A Belated Thank You

Its a bit late in coming, mostly because I kept forgetting to down load the photos of the camera, but here it is, our tiled living room floor



So a huge, huge thank you to Richard and his Dad Rick, who both worked tirelessly for a week to get this done, thanks to Rick for giving up a week of his well earned holiday (and thank you to Rich's Mum for lending him to us!), I fear we may have ruined Rick's knees forever!
Thanks to Richard who spent months cleaning and dressing the tiles (I helped a bit, but Rich did the lions share!) then spend several days getting drenched trying to cut the tiles in a monsoon and gale force winds!



I also need to say thank you to my Mum and Dad who where kind enough to drive to Derby and back to collect 280 tiles I brought on ebay and thank you to Rich's mum for letting us keep them all in her garage (some of them are still there!)

I'm so chuffed with this floor, it looks beautiful and more importantly looks like it has been here for about 200 years!

Arrr only 2 more rooms to go before the ground floor is finished! I may need to give Rich and Rick 6 months to recover!

Finally, A Little Sun

Mmmmm, love the sun shine, was so nice to get in the garden and not need wellies!

We had a pretty busy weekend again, I finally got the pea frame dismantled and put away, I've been meaning to get round to it for a couple of weeks but I really couldn't be bothered to get drenched doing it!

Anyway this is what it looked like before



and here it is after some energetic digging over



and here's where I was starting to plant some more rows of carrots.



Thank god that's done, it was starting to look really messy.

One other job I have also been meaning to do was plant out a tree our neighbour left us when she moved out, I was a bit surprised when she gave me this pretty big apple tree which was squeezed in a tiny pot. I've been waiting to rescue it for a few weeks and it finally went into its new home down in our mini orchard on Saturday.

Now the fact that it was in such a small container had worried me a bit as although fruit tree don't mind being grown in tubs they have to be big enough to give them some room, here's the pot it was in...



I dug a good hole for it and put some compost in the bottom, then I tried to remove the pot. I have never see a plant more pot bound before, I also discover that this woman hadn't bothered to drill any holes in the pot for drainage, half the roots where rotting from sitting in this manky pool of water! It is at this point I should mention that I have promised my Mum I would stop swearing on this blog, so I wont tell you what I think of people like this!

Anyway, I trimmed the rotted roots and planted it with crossed fingers, I gave it a good watering and will just have to hope it makes it. It hasn't got a vast amount of room in our garden but anythings better than that pot!



Sunday was another lovely day and we managed to get out blackberry picking, something I've been promising Rich we'd do for a while. We came back with a huge tub and have since enjoyed a pretty good blackberry and rhubarb crumble and there's still loads left!



There's a hill near our house which is great for blackberries, and also has a fabulous view on a sunny day!





I hope next weekend is as nice!

The Tin Church Fete

Sorry for not posting for well over a week, has been madness here what me trying to find another part time job as I've jut been informed my current one will be terminated come October!! it never rains but it pours!

Anyway we had a really nice weekend so that cheered us up a bit, my sister Sal and her boyfriend Ollie came to stay, my sister is a jewelery designer (among other things) and has just finished her official web site which I am shamelessly going to put a link to as I promised her I would: Ollies Dolly!.
As is usual with most of our guests they were dragged out of bed on Sunday morning and forced to go car booting (as its been rained off for the last 3 weeks and i was get withdrawal symptoms!) it turned out to be a blinder and we came back with some brilliant swag (which i forgot to photograph before they when home!)

Then on to the main event of the weekend and the reason they had dragged themselves up the M4 in their complaining little car, the local village fete, know by everyone in Bath as The Tin Church Fete!

The Fete has been held every year for god knows how long in the little field opposite The Tin Church, the church is actually not a church any more (De-commissioned in the late 70's I think) and is now home to Graham, local artist and nutter who takes on the mammoth task of organizing the fete, all money of which gets donated to child line.



I absolutely love this old church, it's a bit of a local land mark, every couple of years Graham has to replace the corrugated iron which its made from with new as it rusts though, hence the slightly shinny looking roof and bell tower.



The lane runs between the church and the field so you do get the odd motorist who tries to force their way though just so they can us this local short cut, they usually get a fare amount of abuse for this!
As you can see they build the stage for the bands in front of the church, so everyone had a pretty good view.



Most importantly here's the bar called 'The Moon on a Stick'.



here we are making use of the bar...





Here's the first of the bands, I think they were called The Mighty Pea, although I could be wrong so don't quote me, I've never heard versions of Eminem, Greenday and Girls Aloud quite like it, they also some how managed to heckle the passing traffic while singing, they were brilliant!!



They where follow by Sargent Peppers Only Dart Bored band who where pretty good too!



Around 3 o'clock Samba Sulis, a local drumming band appeared to officially open the Fete.



They where joined by Lady Margarette (guy from the local theater group in a delightfully spotty dress and hat) who always opens the fete, this year she was carried through the field in a litter, last year she appeared in a replica of the Tardis (complete with sound effects) and the year before that she parachuted in then claimed over the roof of the church, to much applause!



Here he (sorry she) is abusing a chap who decided to drive his big blue van past just as she was cutting the opening ribbon, snapping it in half! that was some brilliant language and before the watershed too!!




Around 4 is the balloon release from the church tower, this involves Graham and volunteers filling the whole tower with helium balloons then opening the bit where the bell used to hang to let them go.





So basically a brilliant time was had by all, its so nice that this little village fete still exists and hopefully will continue to do so, although Rich's back may not recover from helping to put the tents up!

Returning To Weird Carrots!

Well I've been back for about a week but have been hampered by the weather and my own lazyness form taking any worth while photos.

I finally got round to it this morning when we had a brief glimpse of the sun (so dont be fooled, Bath doesnt always look this sunny!)



The Cauliflower plugs have been in about a month now and seem to be doing well, I am having to go and pick the caterpillars off them each morning put despite the odd wholes munched by them the little Cauli's seem to be storming along.

I put in some Broccoli plugs next to the Cauli's, again I feel as if I'm cheating a bit but with everything going on right now I haven't had time to grow stuff from seed so this will have to do. Lets hope the caterpillars leave them alone till their a big bigger and able to cope with the onslaught.



I'm pretty proud of the herb bed, its really filled out and everything seems pretty happy, it gets quite a bit of sun and I think the wall behind helps as it tends to store the heat of the day so they stay pretty warm all the time.



Something else I'm really pleased with right now is the raspberries, their huge! not bad for the twiggy stumps we were given the end of last winter. I don't know why I'm so surprised, this is the sort of thing Raspberries are supposed to do, as any veg gardener knows but I still find it terrible exciting when I plant some thing and it doesn't immediately die!



The Raspberries at All Golds but for some reason one of the off shoots has decided to produce red berries? I thing you can just make them out in the middle of the photo, is this something Raspberries normal do or is mine just a big freak?

Speaking of freaks, marvel are my wonderfully weird carrots!



I don't care, the fact that they grew at all was amazing, and they taste lovely.

That's it for now, hopefully another up date at the weekend with pics of how Rich and his Dad got on with laying the tile floor and surprise, surprise, here come the rain again...