and contains flash photog... pix!

Can I remember everything that's happened since the last post? Let's see...

Kai ended up only going in for a couple more lectures, and took Friday off. I carried on tidying up. House is even less cluttered than before, and the greenhouse is now ready for this year's toms and cucs. Getting there!

On Saturday we tried going for a walk along the river, but Kai felt too poorly and out of breath to go far, so we came back and he chilled in The Forest for a few hours. Sunday was much as usual (manic) and Monday... I forget. Couldn't have done very much, I guess.

On Tuesday Kim drove over and we went out to Almondsbury Garden Centre for lunch and shopping. They now have a section for wildlife friendly trees, which I shall investigate more thoroughly next visit. I came home with about a ream of info on greenhouses - a polycarbonate one isn't going to be any good (they fly away in the wind) so I'm going to be going for a toughened glass one. A bit more expensive, but will last a lot longer. Haven't had time yet to look through it. Maybe next week.

On the way back we dropped into the Riverside Garden Centre, which is an absolute delight! Great selection of plants, terrific staff, and even better, they have their own hive - we watched over the wall as the early bees went in and out - and sell their own honey. I've reserved two pots: they won't be ready until September, so no good for hayfever this year, but should be good for next. Bought three wonderfully fragrant hyacinths on special - haven't decided where to plant them yet...

In the evening Kai and I watched the first ep of Childhood's End. I adored the book when I read it as a child, and this is shaping up to be an excellent adaptation.

Wednesday was Kai's BMT clinic. His blood counts are still stable, but we asked for them to take extra bloods for virology, just to check it is a bug making him feel rough rather than anything more nasty, and after the appt a nurse took throat and nose swabs too. Probably won't be anything to worry about, but having come this far we don't want to take any chances.

Afterwards, since the weather was so glorious, we took a ferry ride along the floating harbour to the Nova Scotia...

I'd planned to show Kai the Riverside Garden Centre (and pick up a couple of things I saw the previous day) but the old bridge - which was a vital short cut - is closed, and the long way round was a bit too far for the time we had. So we walked back along the New Cut

and Spike Island...

to the M Shed...

There is an easier, very pleasant walk to the garden centre from the M Shed, which we'll try to do next time it's dry...

This year's Masterchef started in the evening. I've never yet managed to try any of the recipes but I'm getting very good at guessing the winners!

Thursday involved a lot of shopping - in preparation for the Eostre weeekend - and the second ep of Childhood's End. Still excellent.

Yesterday Kai and I went to Weston-super-Mare, to take advantage of the fabulous weather before Storm Katie hits us...

Brean Down from Weston beach. Going to try to get there again in the summer, it's a gorgeous place but an awful lot of walking!

And Jazz's little brother was parked at Cadbury Garden Centre, Congresbury, on the way back!

Went into town this morning to Primark and Wilko (for bird food. My birbs are ravenous at the moment, must be nesting season...) In an hour or so we're taking advantage of Sky's current freebie: a month of free movies on their pay-for channels (presumably to tempt us into paying for them afterwards). We have or have seen most of what's on offer, but they have Inside Out (which all Kai's friends are urging him to see), Robot Overlords (looks dreadful but might be fun. Will have on while I cook dinner) and The Nut Job, which Kai wants to compare to another film he's seen, so this evening is pretty much planned out.

Sue, I only have one ep left of Will Shakespeare left to cover then I can send the DVDs back. Sorry it's taking so long. I am enjoying it, but will probably take it off my wish list now I've seen it again, despite it being Tim Curry!

It's Kai's second venesection appt tomorrow. Going to be fun trying to get buses there and back...

Labels: days out, Eostre, garden centres, gardening, greenhouse, medical matters, Weston-super-Mare

It's been a very good day. Fiona gave me a lift to the charity shop with six crates plus a few oddments and has offered to help me take the ancient stacking garden chairs to the tip sometime soon. We have our hall back!

My copies of the complete All Hail Megatron (all 496 pages of it) and the first two volumes of The Transformers arrived. This latter is the third ongoing IDW story (the others being MTMTE and RiD, which I'm already collecting. Yes, it gets frantically confusing (not helped by so many of the continuities having the same name: it's a pain when you have to check the dates to make sure you've got the right thing!) I have the third volume already - it's the one where Megatron is redesigned as a stealth bomber with a rail gun: I got the figure for Yule). I still need to get Vols 4 - 7 (8 and 9 are out later this year) but I'm not in a great hurry as it's going to take me a while to read All Hail Megatron first.

Then I went into town. To the bank. Where I handed over two cheques amounting to just under £29,000. Yes, our endowment policy matured! The mortgage is now paid (well, almost: there's another £4.5K needed for the second account, the one which would allow us an extra five years to clear it all if we needed, which is coming out of the drawdown tax free 25% from my BT pension. Should be able to get that sorted out this weekend). And I worked it out: to clear it on time, knowing the endowment was going to leave us with a pretty big shortfall, we've actually paid in nearly £23,000 over the last ten years as one-off payments as and when we could. This explains why we never had any money! We'll have a little more to play with now, although most will still go into the house. But YAY!! We did it! I've spent the entire day grinning...

I bought a bottle of champagne, a couple of weeks ago, to celebrate when it's finally cleared - Heidsieck Monopole Blue Top. I felt we deserved it. I'll post a photo when we open it!

Tired now and heading to bed soonish. Kai is poorly - there's swine flu doing the rounds at the moment and we think he may be fending it off. He's taken the last couple of days off, but is going to try to get in tomorrow, he has a tutorial he doesn't want to miss. Fingers crossed...

Labels: house, Transformers, YAY

Spring has sprung!

Frog-bonking is just about over - you can barely see the water for the frogspawn in Roeg's pool, and Kai's pool has a substantial amount too. And we have butterflies and bees and flahs everywhere!

All of my seeds have sprouted, and I've started hardening the seedlings in the greenhouse. Now really hoping the cold weather is over, as very soon I'll have to pot them on and they'll have to stay out there permanently!

And on the subject of the greenhouse... went out to replace the old cracked pane at the far end, to find that the triangular pane above it has now also cracked in two, and there's another crack in one of the new panes I recently replaced. I think the insane winds we've had may have twisted the structure. I'm considering replacing it with a polycarbonate one - they're quite reasonably priced on amazon, and virtually unbreakable. And once the wall is built (that'll be at the end of this year's growing season: we'll need to disassemble the greenhouse anyway to make room for the digger) I'll be able to place the new greenhouse right up against it, which will make it even more stable and protected.

In the meantime, off out now to tidy up and get the old one ready for this years tomatoes and cucumbers.

Labels: garden, gardening, greenhouse, Spring

I'd been worried that Kai wouldn't enjoy his 21st birthday (he's still fending off bugs and was feeling a bit rough) but he went in to uni, gave his maths presentation (which sparked an interesting debate about human consciousness!) and came home in a remarkably good mood. He liked his presents (and has worn the stag pendant today, really likes it!) and enjoyed the fajitas with tiramisu for dessert (his choice for dinner). So all in all it was a good day!

Labels: birthdays, Kai

It's been busy as usual. Sorted out the shed this week - the hall is now almost unnavigable with crates of stuff to go to charity. Going to have to get someone to ferry us there (or collect it all) as there's far too much and it's too heavy to carry.

I've had a nice day. Spent a lot of it on client stuff (behind now as spent so much time on the shed) but it was peaceful and pleasant. Kai gave me a lovely card and Lindor chocolates [g] (no, there's none left...)

And I can't remember what else has happened. Looking forward to a bit of a break in a few days, as the client stuff is almost finished and I can make a start on my own writing again.

We now have pairs of jays, magpies and long-tailed tits (who love the buggy suet cubes I've put on the feeder) resident in the garden. Well, regular visitors, anyway! And everything's coming into bud. And the hazels have catkins, which seem to be giving me hayfever already, which does not bode well for the summer...

Labels: birds, busyness, client sites, garden, medical matters