2024 - What I did today

A bit of a random scare today. Driving through country lanes, returning home from P's RSV vaccine, I encountered a vehicle coming at some speed on the wrong side of the road directly towards me. I had nowhere to escape to so slammed on the brakes. Luckily the errant driver sussed out his position just in time to pull over onto his own side. P's and my memory of what happened is at variance. P thinks the naughty car was overtaking, I reckon he had swerved over to my side because of inattention, i.e. looking at a phone. Just goes to show how unreliable witnesses are. It really shook me up, a second or two more and P and I would have been toast.

Glad you're OK, Scary moment. Do you have dash cam? I have one that plugs into the phone charging/cigarette lighter socket and rubber suckers onto the windscreen. Nothing hi-tech but its reassuring to have, just in case there should be an incident like yours today.

Glad you're OK, Scary moment. Do you have dash cam? I have one that plugs into the phone charging/cigarette lighter socket and rubber suckers onto the windscreen. Nothing hi-tech but its reassuring to have, just in case there should be an incident like yours today.

No, we dont have one, wish we had. P is looking into getting one. If nothing else it would solve the difference of opinion (not quite an argument).

P is slowly attempting to sand down and paint the wooden slatted fence between us and next door which we look out upon from the kitchen sink. It happens to be nextdoor's fence but her husband passed away a couple of years ago and there's no way she's going to attempt to do any upkeep of the fence. As P has recently refurbished our gateway attached to said fence he was planning to paint the fence to match. At one end of the say 12' fence is (was) a rampant winter jasmine taking over say 3-4' of the fence and growing up neighbour's wall high enough to be creeping into her fascias. The plan was to cut back the jasmine away from the areas to be painted to give P room to work. Having asked neighbour lady for permission, she says cut it down as far as she's concerned. So a pleasant day was had by the three of us, cutting, trimming and filling up the green bins with jasmine, which is now 3ft tall and rather bare. It'll recover, I've found you can't kill winter jasmine, it's very resilient.

Pulled up a lot of lemon balm and montbretia that were encroaching on the path to GHs 2 and 3.
Planted some Bekana oriental greens in 2 of the tubs of old GH compost, in GH2.
Did some de-brambling on the path between Strips 2 and 3, which is impassable at the moment.

Did some fencing around the post box bed.

Its Leaves week,Veg Plot 1 and Strip 3 - just so you know that I'm still doing this.
Sowed some rocket and mixed lettuce in some of the pots of old compost in GH2. Also dug up some beetroot baby plants from the GH bed and replanted them in the tubs. I have to move them so that I can empty the bed.
Had a good few hours around VP1 (the old pond) which is being invaded by brambles from the field beyond the fence (the fence I can't see). Also chopped back the passion flower which is running amok. A couple of years ago I thought it was dead.
Did some debrambling and de-hawthorning in Strip 3.
A really nice day for gardening - and drying the washing!

Dug out some rushes and weeds from the post box bed. Planted some foxgloves, white scabious & cranesbill. Also scattered a few more seeds (devilsbit scabious) around. Added another barrow load of wood chips. Strimmed around the cottage garden area. Put the recently acquired shelving into the little tunnel and levelled it. Started cutting things down that have finished.

Did some debrambling along the south fence in Strip 3 and weeding Veg Plot 2.
All was going well until I realised that Spud was missing! He'd escaped from the garden and was in next door. Luckily they're away at the moment so didn't hear me hollering for him. So my next job was to block up his exit (again). He gets out where the house garden drops down to the former chicken run, the ground level changes there and the fence doesn't sit right down to the ground, so Spud burrows under it. Norty dog!!

Dug some gorse out of the wild flower patch and planted lots of snakes head fritillary and bluebell bulbs in in the gaps. Dug out a patch of bracken from the edge of the tree area and planted ransoms. Then edged the spot with stone. So I can identify where they are in future when the grass ( and probably the bracken ) comes back. Did a but of re potting and pot weeding.