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alp

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Yes, Perki. It's not even the car accident that annoyed me. It's the way he went quiet. He was sent back my met police and I think his car must have hit black ice. He told me he wanted to change lane to avoid traffic jam and then he's in a pickle! He told me the BMW police car registered -1c.

Glad that you sworn your bike. It's every parent's nightmare. Don't ever buy a Nissan Note - no ends of trouble. I had paid nearly £200 for all weather tyres x 2 last year. Might be cheap to buy the car initially, but had to fork out more money every time we had an MOT.

Now I know what the Chinese fleabay seller sent me

Hamamelis seeds instead of bird of paradise. I got a refund. But I didn't really know what they had sent me.
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One more cold day and we're in for some rain! After 3 half days' solid work, I was totally useless yesterday. Took some forthya double cuttings, some peachy rose cuttings. Collected some pyracantha seeds. Sowed some more sweat peas - Kingsize Navy blue and trimmed off the other half of the straggly sweet peas.

I think I'm going to wear 2 pairs of trousers and dig out my woollen socks, albeit with a hole, from M&S and put them on top of my filmsy ones. Please keep warm, safe, and stay away from horrible coughs!

Greyparrot sent me her first hellebore Lily! Well, I don't even know where mine has gone!
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This was 2 or 3 days ago! Wow!
 
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Very worried. Son usually home 7.30 and now it's 22.25. No news at all. I'm worried sick!
Glad he’s safe and sound I have 2 sons and one daughter all flown the nest now but had plenty of sleepless nights and worry when there were at home .afraid you never stop worrying about your children.
No frost today and seems warmer and dry for a change.
 

alp

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Wish I had that many children. Was very relieved, but he could have told me. Think it might be warmer up north, for a change. Not too sure I want to see rain just yet. Trying to buy some veg seeds even though I have had a whole box of them. Madness!

Watched TV and they said that Silver Birch fights pollution very well. Stupid of me not to buy that 7 feet tall Betula?? for £10 in Wyevale. Wasn't that educated (by tv experiment) at that point. Then I thought of buying seeds. Walking around B&Q, decided to harvest some, and a bit of pyracantha seeds. It might take years and I might be dead :banghead: .. Er, no! Mary Berry is starting a new garden and she is 84o_O. I'm young compared with her:cat:! Though a deep pocket might help. Er, no! Resourcefulness is what I have always been proud of!:unsure::inpain::cry:
 

alp

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Seems to be my turn to have the cold again. Had half a lemon juice yesterday. Lemsip and Strepsil are doing a roaring trade. In the supermarket, a young man had the most sonorous cough! Need to take some paracetamols to fight the bug. A lump of mucus has just been dislodged.

Yesterday was a tad warmer. Planted out the wallflower (self seeded in the allotment) in the front, Also a euonymus. Fleeced a bit of cutting and pressed the branches down and now I have 4 plants with roots.

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Exactly like this! Very pretty. Hopefully, I will build up a hedge to fight pollution. Took some buxus cuttings, some rose cuttings. Not very keen on this buxus as it has golden edges. I like the flower/fruit of the other one. But £1 to £2 for a whole tray of 6 or 8, nobody could argue with that.

I planted the wallflower and euonymus next to each other and hopefully, I can get some colours at the front. Saw Charlie Dimmock make a pond yesterday. We do have some very good gardening programmes.

Saw this beauty on the fence yesterday
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By the time I had got my camera, it disappeared. Very annoyed. It was bright yesterday and I had 2 pairs of trousers and socks. Didn't want to be totally useless again.

Wonder why snacks you guys have to cheer yourselves up around Christmas: We had already devoured a whole bag of KP peanuts, and a bag of cribbed crisps. On the temptation racks are Ferrero Rocha, Wether sweets, KP peanuts, Walker crisps, a whole duck from Asda, a beef joint from Waitrose, Pringle Sour Cream crisps, a bottle of Peri Peri sauce Medium and possibly a meal trip to Nando. My biggest challenge is NOT to open the box of Ferrero Rocha as once opened, I will finish the whole box in one go.

Might go and buy the Chamaecyparis lawsoniana x 2. Might go and buy those left behind. They had 3 standards at £12 and they had all gone! o_O :cry: :banghead: I bought one normal boring one for £3. Normally, I'm scared of trees even though it's not a Leylandii, this one was supposed to be planted right at the back. But watching Joe Swift in his Tree revival and saw this couple who actively controlled their trees by pruning them, so I can do the same.

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This is such a lovely garden. So amazing and it's teeming with trees and shrubs. They just pruned them so that they didn't grow big or tall. I aim to plant my cone buxus before it dies on me in the ground. I will actively copy this picture.

______________________

Britons should EAT grey squirrels to keep population numbers down and stop them killing trees, says Forestry Commission boss
  • Sir Harry Studholme said growing more trees is vital to curb climate change
  • But Sir Harry said it was being hindered by the grey squirrel which strip bark
  • He said if other control measures fail we should cull them and use them for food
+++++++++++++++

Would you eat a squirrel? If I could eat it, I could save a lot of money. I saw 5 a day, up the wall, on the top of my broken fence, even on my grass root ..
 
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Morning all my cold is over the worse they seem to last longer ,very jealous that you can still garden this time of year alp I have finished now until spring just too wet ,Yes Christmas a tub of roses and quality street gone mince pies and the better half’s tester Xmas cake, as originally from Yorkshire always have Xmas cake with cheese .Got Decembers gardeners world mag for the free Calender also got free 2020 year planner which is good different supermarkets seem to have different versions with different freebies.
 

alp

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Morning all my cold is over the worse they seem to last longer ,very jealous that you can still garden this time of year alp I have finished now until spring just too wet ,Yes Christmas a tub of roses and quality street gone mince pies and the better half’s tester Xmas cake, as originally from Yorkshire always have Xmas cake with cheese .Got Decembers gardeners world mag for the free Calender also got free 2020 year planner which is good different supermarkets seem to have different versions with different freebies.

Reading your reply whilst coughing and the nose is telling me something. Had a lovely banana and 2 paracetomals. Here we go again. Glad that you're over the worst. Chocolate fest for all of us. I must get one 2020 calendar planner. I must go big. I saw Monty standing next to a whole swathe of echinaceas and realise that my ambition to grow things en masse is just a trickle.. I need an ocean! Now the nose has just started. I blame my son.. on top of that, we have no car! :cry: o_O Thank heavens he's safe! It took him an hour to come home last night. Lesson needs to be learned. But still, nobody has been injured and that's the most important thing.
 

alp

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Yes, I'm still gardening. I was actually feeling hot yesterday around 1 to 2 pm.The sun was shining and I had layers. Planted out a red/pink magnolia which looked rather sad and budless. Also finally put to soil my tiny Cornus Controversa Variegata. At some stage, I might have to dig it up if I moved. Separated 2 clumps of irises and they now are in 8 pots. Today, I will move...

Laptop went black again, TWICE! Disconnected power and internet and hopefully it will stay o. Nuisance.

Very cold in the lean to - only 8c even with intermittent heating on. Can't use the paraffin heater as it's too stinky.

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I prefer sunshine to rain, but if I can have rain whilst you lot are spared, I don't mind. Unfortunately, rains like NE and NW! Hope there will be no more Fishlake or Mallard Field saga!

I will move my buxus to the front and build up a hedge, just to stop the pollution a bit. When the tulip bulbs go cheap, I will buy them and plant them outside in the lawn, as Sarah Raven did in Lawn episode yesterday.

I, too, have wet and slippery lawn, but the borders are higher up and I'm struggling whether to level the lawn or not. Any way, I will but 3 raised bed frames somewhere for planting vegs and some circles for flowers. When the temperature is higher tomorrow, I will sow some broad beans direct. I have already had 4 or more outside, but I can plant more when I fashion a cloche. I am going to sow onion seeds - Utah big Spanish onions and some Red Baron today. I do like onions, including spring onions, but yesterday, I had to stop half way cutting the onions. Son loves Aromatic Duck and raw spring onion is a chief ingredient. Tears welled up half way and I had to do something else. We also had a raw white onion. Love it in kebab, but felt horrible when I was given so much and remembered all the horror stories about kebab when I ate them. Had one 4 months ago. The last one was a chicken one. But really, I'm worried about what's in it!
 

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Very cold this morning. Icing on top of the rudbeckia flowers .. No sun!
 

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Have now a bit of a cough! Last night was a bit windy, but not windy enough to fan the incinerator.
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Rain predicted. Don't expect much gardening today.

Planted out a double Syracuse hibiscus, the Deutzia Magicien, and a clump of buxus in the front and I can now hear the rain. Great for the planting yesterday. Also planted out a white tree peony. Removed 2 eryngiums to a hotter place or just leave one in pot.

Rain is with us, AGAIN!

Missed this double hellebore and it has now passed its prime!
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Raining here on and off but its warmed up.

Glad to hear your son ok alp how the car ? I love mince pies over xmas or more precise I've been eating them since October .
Glad you reminded me about the calander Zenji I get one every year totally forget this year.

Not working today can't be doing with working in the rain and wind, my work jacket still soaked from yesterday.
I've got some verbascum to pot up and some phygelius I saved from a job a couple of days ago, so may go and pot them up in the GH.
 

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Thank you for the heads up, Zenj. I walked to Asda and there was a calendar, but not the year planner. Went to Smith and still no planner ... and I kept remember Zenji's various packs ... until I looked up and saw a bumper pack. Perki: If you want the bumper pack which will set you back under £8, you will need to go to WHSmith.

Couldn't wait to look at the planner and so had a look. It's more like a magazine with ads, of course! I will use it as a blue print or use google calendar to remind me what to do.

Phygelius are very tough beauties. The are doing so well in my allotment plot. This year the Verbascum tall yellow fella hasn't visited me. :unsure: :cry: So nice to have a free plant coming out of nowhere. Talking about GH, my friend is waiting for me to give him a quote. But I don't really turn my house into a worse ghetto. It already is!

Definitely no gardening too. It was too soggy to clean the chicken coop! Lazy people have all sorts of excuses!;)
 

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Glad that you love mince pies, Perki! Wonder if you like chicken, or turkey? I myself love duck, chicken, lamb and beef. Pork is OK, but not so good as the others.

The car!? Phoned up the company and was told that it was too late for them to have a look at the car. 3.30pm when I phoned. I dropped a hint that we needed the car for Xmas shopping. No luck, The woman said she could not guarantee the car would be repaired before Xmas. Charming!

Ceo's staff called and hopefully he would speed things up a bit. It's was tiresome - given so many options and you held on the guitar music, interpersed with hope-inspiring ring tone and then guitar again! Instead of hiring people to man the phone, they pay facebook or other silly social media money for their PRESENCE! Ah, there is now tik toc! My blood boils! All this dumbing down! Why don't they hire real people to man to the phone and connect us to the right extension. Any way. turned out to be wrong options! Here we went again. After serious beseeching tone of the man to ask me to stay on, I stayed on! What else can I do? Then music, then ring tone, then man begging me to stay on again. Every time I heard the ring tone, I got excited, for NO reason!

It took me 40 minutes to talk to another human and we finally sorted out a claim reference. I was told that the car was old and might be scrapped. She also told me that there might be more serious trouble as the car could not be reversed out. Not just the front bumper scratch as my son indicated. All up in the air! I don't care as long as my son hasn't knocked anybody down.. Terrifying! Son said that he wanted to use the bike to go to town and back and save £3. I told him not to bother as all these stupid Black Friday, Manic Monday, .. deliveries are going to put a lot of people under undue pressure. Not the woman singing "Everybody needs somebody ... " relaxed deliveries! I blame the councils for removing car parking in the town centre. They even made a video extolling their generosity of free parking on Sundays. A lot of small businesses are going to be killed off. We don't even have the luxury of half an hour free parking. Online companies don't pay these crazy business rate and yet small shops do. One lady was in tears as she only raked in £12 for one whole day. Not enough for her to feed herself, not to mention business rate!

Whoa! I do sound like a grumpy woman! No gardening today and the worktop has been partially scrubbed. Watched Herbaceous border and kitchen garden. Suddenly saw Old Court mentioned and now it rang a bell as I bought some snowdrops from them two years in a row. Lovely asters they have. Need to buy some Eupatorium seeds, but they only do plants and the smaller ones... umm Where's my resourcefulness!? Even saw Thompson and Morgan in yesterday's programme!
 

alp

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6 paracetamols yesterday and a bit of vapour rub under the nose and on the throat. No cough and slept easily. A bit of cough, but much better than expected.

Got a chicken for roasted dinner tonight. Will be a lovely day?

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Hopefully, there will be more sunshine than that. Got to sow onion seeds. I freegled some aquarian stones which were blue and green and had sown some Romneya coulteri seeds under these colourful stones. As soon as I had done that, I realised that I wasn't very clever. Now a tentative green leaf? or stone had come up and I had to touch it to see if it was a leaf. Well, it is! I hope I have done killed it. I'm so daff!

Another stupid thing I have done is that I had planted the evergreen ceanothus Puget AGM on the south/east facing fence and I realise that I should have planted my fruit trees there. I'm so torn. Leave them in the pot or plant the fruit trees out?? I have all sort, pears, plums, apples, peaches and yet they are all in pots and will never perform as well as they are in the ground. Also, I want to use the cordon or 45 degree slant planting. Lordy! I'm so confused.
 
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Morning raining here on and off , still need to plant my allium bulbs but that going to have to wait till tomorrow now while I watch the football. Can you not plant the fruit trees in the allotment?
 
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