My Memoirs 6 – Larry’s Fourth Week in England

This past week has been all about sheds! First of all, Larry’s new shed was delivered and erected by Telesheds, in just under an hour and then Larry made a few modifications to make it just how he would like it. In the picture he is making some edging for the corners and once done, it looked very nice. Then of course there was a trip to Homebase to buy some Cuprinol to protect the shed from the bad weather that I expect we will be having soon!

I’ll show you how the shed turned out in a few days time.  Meanwhile, here is Larry’s observations over his fourth week in England:

‘My Fourth Week in England

Shopping carts in England are called “trolleys”. You’ll find them all chained together in front of the grocery store. Apparently if left unchained these trolleys would all escape to the far corners of the local neighborhood. If you want the pleasure of driving one of these trolleys around the grocery store you first have to release the chain holding it to the others. Just insert a one-pound coin (worth about $1.50) into a slot on the trolley – this releases the chain so it is free to roam about as it pleases. You can also use a token made expressly for this purpose if $1.50 seems too much to invest. When your journey around the grocery store is complete you get your coin or token back when you re-chain the trolley to its brothers and sisters. Although chaining trolleys together is an obvious affront to their civil rights, I did notice the complete absence of loose trolleys in the car park (parking lot), and no dings on the sides of the cars where unrestrained trolleys had banged into them. Perhaps shopping carts in America should be re-evaluated and given a little less freedom. In any case I must admit to missing the ones in Krogers with the square wheels.

Speaking of grocery stores, you can conveniently find them in large shopping malls here. Buy an iPad at the Apple store, a new jacket, pair of trousers or new shoes on the first floor of Marks and Spencer’s, then have a sit down for tea and cakes, and finally on your way out of the mall grab a quart of milk, bread, cheese, tomatoes, and other grocery items on the ground floor of M&S – all just in time to catch the No. 9 bus back home. How can you make things easier than that? How many more people would visit their local shopping mall if there was a grocery store there?? BTW if you are on the first floor of a building here don’t be fooled into thinking you can just walk out the door. You’ll find it’s a nasty drop. The ground floor here is for doing that. The first floor is one story up, and the second floor is two stories up, and so on.

This week’s discovery is the word “hire”. In America the word “hire” applies to people but not to inanimate objects. For example Americans might rent or lease a car and then hire someone to drive it for them. In England you can hire a car, hire a caravan (recreational vehicle), hire almost anything whether it’s alive or not. The words “rent” or “lease” still apply when referring to real estate, such as renting a flat (apartment). However the most common phrase for renting or leasing a place to set up a business seems to be “To Let”. There are large signs posted everywhere saying “To Let”. To show you how a tired old brain can play tricks, my mind saw “To Let” and automatically inserted an “i” to make the word “Toilet”. For some reason this mind trick persisted for almost a week. “How marvelous that every toilet in the UK is so prominently marked”, I thought! Then one day I realized my mistake. While there is an ample supply of toilets everywhere I’ve been in England, there isn’t one on every street corner after all.

I had been warned (sort of) before I moved here that there was a poltergeist living in the upstairs portion of the house – not an evil or malicious type, just a mischievous spirit who likes to play pranks on occasion. Being of scientific persuasion I immediately dismissed such notions without a second thought. However, this past week provided first evidence. Moving a computer and printer from one room to another provided the opportunity. All the cables for both computer and printer were disconnected and carefully placed in a plastic bag. After both machines were relocated the process of reconnecting the cables began. All the cables were accounted for, except the gray and orange cable that connects the computer to the printer. After looking for it for almost an hour it became apparent something strange was going on. After another half-hour we found the missing cable on top of the wardrobe in another bedroom, where no one had been during the past several hours. Without question the printer cable was connected prior to the move. So how did it turn up on top of a piece of furniture almost six feet high in a room where nobody had been?

Definition of Paradise – Sitting hand in hand on a park bench under an enormous oak tree by the River Ouse in Bedford feeding the swans, partly cloudy skies and 70F with light breeze.

Watch this page for next week’s adventures in paradise.’

Oma

Propagating geraniums – how to take geranium cuttings.

 Picture of man in shed from the internet.

The geraniums in the tub below are beginning to look a bit tired.  Time to take cuttings.

I decided to start with the red one in the pot. Look at the next picture.  Can you see the larger stalk on the right of the red geranium?

That’s the one I’m starting with. Cut it off with your secateurs, just below a growing tip. See next picture to make sure you know what I mean by a growing tip.

Now remove and discard all the lower leaves and any flower stalks that are still apparent.  If you do this then the growth will go into the making of new roots and not into the production of more flowers. The larger leaves would die anyway so they need to come off. Now you are left with a perfect cutting. This will become a new plant, which you can put in your border next year, but you have to keep it indoors all through the winter.

Find your compost.  I put mine in a large blue tub, which doubles up as a play piece for my grandson when he comes round.  He loves to dig in here and it is relatively free from germs.

Put some of the compost in a small flower pot.  This one is a four inch pot. Incidentally this is not very good compost. I bought it in the Supermarket and it was cheap, but it is quite woody and not ideal for this job. The best compost is John Innes no. 2 which is a much finer compost. However I’ve put it in here so you can see the difference.  This would not be suitable for sewing seeds into. For that job you would need a much finer compost.

Poke the cutting into the compost in the pot until the growing tip is covered.  I’ve left this one a bit proud so you can see what I mean. You will need to poke it in further than this one.

Notice that a caterpillar has had a chew at this leaf.  Make sure he’s still not on the leaf when you plant the cutting (for obvious reasons).

This morning I did several.  I planted them together in a tub in the garden. They should be fine in there for another month and will benefit from the sun and the rain.  It will also make them hardy.  When I come back from America in mid October, I will take some more pictures of these cuttings so you can see how they’re doing. By then they will need to be put in pots and brought indoors before the first frosts arrive.

In the tub I have a selection of white, red, pink and peach cuttings.  It will be interesting to see which ones do the best.

These are cuttings of lychnis and Sweet Williams.  I’ll talk more about them another time.

After all that work, I reckon I deserved a nice lunch so I went into Oma’s kitchen and made myself a fry-up. Yummy!

What are you doing today?

In the garden with Oma – time to take cuttings!

I always take my cuttings in August so now I need to get busy.  I’ve already taken some Sweet Williams’ cuttings and they are doing very well. The lychnis too are fine but I have yet to get stuck in to plant wallflower seeds for next Spring.

Just look at this rhubarb leaf! I don’t exaggerate when I say it’s as big as an umbrella. If it started to rain, I could stand underneath it and keep dry.

The phlox are in full bloom just now.  They are so pretty and so prolific and welcome at this late summer time of the year. There’s a teasel in the bed too, cheeky!

This pretty pink rose is an old timer.  It’s been with me in the garden for a very long time.  So long that I’ve forgotten what it’s called!

This year it has thrived, other years it hasn’t done so well and I’ve threatened to dig it up, but I never do.

I think it’s done better this year because I’ve been fussing over the petunias, see picture below. I’ve made sure they’ve had lots of water and food and the rose has benefited from the extra attention. (Make note for next year – fuss over old rose more!)

Now back to my cuttings. Must get on and do them NOW.

Oma

Sunday is gardening day – Rhubarb and Potatoes harvested.

With all the rain we’ve had this Spring and Summer, the rhubarb has been wonderful!  Only problem has been what to do with it all. My favourite is rhubarb crumble and I’ll be posting a recipe for that in the near future. Meanwhile, it’s going to be rhubarb and custard, a perennial favourite.

The potatoes came out of the ground on Sunday this week. These are King Edward’s. Don’t they look fine.  I had a few of them for my dinner on Sunday and they tasted delicious. I wondered if they would be a throw away crop, totally saturated with all the rain, but no, they had grown bigger than usual but they were all ok.

Also in the vegetable garden, there has been an excess of flowers on the runner beans and we have some embryo beans coming along. Look closely at the next picture and you will see what I mean.  When my grandson Dylan gets back from Sandy Bay, with his bucket and spade, he will be delighted that his beans are growing strong. I still haven’t told him about the giant at the top of the stalk!

Let’s have a close look at these gorgeous flowers. No black beetles on there yet!

Happy Gardening folks!

It’s a Lavender World

Is it a coincidence that bees love the colour lavender?

In the garden – July 22nd 2012

I had to reach up really high to grab this beautiful climbing rose so I could take a picture of him. Holding him steady with one hand and taking a picture with the other is not easy, believe me but I am quite pleased with the result.  He is a little bit ragged round the edges owing to the rain this week, but overall he is surviving nicely and showing off his pretty colours, don’t you agree?

Don’t you just love the contrast in the colours below? The white of the feverfew with the blood red of the Sweet Williams is just gorgeous.

The potatoes are doing ok but the true test will be when I dig them up! I hope they are not rotten in the ground.  We have had the worst summer ever in England this year and that’s not just my opinion! Apparently we are importing a lot of vegetables from abroad now because we have just had too much rain.

The runner beans (on the left) have at last got some flowers – now we need lots of pollinating insects to get them going so they set. In the front are some tomatoes – not many flowers yet!!!

The runner beans look healthy enough and most years it is hard to get enough water to their roots, but this year I don’t think I’ve had to water them at all. I can’t believe we were in a drought situation at the start of April! We even had a hosepipe ban!

These Sweet Williams are that cerise colour which looks so good in a fashion show.

…and doesn’t the yellow contrast so well with the silvery green of the dogwood?

In the next picture we’ve got purple and white. White lifts every other colour and what would have been a dark corner is now ablaze. Even some liatris has got in with the feverfew.