Wednesday 26 August 2015

Apple Walk Training

This weekend we've had Liz's Scarborough grandparents visiting, on their way down to Ludlow to visit her parents. It's been lovely to show them round the house and garden, as it's been a couple of years since they saw it, and it's changed a lot.

This afternoon, after they'd set off for Shropshire, we did a bit of work on the apple walk. I needed to add the next tier of wire (above the rebar 'hand rail'), and tie in a number of new shoots. A couple of the apples have now got past the new tier (the fourth), which is excellent, although they'll get cut back down to it in February, to prompt side shoots to break.

We also painted the sheds, which needed a top-up, but then rain stopped play, so we had to call it a day.

Preservatory Wall

I've been on my own at home today, and have mostly built the new partition wall that covers the wall with the workshop in the preservatory. The old wall is chipboard, held together with some timber slotted profiles, and isn't very robust, or sound-proof, or pretty. In theory, we could have attached plasterboard directly to it, and plastered, but the plaster would probably have cracked almost immediately. Instead, I've built a proper stud wall, which has allowed us to rehang the old front door from the kitchen (back from 2010) to go between workshop and preservatory, add electrical sockets, LAN sockets, and a second lightswitch, and hide pipes to go to a new radiator on the gable end wall. That's all taken all day, and rather a hard day, but it's almost finished. There's lots of plumbing, to connect the two pipes into the system (they're not connected the central heating) in the lofts; and the wiring is similarly isolated. Once the whole room has sockets, then I'll actually wire them into the distribution board, but for now they're dead: it makes working on them easier, as nothing needs to be disconnected.

Tuesday 18 August 2015

Preservatory

We painted the windows on the front of the preservatory and porch last week, and this evening I've done the ones on the front of the kitchen and utility room. That's probably all of the ground floor windows I'll do this year, unless any look like they need a touch-up. I also need to do the two in our bathroom, and the guest en suite bathroom; and check over the rest of the first floor ones.

Sunday 16 August 2015

Friends

It's felt like a pleasingly long weekend, as we had Friday off, and we've had visitors with us from mid-morning Friday until mid-afternoon today. Philip and Rachel arrived first, followed by David and Ann around 2200. Katherine arrived early morning on Saturday, hot on the heels of Liz and Robert (and children; the younger's just 10 weeks old, and very cute). They only stayed the day, but we managed to get outside for several hours (with barbecue), and without any children falling into the pond (or barbecue). I'd call that a success.

Everyone else left over the course of today, after what's been a very pleasant houseparty. We even came up with a new name for the garage (as it isn't, strictly, a garage any more, and was accommodating David and Ann). Henceforth, it'll be the Preservatory, because of all the bottled fruit, bubbling demijohns, and jars of jam.

We then set to chopping a load of firewood, as one was delivered during the week, which is now safely stacked away.

Sunday 9 August 2015

Floors

We spent yesterday morning in Haworth, where Philip and Rachel are staying this week. They're in a rather nice cottage on the main street, in easy reach of all the sweet shops (and less easy reach of, say, supermarkets). We went on a circular walk south to Oxenhope, then back,  taking in the river, railway, Three Chimneys house, and coming in to Haworth through the churchyard.

In the afternoon, we painted the garage floor. On Wednesday, we sanded it down, and I sealed the gaps between the boards, and it's now getting two coats of decking paint. This has the advantage of not needing priming, and being waterproof enough to mop, later, if we need to.

Today's been a day of sorting and tidying. The garage now has curtains, as well as a cleaner floor, and we've spent a good while in the garden. We've dug up all of the Lady Christl potatoes, which have done well, and replanted the space with various brassicas.

Sunday 2 August 2015

Berries

We've been away for the weekend, visiting grandparents in Scarborough. The weather wasn't great, so there wasn't a trip to the seaside, sadly, but we did manage to do a bit in the garden for them this morning -- clearing a patch of over-crowded day lilies (we pinched a few clumps for ourselves, which have gone into the holding bed at the bottom of the pond) and Japanese anemones (an anonymous blue-ish one; now in the long border). In its place went a rather nice fuchsia, 'Checkerboard', which was a present from a nursing home of which William used be chair of the trustees' board. We came home after lunch today, and have spent a few hours picking the soft fruit. It's been a poor year for gooseberries, with only one tub, but the currants have done very nicely. We'll freeze the blackcurrants, and bottle the red/white, as well as the gooseberries. There's a couple of weeks left, hopefully, in the raspberries, which we've been freezing, and the blueberries will probably start to ripen soon.

We think we've lost rather a lot of gold and green gooseberries to birds, which are able to get in through the chicken wire roof of the fruitcage (but not the 1" mesh walls). I think we'll get more mesh, and put this on top of the chicken wire: that way, the metal net can take the weight, but the knitted netting can keep the birds out. The nylon mesh, under the weight of snow, has ripped to a greater or lesser extent every winter, which is why we rebuilt the cage -- but if it doesn't keep the birds out, there's not much point.