Snow Joke

[Lilith]

Happy Equinox!

May have posted this before but anyway -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AvMrpPofFY

Mike Harding, January Man.

Here's to a good year for us all

[Ruth B]

And a Happy Equinox to you too.

I can't believe it is the equinox already, this year has been rather mad so far.

Christmas and New Year got lost with my Mum being in hospital in South Wales, then for Mother's Day she was back in hospital, fortunately this time in Wolverhampton. She seems to manage to time it for when there is snow on the ground so I'm wondering just what Easter will bring, hopefully not more snow and hospital visits.

All my four are happier now the snow has gone and they can get out into the garden, I just need to start getting out there myself, getting things sorted and the cascade back running, fortunately my fish hibernate over winter so as long I make sure the pond doesn't stay frozen too long they don't take any harm.

[bobbys girl]

I am always happier when Gardener's World starts again! Ruth - I wanted to have the pond Spring cleaned by now, but I can't do that when there is a risk of frost. The water is SO COLD I don't blame the fish for being so sluggish.

I was cleaning inside of the wheelie bin (car) today. As I was in and out of the house, I thought I'd just leave the door open and let the kittens out. I was in the garden on Monday and let them both out for a run around. Today they were zooming around everywhere! They were chasing each other AND Bob - until he had enough and batted Billy.

Fred is still the more timid, and runs for the house at the first sign of anything scary. It's turned cold now and they are back inside, asleep.

[alanc]

Tilly was able to go out and sleep in the sun for the first time in ages!

[Lilith]

Well guys, forgive me for necro-posting - but it's back!

The Wet Office (what a shower!) promise us heavy snow on Easter Monday, though no doubt there'll still be some bright and breezy chappie dancing about in front of the weather map, waving a hand in front of whatever's going on in Yorkshire (they never mention Yorkshire!) and promising us 'sunny intervals' (for a second or so) elsewhere. Send in the clouds ... oops I think I made that joke before ...

Traditionally, round here, on Easter Monday, you went to Heath Common Fair. Easter was either blazing hot or, like this one promises to be, in the grip of a beast from the east. Your teeth would chatter on yer candyfloss and your hands would acquire freezer burn from hanging on to the metal handles of the Noah's Ark. Heath Common's exposed. You always went though.

It's an interesting place - when we were kids there was the ruined Heath Old Hall, haunted, of course. A friend of a friend once saw a monk there, standing on a wrecked wall. Now everything's poshed up and turned into conference centres and bijou residences for the wealthy, but there's a traveller tradition and the common's dotted with black and white horses tethered to graze. There's a stone-built pub which has always had gas lighting and huge wood fires, only that too is gentrified and trendified now, alas and serves the sort of grub you might expect - 'confit of belly pork rind finished with balsamic vinegar and garnished with baby radish greens, carefully wilted mouldy rocket and octopus snot, accompanied by a splatter of glutton-free sweet potato in beetroot jus a la mode' ... oh yeah and the mini scrodfish steak with tartar sauce (sourced from responsible dentists we hope, or should that be sauced ...)

Round here a scrod used to be an undersized haddock (called a 'chat') that got sold for pennies, and very nice too they were.

(Shurrup Lil)

Would have liked to meet the monk though.

As always, good luck to us all if the snow hits

Oh and a little more music - vintage Sparks again - Never turn Your Back on Mother Earth -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haf5s0b--zw

[fjm]

Guess who is due to be on a motorway on Monday...! I am beginning to feel that whoever is in charge of the weather this year has it in for me - these days I rarely need to do a long run, but practically every one has coincided with a severe weather warning.

It is sure to be a foul weekend - I have just bought 6 bags of compost!

[Ruth B]

We've got a forecast of snow for Monday, but as the temperature is only getting down to 1C I have a feeling it will end up as sleet or rain, the Met Office do seem to err on the side of caution when it comes to snow.

The only ghost i've actually seen was one of a cat when I live in an old Georgian house, only ever saw it out of the corner of my eye when working in the kitchen. We did have cats, but when I checked there was none in sight and i could find them all curled up asleep somewhere. I once mentioned it to my Mother and she said she had seen it too. I've also had a few times when I have definitely felt 'something', hard to say what, but definitely 'something'. I'm not sure I ever really want to see one properly, though I don't think many are really out to cause a problem.

One interesting comment I heard once, in the UK when something weird happens we tend to look towards it being ghostly, in the US they are far more likely to look for a demonic influence. I think I prefer the UK option.

[fjm]

I have never known a cat yet that didn't eventually master the trick of appearing to be in two places at once, and walking through walls to get there! Who needs ghosts when cats can do it all so well...

[Lilith]

Fjm I do hope the Wet Office is going to be wrong - motorways are no fun even in the best of weather ...

Oh, ghosts. I could write a book about them, AND after rationalising, severely, before concluding ... ah well, another ghost. We share my present house with a Person. The minute I moved in, stupid neighbours had tried to scare me with stories of other occupants fleeing the place but the atmosphere is really benign.

Which resulted in my funniest 'ghost story' ... I used to have a large vivarium stack in my bedroom, in the days when I kept a lot of snakes (sadly missed.) I'd woken before to hear somebody moving about and thinking it was cats, raised my head to see the present gang asleep on the bed (and if there'd been a burglar they'd have been running about growling!) So on this occasion I just put it down to the Person ... but they did keep on, bumping and rustling about ... I got a bit irritated, and anyway, it was during the 'wee hours' so I got up and groped out of the bedroom by the light from the infra-red viv heater bulbs and visited the bog .. all was peaceful.

Then back in the bedroom I caught the culprit. A fat black and gold tail hanging over the top viv. Shahi! (My royal python, who I still have.) The little sod, somehow he'd forced a way out of his viv and climbed up to the viv of Surahi, a very pretty royal - quite a feat since a royal is a very portly snake. It was almost Halloween, the beginning of royal pythons' breeding season, and what I'd thought to be a ghost was in fact a lovesick snake ... oops maybe ought to rephrase that ...

[bobbys girl]

- Never turn Your Back on Mother Earth -

- Or she'll bite you on the bum!

fjm - 6 bags of compost? Ah, it's YOUR fault is it! Actually, I bought some last month, so it's MY fault - sorry!

I was out sorting the raspberry canes yesterday. Good grief, it was a cold (North Easterly) wind!!! It didn't so much go around you as through you! Perhaps that explains why the cold that has been just under my radar all week, hit me like a sledgehammer last night. Bloomin' typical, first cold of this Winter, and when do I get it?

Happy Easter folks.

[Lilith]

Hi Bobbys girl and Happy Easter

Oops I just bought 4 bags of compost ...

Ever remember Tiswas and compost corner ... COMPOST CORNER!

Hope you got the tooth fixed and that it's ok now.

Talking of dentists, I remembered that very funny story Ruth Rendell tells in 'The Minotaur' of a dentist who was dining out, when a patient (or should that be impatient as she couldn't wait to phone the surgery the next day) spotted him and came running across, mouth already gaping, pointing to the troublesome tussie ...

Dentist was unfazed, however. 'Madam,' he said. 'I am so relieved I'm not your gynaecologist!'

And the good news is - that though the Wet Office has been drizzling on about this snow scare, temps are up on Monday and they've decided that snow is off - only going to be (mainly) sleet.

Good luck to us all, though Heath Common fair may have to decide that the carnival is over ...

[alanc]

Tilly is not amused by the return of winter - she has just started shedding her winter coat!

[Lilith]

Ohhh nooo, got caught with her britches down?

You'll have to buy her a nice woolly vest - and then she can be your little vested interest ...

Never mind, temps are due to rise next week

[Ruth B]

The warning for snow today has turned to a warning for rain tomorrow, at the moment it is bright sunshine, but I doubt it will last all day but I intend to enjoy it while i can.

Only one bag of compost here, but a bag of farmyard manure, 3 bags of bark chippings, and 5 bags of gravel so I think I can accept part of the blame as well.

[Lilith]

We have a snow warning still but forecast of heavy rain only ... Time will tell.

Hey Ruth, glad you're able to enjoy your garden again, I know you had awful problems with pollution.

I have a little host of miniature golden daffodils ... aah the flowers that bloom in the spring tra la!

Oh and here is a little Simon and Garfunkel - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYD-DIggB2k

[alanc]

Hey Lilith, maybe I should make Tilly a jumper from all her discarded fur! At the moment, she thinks I make a good enough hot water bottle.
Fortunately the threat of snow seems to have gone - just replaced by downpours from 9pm.
My solitary daffodil that made it out for St David's day has had a few more companions during the month, but not as many as usual.

[Lilith]

I wonder why ...

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils.

But wait, I see a tabby tail,
Poking from the foliage,
I hear a scrabbling, scratching too,
Industrious paw performs outrage ...

And now a face turns to my gaze,
Smiling with pleasure and relief,
As thundering logs descend to kill
The last and lonely daffodil!

Willie Wordsworth would never have written that poem if there'd been a Tilly C in the vicinity ...

[Ruth B]

My garden is 'getting there'.

It was all dug out and replaced last summer, during which time I suffered with three very frustrated cats as they had to be kept in. The workers would have put it back the way it was, but I wanted something different so arranged for them to do the basics and I would finish the rest.

I went from a 250l pond to a 750l one, about half my fish survived being kept inside (much to the interest of the cats), I think those that did succumb suffered from the vibration of the mini road roller they had to use to level the garden and drive rather than the attention of the cats. They left me a nice mound of earth to use for the cascade and I got two tiers of the cascade in and the pump and filter fitted last Autumn. Its all run off Solar power so hopefully i can get it up and running again soon, I have an airline that I use when there isn't enough power on the battery for extended periods. It's surprising how good Solar power is for something like this even in this country, you just have to be prepared to pay for a good set up. The fish aren't anything fancy, just goldfish and a couple of small, hardy koi, as long as I keep the size and number of fish suited to the size of pond there isn't a problem if the pump isn't running 24/7.

My Cotinus and Pear tree got planted out last year, and i still have a few more plants to get in including my Pitcher plants to put at the far end of the pond where all the overflow water runs off (I can't get a pond level to save my life, one corner is always low) to make a nice little bog garden. The bamboo i have was planted right up against the fence and they managed to leave a small clump when they dug out the garden, so that should spread nicely and give a good screen, it gets to about 12' high.

There is a large area between the pond and the patio which is really just bark chippings with a few bulbs under it, they are showing green shoots, but haven't flowered yet, the bark chipping seem to be a favourite with the cats so that is mainly why they are there, and I just keep topping them up when they start to look too dug over.

Finally between the 'garden and pond' section and the sheds there is a narrow strip of gravel, I decided that there was no point have a thin strip of grass down, it would have seemed rather pointless.

As someone with a phobia of wasps and a fear of all other flying insects it does make planting a garden a bit more interesting, there are plenty of guides to planting to encourage insects but none for how to discourage them.

[Ruth B]

My garden (and my neighbours as they had taken the fence down) late last Summer. I certainly wasn't going to risk my cats anywhere near that type of machinery, it would be too easy for an accident to happen, and then there would have been one very squished kitty.

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[Lilith]

Yikes!

Haven't seen such devastation since the council 'regenerated' this area - thank heavens they ran out of money before they got to my back garden or I'd have been condemned to low flimsy railings and new brick and never been able to keep my cats in or intruders out ... ugly neighbour politics and bullying ran riot, as did lots of little jobsworths, many armed with little diggers, all with their own loud radios. It was disgusting and achieved very little.

Then they flooded us. In this video ignore the idiots giggling. Right at the start, see that white pub on the left ... I live downhill a few hundred yards behind it. The beck mentioned was deliberately breached by the police with a jcb to 'save the businesses of Wakefield' - the rotten lousy retail park is uphill from the beck. I put a notice in my window - 'Don't say Regeneration - say Degeneration!'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsi6BnGBAiw

So you have my heartfelt commiserations and I bet you're glad that THAT's over ... I wish you and everyone else a happy gardening year, but right now, in Wakefield, it's snowing, folks ...

[alanc]

It's at times like this that I'm glad I live at the top of a hill! Even the great floods of 2007 came nowhere near.

[Lilith]

Hi Alan, yes, that video was 2007 - must say we got off lightly compared with many people, but it was bad enough ... A while later, walking along a canal near the river Calder, I was shocked to see how floods from the river had hurled part of the towpath into the canal ... those cobbles must have been there since the canal was built.

Hey Ruth I forgot to say, for years and years I've been telling wasps to get out if they come into the house - and they do as they're told. I'm not afraid of them but I don't want a cat to 'play' with one. Then recently someone told me that it was a well-known fact - you CAN tell them to go and they will. Why this is I don't know ...

And there is a plant, nicandra physaloides, that is known as the 'shoofly' plant, that's thought to repel insects. It's an annual, very easy to grow, can reach a couple of feet, with campanula-like blue and white flowers and very ornamental seed pods. I googled it and learned it's allegedly toxic, but have grown it inside and outside the house and around cats with no ill effects. Apparently it tastes quite nasty.

Warmer now - perhaps spring has sprung at last!

[Ruth B]

I will admit I was really impressed with the workmen that did the garden, they were all polite and professional about it, not even a load stereo playing. It was a tricky job, 82 gardens on the estate had to be cleared out, some only the back garden, some like mine, back, front and drive had to be done. They even added a proper drain where the drive ends and the back garden starts that wasn't there before. Knowing what I wanted helped, and I only had a minor change after I had oked the plans, my other half suggested that as well as a line of paving slabs alongside the drive so we weren't always getting out of the car onto the grass (or mud in winter) a couple of extra ones by the pavement would give us somewhere to put the bins on bin day, they did the whole row between the garden and pavement in the end and it looks really nice, and makes mowing it so simple. It sounds like they had a lot of people constantly asking for changes while their garden was being done which did cause a bit of a headache as everything had to be agreed through the council before they could do it.

My finished back garden looks fairly bare, but it is what I asked for, and once I had all the stuff and the original shed back in it soon started to look more normal. i also added a couple of extra sheds early this year, one for me to actually use for gardening and one for my other half when he is spray painting his models, previously he had to wait for the weather to be good and do them outside. As you can see from the photo, our shed inspector had to make sure they were erected correctly.

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[alanc]

Lilith - the power of water in flood is often underestimated. In 2007, the downstream part of our town bridge (at the bottom of the hill where I live) was ripped off and the parapet stones, which weigh a ton each, were deposited over a stretch of several hundred yards downstream. Did the same to the next bridge downstream as well. Mind you, it wasn't all bad - it undermined the town bridge foundations as well. Took the Highways dept a few years to find this out, but once they did a 7.5t weight limit was imposed on it, which has stopped all large lorries from coming past - yipee! Highways dept promised they would repair the bridge "in the Spring" - that was 6 years ago! Strangely, none of us around here have reminded them of this promise!

[fjm]

Flooding can be terrifying - one of our favourite walks is along the river Lune at Kirkby Lonsdale. After the 2015 floods I was walking there, with the river back where it was meant to be 2 metres below the path, and realised that there was debris from the flooding in the trees way above my head. We had bridges out for at least 12 months - not easy when you live in a valley with limited crossing poits. It meant a 25 mile diversion for some local trips.

Warmer here, but still wet. Gardening put off for another day...

[bobbys girl]

Hi folks, if you thought it had been quiet in Fermanagh the last few days, it's because I spent all of Easter Day in bed with a humungous cold and a migraine to go with it! Sunday was a lovely day here - and I missed it! We had booked a table for lunch at a riverside restaurant in Donegal - and I missed that too!

Now I'm back to what passes for normal, it is persisssting down! To add to the hilarity my sister rang to say our cousin had passed away. He was my dad's nephew and the only person from his family that we were in touch with. When Judy married he stood in for my dad to 'give her away' and a few years later did the same for me. He was a lovely man and we will miss him. Hopefully he is now reunited with his wife (another lovely person) who died last year.

They say bad things happen in threes - no.3, I recently had a hair analysis done (concerns about mercury toxicity from so many fillings!). no evidence of mercury at all but my calcium levels would require another page on the chart! The accompanying diet suggestions would see me give up all my favourite foods (ones I thought were healthy) and go back to a low fat, high carb diet that I had given up!

I was really not a happy bunny when I logged on to CC but you lot have done it again. Alan knitting a jumper for Tilly, Lilith's poem, Ruth's garden - glad the sheds passed inspection. You have put a great big smile on my face that not even a dripping wet kitten can shift. Does anyone remember Judy's cat Georgia falling into the bath and the photo she took of the soggy moggy? Well Billy looks just the same. He has a new pastime, bird watching, outside, regardless of the weather and much to fireside loving Freddie's disgust.

Thanks guys! Now where's that soggy moggy?

[Lilith]

Wow Ruth, that's an improvement - love the pic of the shed inspector

Talking of sheds, Shahi python presented me with a beauty at 2 am - and went on to eat his first rat (frozen/thawed) for months (royal pythons fast all winter as it's their breeding season and their minds are on higher things, or should that be lower?) So spring has definitely started here. Glad your workmen were decent but still, a relief to see the back of them.

I was sitting in my living room the other day when there was a sudden tap on the door ... my plumber has a wacky sense of humour ...

Ohhh the floods. Quite frightening. But glad they've helped to bring more peace to your village, Alan. Fjm I hope you managed on the motorway ok yesterday.

Bobbys girl, so sorry to hear you've been poorly and about your cousin too but glad we could make you smile ... ohh lol, the soggy moggy ... and then they come in and spread themselves all over the kitchen counter or the keyboard or the pastel bathtowel or duvet that never quite washes the same, ever again ...

And why is it that when cats are so clean they leave a grimy stain everywhere they sleep? One of the great mysteries of life ...

[Ruth B]

Sorry to hear things haven't been going so well Bobby's Girl but glad we could help in a small way. Its an interesting comment about the fillings, i've a mouthful of them, most are getting replaced with white ones now as the rest of the tooth falls apart, but I'm sure there are still some left in there, no one has ever mentioned a possible mercury problem, to my knowledge as it is all mixed up in the amalgam it should be a problem.

I hate to think what my Calcium level would be like, I'm fairly sure that scale on teeth is a type of calcium that is secreted by the body and no matter how well I brush I always need a good scaling every 6 months. I also know i deposit it through my tears, when I first had contact lenses it was a real problem, the optician said that it is something that a few people do, and when it happens cleaning it off contact lenses is a bit tricky, it took quite strong cleaning solutions to do it, thank goodness for monthly replacements these days (I have considered dailies, but the contact lenses available as monthly replacements are better than those available as dailies, I can just about manage a pair a month).

I did actually take a picture that I thought showed the sheds better, but Saturn had wandered out of shot by that point so it never seems to get used, most people I know like to see him in the picture and it does look like he is giving them a good once over. I am thinking we are going to have to be really careful keeping those shed doors shut, there is a bench inside right at the bottom of the windows, and I think we can all guess what would happen to anything on that benck if a cat got in there on a sunny day.

Yesterday was nice here, at least to start with, I managed to get outside, sort out the battery, the panels and get the pump going for the fish (no sign of any yet they are all still sleeping down at the bottom of the pond). By the afternoon the weather changed and we had a thunderstorm, today its taken a turn for the normal and just back to steady rain.

[Lilith]

Never knew that about calcium ... Oh yes, of a certainty Saturn thinks that those sheds are HIS. Yup, heavy rain here today though no thunder. Still cold.

There used to be an old gardening saying about how potatoes should always be planted on Good Friday - in warmer times perhaps ... I think we're heading for the new ice age.

However I have faith in Shahi-python's shedding and eating ... now how to keep the skin safe from the dreaded Molly, who wants it as a new plaything, to drag around and rip in pieces, little horror ... when I have a nice long thin frame that it would go in perfectly ... better get framing before the shed gets shredded ... like Saturn she says that this is HER shed ...

[bobbys girl]

Ruth - that's what they say 'it's safely locked up in your teeth'. But it never truly hardens and over the years it leaches out. Mercury has a nasty habit of lodging in tissues, bit by bit over time. My old dentist told me off for not using fluoride toothpaste. Fluoride is a poisonous waste product from the fertilizer industry!

Lilith - the Good Friday thing with taters - and seeds in general, may have something to do with the idea that anything 'buried' on that day, rises three days later! wish that was so!

It has been pretty sunny here today, but, good grief, it's COLD! Still not feeling 100% so after tidying the house this morning I put a Discworld story on audio and sat on the bed, wrapped in a quilt supping tea - instantly surrounded by my three boys all vying for a piece of the quilt. Very cosy.

The girls are in front of the fire. Not like Spring at all out there!