Gardening

I actually wrote this post last September but never managed to upload it... Oh dear...


I've taken up a new sport. Every morning I go out into my garden looking for slugs, then depending on my mood the unfortunate invertebrates either get the chop from the trowel or flung over the fence into the footpath behind my garden (and hope there's noone walking past at the time!).

The reason for the new sport is that I'm getting my garden in order. The grass has been mown and the hedges trimmed back as much as I can - the laurel is too tall for me to reach properly without help. I've been visiting garden centres and the Shrewsbury Flower Show as well to get ideas, and have now got a collection of plants to go in.

The first things to go in were a climbing rose (Golden Showers) and lavender along the north side of the garden by the shed. The day after the rose went in I popped outside to find a large slug nestled in one of the flowers. He was evicted from the bloom very quickly! Since then I've been going out every morning to sort out the slimy invaders - any that are too close to the flower bed get dealt with.

Other plants I've got lined up are four heathers of various colours and types and a cactus, whose name I can't remember but which looks a bit like an artichoke and has lovely yellow/pink flowers, for the rockery.

One more has already gone in, and that's another rose - a bush this time - called Jubilee Celebration which is pinky yellow and looks and smells lovely.

Next step is to dig out a post that's in the middle of where I want to put the rockery...

PC gone mad

What follows is a joke, but it really does seem to be the way things are headed sometimes... And if you can follow this at first glance, you must be a genius!

Politically Correct 23rd Psalm

The Lord and I are in a shepherd-sheep relationship, and I am in a position of negative need.

He prostrates me in a green-belt grazing area, and conducts me into lateral proximity with a non-torrential aqueous accumulation.

He restores to original satisfaction levels my psychological makeup.

Notwithstanding the fact that I make ambulatory progress through the non-illuminated geological interstice of mortality, terror sensations shall not be manifest within me due to the proximity of omnipotence.

Your pastoral walking aid and quadruped-restraint module induce in me a pleasurific mood state.

You design and produce a nutrient-bearing support structure in the context of non-cooperative elements.

You enact a head-related folk ritual utilizing vegetable extracts, and my beverage container exhibits inadequate volumetric parameters.

Surely it must be an intrinsic non-deductible factor that your inter-relational, emphatic, and non-vengeful attributes will pursue me as their target focus for the duration of the current non-death period.

And I will possess tenant rights in the residential facility of the Lord on a permanently open-ended time basis.

Progress of a kind - curtains

The house is moving forward. I finished painting the bedroom last night. Now I need to tidy up and get my curtain rails back up, make the curtains and hang them (hopefully shouldn't take too long because it's just sewing a couple of squares...) and then measure the room and get carpet and underlay. Oh yeah, and I need to get a couple of replacement floorbords as well because the gas man cut them up when he was checking the pipes hunting for a leak.

Downstairs things are looking ok as well. I need to put a couple of ribbons on the curtains to keep them hanging where they should be, and I'd like to get up a curtain pole over the doorway between the kitchen and the lounge. There used to be a door there, but it was a nasty sliding thing that filled half the gap even when it was closed, didn't fit properly and made a lot of noise. It didn't hang all the way to the floor either, so no good for keeping out draughts. (Was that the right spelling or should it be drafts? I think I was right the first time...)

Completed!

Just a quickie - I have completed on my house! I now own a house - I have keys, and a garden, and rooms, and carpets... but no curtains or curtain rails, a serious lack of furniture and a broken Yale lock...

More to follow on the progress of doing up the house :-)

And breathe.......

The last week has been crazy busy, moving out of my flat at the start of last week, only really finishing on Thursday, and then from Wednesday night I was involved in a really good show with songs from the musicals performed by an amateur group.

The show was proof that everyone knows everyone in a small town, as my estate agent was in the group and when one of the performers' brother showed up with his girlfriend I knew her as well!

After the final night on Saturday we did kareoke with the live band and I got up and sang 'I Will Survive' - that's another thing crossed off my list of things to do before I'm 30 :-)

No fixed abode

Well, the flat is completely clean and tidy, very empty, vacuumed, swept, and steam cleaned. Most of my worldly goods (I like that term - I've always wanted to find an excuse to use it!) are in boxes in storage either in my parents' garage, my pastor's shed, and in the back of church. Some boxes and some bits of furniture are in the back of a transit van waiting for me to find somewhere to put them, and I'm staying with Steve and Brenda, and Gertie the dog - friends from church.

It's a bit strange not having a home address at the moment. I just got a call from my Mom to tell me my mortgage has been approved, so it shouldn't last too long, but it's surprisingly relaxing. It was a lovely drive into work today through the countryside, and it was nice to have a bed to collapse in knowing that I wouldn't have to worry about doing any more cleaning or clearing for a while!

The only down at the moment is that I dropped my phone down the toilet on Friday (I can give you details but you might not want to know!) and my new phone isn't working yet. It wouldn't be so bad, but it's the only way for people to get hold of me at the moment, so although my mortgage was approved yesterday Mom couldn't get hold of me to tell me before today!

Boxes everywhere

If I've seemed a bit quiet recently it's because I'm moving house. My flat is full of boxes (17 at the last count), every room has got things turned out of drawers, piles of things to pack, and things to take to charity shops and recycling bins...