy trip. Usually. Except that Kim, in a moment of distraction, managed to get into the wrong lane of the motorway and came off just past Easton.
'Not to worry' she says. 'We'll go the scenic route.'
And then we got lost in Bradley Stoke.
BRADLEY STOKE!!
There are no signposts in Bradley Stoke except to places in Bradley Stoke... and lots of spookily identical roundabouts.
It was scary.
But we did finally manage to escape, by veering off onto a road Kim thought she recognised...
Then we missed the Almondsbury turn... (though to be fair it was a narrow country lane and you couldn't see the signpost until you'd actually driven past it...)
Then we got stuck behind... well, I'm not quite sure what it was. Bigger than a tractor, and even slower moving. But he seemed to know where he was going, so we followed him while Kim entertained us both with her tale of how they and some friends drove down to Weymouth in the summer, in the rain and floods, and how her friend in the other car was having panic-attacks over getting trapped in flood water and how she freaked when a guy in a canoe paddled down the other lane of the road they were on...
So it was definitely a bit of an unguided tour, but we got to the garden centre in the end and it was all good. Feather now has three bags of Aspen substrate, a log she can hide under or sprawl over, depending on how she's feeling, and a fake fern (more for our benefit than hers, as it will make the viv look prettier. Although the assistant I spoke to did say snakes like variety, and new things in their habitats, or even just moving things around: it stimulates them and they enjoy exploring...)
Also picked up a pack of rat weaners for Feather and a pack of crickets for Rosa (but not chicks. Apparently there's very little nutritional value in chicks, along the lines of 5 chicks = 1 rat weaner). Three 50 litre bags of peat free organic compost (on a 3 for 2 offer) finished the shopping. I need to get the raspberries moved into the Very Big Tubs before the bad weather starts. Hopefully tomorrow if everywhere hasn't frozen.
After Kim had left after coffee Ken and I sorted out the garden loo - turned off the water, turned on the taps, drained the cistern and put salt in. Should keep everything OK til March.
We'll change Feather's viv on Sunday. There may be photos, if I remember!
Labels: Almondsbury Garden Centre, days out, Feather, friends
#
Joules *Dances with Haddock* Taylor
pontificated this at 10:47 pm
.
9 Comments:
I know my sense of geography is a bit wonky but Sth Gloucestershire sounds a long way from Bristol...
Excellent day! Getting rid of stuff ftw!
hmm... Sounds oddly like the last time we all went off to the garden centre. You know that weird thing you do to wristwatches? You don't think you have the same effect on drivers, do you...? :)
Of course! Explains everything [g]
... ummm... Well, if I do, it's only when going to Almondsbuty, and not all the time...
Lutra, Bristol nestles up to Sth Glos. In fact, I think Kingswood, where John Cabot Academy is, is actually in the county.
Well, there you go. The UK, in my mind, is bigger than it actually is. Probably a side effect of living in a country that takes a week to drive across.
Whereas you can drive from one end of the UK to the other in a matter of hours. We're - what? 800 miles? long? Well, OK, you could do it in a day, though you wouldn't have time to enjoy it.
How long would it take to drive leisurely around the UK? The main bits of it, at least.
GoodTwin would be better answering this than me, I think.
I really have no idea - I think it would entirely depend on what you might call the main bits, and how long you wanted to spend looking at them. :)