2000

 This is my 2000th post, I started this blog, way back in February 2009, Just a simple post, my eldest daughter helped me to start, who knew it would still be going 13 years later.

Somerset House, it was the story of my dolls house, I no longer have the house, but I do have a few miniatures around my office, just small rooms. I have left this blog open, as I do like to look back on everything I made. As with all my crafts, I changed so much on the build of the house. 

One day in the lens was to record my photos and the course we did on how to get the best from our cameras. This is the smallest of my blogs, I did hope to keep it going with just 1 photo a day, but Instagram has taken on that role, which sadly I still don't post every day. 

I have 10 blog books, the first 2 years are in one book, I have not printed 2020 or 2021, I do hope to have them sorted this year, I was going to stop at 2020, but world events changed my mind, and I will print a few more years, it is hard work, but it's fun. 

I still love blogging and bloggers, we are an interesting group, so many subjects to follow, my blog has always been about family, craft and gardening, each post has labels, so I can look back to see how things started, changed, I also love to look back on our grand children, 8 boys and Molly. The topics have stayed the same but my knowledge and outlook has changed. Being retired has also changed me, I was dreading having so much time, but in truth I am loving life, more time for all my passions. 

Thank for your good wishes for George, he came home on Friday, daughter has a phone number to call our local hospital department direct if he starts going blue again, this would bypass A&E and get him the best treatment quicker. Hopefully he will have his follow up appointment soon to see if his tonsils need removing, it so good to see him smile again. We are planning a very quiet weekend at home together. 

Summer time

We are using the earth's resources faster than our planet can replace them, each year our overshoot day gets closer to the beginning of the year. Some people don't care, others don't know, we try and use anything we own for as long as we can, we stopped purchasing items just because we liked them. Our consumer world gobbles up resources making things to sell which we don't need, we sadly live in a throw away society. 

It's time for my summer displays, here on the kitchen window this jug is full of sweet peas, I can't grow them in my garden, but these silk ones are just as pretty, sadly no scent. I have had these flowers for a few years.

My tulips are now packed away, this mixed bunch has everything I love, it sits on a small table just inside our patio doors, again these are a few years old. These days I don't spend any money on cut flowers. I have on our dining room table a glass bowl with plastic lemons, limes and oranges, again they always look good and are years old. 

This orchid has bloomed for months, there are 2 stems and still loads of buds, they are the perfect pot plant for our sitting room. I do have a few orchids and when they finish blooming, I use a silk stem until the flowers return, because the leaves are real, the flowers look real as well. Silk flowers are a perfect way to keep blooms in your home. 

I could not get the cucumber seeds from Thomson and Morgan, our garden centre no longer sells their seeds, so I got this pack of mini munchies, I have popped 2 seeds in to see how quickly they grow. The cost of seeds is horrendous, I paid £4.25 for 5 cucumber seeds, how crazy is that. These seeds with a packet of Californian poppy seeds cost £11.19.

We have not done much this week, we have had Molly most days and collected Will from school, George is back in hospital, his oxygen levels keeps dipping, they give him oxygen and he's well and then a couple hours later he starts to turn blue, they have kept him in for 3 nights, their thoughts are his tonsils are enlarged and when he tries to rest, they part block his airways, he is going to require oxygen at night until they can resolve this. We are both tired, nothing has been done, not that anything other than good health matters. 

I have been driving most days the 8 miles to daughters house and Will's school, it's the other side of Fareham our local big town, I love driving and have never been bothered where ever I drive, I used to drive in London often. BUT recently I have noticed so much bad terrible driving, I'm not a slow driver, but so many people want to push in front of my car, last night at 9pm I was driving home, I was cut up by a car with a 'P' plate, whose driving was terrible, to fast and aggressive, he went into the left hand lane me into right as I was turning. I watched this car for a while, just keeping an eye on him, as we got to the roundabout, the car in front of the P plate, swing into my path to make the right turn, totally in the wrong lane, no indication,  how I missed hitting him I don't know, the car behind me had left a gap and managed not to hit my car, 2 idiots in one journey. It would be lovely to say this is not the normal behaviour, but that's not the case. 

Herbs to flowers

 Our herb garden has evolved, when we moved in this space was decking and in a state, I started popping pots here to cover the messy base, This was back in 2009, we were still sorting the house, so we did not have much time outside. I had a grow bag here as well. 

We decided to remove the decking planks, leaving the frame for a small garden, this was in 2010, we tried for many years to grow things in this space, it was not big enough and it was not a success. Too many cats digging up my veg made us not want to eat anything. 

 I then decided in 2016 to make it into a herb garden, using pot tops to keep the herbs tidy and slate around them, it worked much better, but often I would look at this space the herbs are good, not many plants here, but it was tidy.

It stayed this way for years, but lots of the herbs did not like our clay soil, many died each wet winter, I also have herbs in separate pots as they are too invasive to plant in the ground, these days we hardly pick any of them. This is how it looked before work started.

Firstly I picked off most of the slate, it been added around the acer and Magnolia trees, I removed the membrane, it's not worth keeping, I have dug out the herbs and potted some of them, the rosemary and the garlic both were binned, I took a couple cuttings from the rosemary. The small bay tree is now in a big pot, the bird bath is staying. 

Still loads to do here, I have added more manure and top soil, should now be perfect for planting. I have placed loads of bulbs from my big black tub, these should be OK planted 'in the green' and come back next year, I had a couple forget-me-nots to help fill gaps, a small hellebore as well as some nerines, which I love. There is a buffer zone of slate at the front, helps with plants which flop and the slate links the sections both sides. 

All this because we moved our bench and sit with our morning coffee, looking at this bed, hubby has never enjoyed the herb bed, as I have said before, the garden is never finished, luckily we did not want too many plants, I did get some packs of bulbs and corms, half price, they won't grow this year but will be OK for next, a few packets of seeds, we did get a rose and top soil. 

It's raining again.

Aquilegias around the garden, so many lovely colours, these have self-seeded in many beds, I do love the pure yellow or white ones, they are all very tall this year. 

I have not shown many photo's of my Peonies, my big plant in top photo, is my best plant in the garden, I have had it for years, it came from our childhood house when mum moved. It is full of buds, which have stopped growing, I have done nothing with it, but I do think this year it's going to fail to flower. I have 2 other much smaller plants which are growing well, neither has yet to grow buds, I'm OK with that I can wait. 

I have done more squares on this, I find it very relaxing to make, I am now just over the half way point. I love these cooler colours, all the outlines of the squares are finished. 

This book was on the thriller desk at the library, I have never read this author before, so it was a random choice, it's a good story line, but the ending was all set out, no clues along the way, a good story not a great one. Book 43 read this year. 

Hubby was out last Saturday for a fundraiser, and purchased this book marker, it is very pretty and the lady who stitched it has lovely neat tiny stitches, I will try and keep it clean, it does look much nicer than the big wool band I was using. 

I have had this book for ages, I want to increase my knowledge on our native trees and wildflowers, I could have used it on our walk last Friday, it's by my chair for now, I might pop it into my camera bag. 

The heavy rain has stayed with us, Sunday was a washout, we did not leave the house, Will played lovely all morning, he did not stop eating, he is a growing lad, up rather than out. I spent the afternoon stitching, and then later reading. We moved the cats baskets from their place near the patio doors to the back of the dining area, away from the promised thunder storms. I got up twice in the night to check they were OK, both times they were snuggled in their baskets, the thunder and sheet lightening was very close and very bright and loud, the rain again was very heavy, luckily we do not have issues here with flooding, I was worried the rain would damage things in the garden, but in the morning, everything was good. 

Monday was a dull day more like October than May, I had loads planned but the grey skies hung on, I did spend 2 hours outside, the new bed has been sorted, I have already planted the bulbs from the pots and our new rose, until rain stopped play. I did waste a few hours on here, just relaxing and reading new to me blogs and some housework was done. I am happy to see so much rain, we do live in a dry part of the UK, so to have all this water at the start of our main growing season is good, and I won't need to water the garden for ages, just ensure my pots don't dry out. I am always happy at home, I can find things to do inside and out, and can lose hours reading I am a book worm. 

Today we are meeting in our village café for coffee about 8 of us, should be fun, then I hope to pop to a garden centre, I want a packet of Thomson and Morgan seeds, which they sell, hopefully they will have what I want. We have blue skies again and it should be lovely and warm.