Getting back out there

This really has been a challenging year in so many different ways and my love of blogging has diminished somewhat but hey, there are things to share although nothing special on the crafting front as my knitting has been abandoned for a while.

This is because our darling, sweet Tilly cat did not receive the good news we'd prayed for. Her tumour was malignant and the disease can only be kept at bay for a finite time, poor darling. The knitting has been abandoned because every time I sit down she appears and snuggles onto my lap and although it was easy to knit with her there when the jumper was just started it is now too heavy to hold above her. For the moment she is still reasonably bright but it won't be long until she starts to fade and we have to make the dreaded phone call.

Whenever the weather has been bright and sunny we've taken a short walk together outside so she can nibble at some grass and roll in the catmint.

On the running front I've now managed 2 marathons since I last posted and each time, although it grumbles a bit towards the end of the run, my foot has recovered by the next day which is very encouraging.

Marathon number 164 was the Funky Pants Challenge so I wore these new leggings showing London Landmarks 'cos they're suitably funky! They're from Tikiboo who produce all manner of patterns. I don't normally go for anything especially funky but I wanted these as a memento of the London marathon.

My foot behaved quite well and only started to get a bit niggly in the last few miles, even better it felt fine the next day and this gave me a huge confidence boost.

When I saw Mary Massage lady a few days later I thought she might tell me off but she was delighted that it had gone so well. That being the case, I decided I needed another one just to be sure and this was down at Samphire Hoe which meant each lap was 2/3 concrete, 1/3 trail x 8 laps for marathon distance. You couldn't really get a better test!

It was lovely to catch up with some more running chums, some of whom hadn't seen me for 3 months and they started calling me "Half-a-Susie" 'cos of my change in shape from the 90 day challenge I've been doing (more on that in my next post as there are only 5 more days to go!). The weather was fine but cool with low cloud for a few hours and the usual bitter wind in one direction along the seawall. I wore my cowl over my mouth to help my breathing as that's one area in which I'm struggling at the moment as I seem to have lost some of my lung conditioning.

My foot let me know it wasn't especially fond of the concrete but didn't hurt enough for me to stop and it felt fine after an ice-bath followed by a hot soak.

The name of the event was the Crispathon, hence the cute medal, but I'm not allowed crisps so I made sure I stayed away from the aid station on each lap!

On the brighter days I've been enjoying making inroads on all the garden jobs I need to do but there really aren't enough daylight hours!

Corylopsis pauciflora, one of my favourite Spring-flowering shrubs

I love watching the fruit trees budding up and coming into flower:

Our clumps of Leucojums, aka Spring Snowflakes, are so big they need dividing when they've finished flowering

Pieris 'Mountian Fire' looking magnificent in the shady part of the front garden

Berberis Darwinnii is a magnet for pollinating insects

Around the patio I'm having a clear-out as the herb garden needed some serious rejuvenating. The only thing I've left in-situ is this prostrate Rosemary:

Tilly helped too!

Now I'll just let the soil settle for a short while before I plant some new goodies (all waiting patiently in their pots)

In fund-raising news I'm not far off my target now which is a relief as it's so hard to keep going back to the same people time and time again. However, I am blessed to have the most amazingly supportive friends and neighbours. I've also had a really good clear-out and sold my old coin collection which fetched much more than I'd expected plus I've received a couple of fees for speaking and doing market research.

We had to do a quick photo-shoot for ARUK as one of the photos they were using for a newsletter wasn't high res enough so I had the idea of me sitting underneath my medal haul 'cos the aim was to inspire others to have a go at fund-raising. I can't tell you how long it took to get a few photos 'cos the camera was playing up and Mike couldn't get it to focus properly so I was sitting there with a big smile on my face grumbling "Please hurry up, I can't hold this smile much longer!"

Next weekend I've got the Brighton marathon so I'm hoping the weather doesn't suddenly get too hot - last time I ran it they ran out of water early on and some of the slower runners really struggled.

Friday is the very last day of my 90 day challenge so I expect I'll be writing about it very soon and showing my before and after photos (eek!).

Clearing

Project clearing (aka actually finishing something!)

The title refers equally to the clearing of my airways and to the annual tidy-up in parts of the garden! But first we have the completed baffies:

Trying it on for size. I got the size I wanted by using 2.75mm needles

I added 4 rows of grey/red stripes all round after I'd completed the heel section as I wanted some extra height and also I felt it was rather boring without. I wish now that I'd added some stripes to the toe section as well but I'm not going to undo them now!

The i-cord bind-off gives a neat finish but the first time I did it was way too tight using 2.75mm needles and I couldn't get my foot in! So I undid it and used 3.5mm needles and worked much more loosely which was perfect.

I also made the heel a bit rounder as I didn't like the square effect in the original. To achieve that all I did was knit the 2 centre stitches together on each of 4 rows before the 3-needle bind-off of the heel.

Snug feet

Clearing pests

There are some little critters who share our home without being a nuisance but these pesky ladybirds are not welcome! They aren't the sweet little native ladybirds but are the horrid brutes, aka Harlequin ladybirds, who've been eating them (which I wrote about here).

I read somewhere that they keep coming back to the same places to hibernate because they emit a pheromone or something that attracts fellow ladybirds. Well, it certainly seems to be true as here they are again in exactly the same place even though I washed the whole area to try and clear away any lingering smell from last year.

I wish the spider could have eaten them so I didn't have to deal with them but she didn't and so I had to remove them. Interestingly, they gave off a really strong smell when I disturbed them.

All is not well in the barn either as a rat is making its presence felt. I store all the horse feed and bird seed/nuts etc in dustbins with lids but Kizzy's chaff (a feed-mix of chopped straw which I add to bulk up her feed) is not something they eat so it just stays in the sack.

Sometimes I'll find a hole nibbled in the sack where something has explored the sack but has abandoned it as unpalatable. A few days ago that's exactly what happened with just a few bits of chaff around the sack. This morning though the rat had been back again and literally dug about 1/3rd of the contents out of the sack just to annoy me, as rats don't eat chaff!

Look at the mess!

How they got into the sack

This of course meant a trip to the hardware store for some rat treats (ahem!) which I've placed inbetween the dustbins in the same place as the sack.

Clearing compost, supervised by Tilly, and finding some friends

On Sunday I was feeling much better as my breathflow was only 50 points lower than normal and so Tilly and I headed out into the garden to do some maintenance.

Tilly inspects the pile of shredded bark/wood which will be used as a mulch on flowerbeds next Spring

Just off to inspect the fungi mum…..

.…something's had a good feast

Watching ducks

She headed off for an adventure in the wild corner whilst I busied my self elsewhere. This is where we stacked spare slates, concrete blocks/roof tiles and other bits and bobs from when we renovated the house and is teaming with wildlife. I often see lizards and snakes sunning themselves on there and it is a safe haven for newts and invertebrates.

There are also lots of beautiful mosses growing on the terracotta roof tiles.

Adventure time!

This is where I was heading; the compost area. I know many of you will skip past this bit but please don't as it's such an important part of gardening. Recycling waste and turning it into something wonderful.

I forgot to take a photo before I started so at this stage I'd already cleared away the butternut squash plant which had been growing on the compost in the bay on the far right. The remaining squashes on there were really small and wouldn't have grown any more so I pulled up the plant and threw it into the bay on the far left.

The plant remaining is a yellow courgette and it still has some viable courgettes forming so I left it to grow a bit longer. It will keep going until the first frosts and I reckon we'll get another batch of courgette fritters out of it. Yum! 

The other things I found were some potatoes which had sprouted from some discarded bits that were in the heap. I put them in the sun to dry and firm up their skins.

Now, just look at this beautiful crumbly compost. This was the heap from last year of which I used 1/2 for planting and then left the rest to rot down further to produce this nutrient-rich loam. When I've removed the plant I'll shall store this compost in empty horse-feed sacks (if I manage to save any without rat holes in!) and use it, mixed with some garden soil, for potting next Spring  I should add that it doesn't smell.

Then it was time to turn the middle heap onto the end heap. It's jolly hard work but really worth it as it gets more air and water into it which speeds up the rotting process. You can see that the bits that were on the bottom of the middle heap are already quite well rotted and now they're on the top of the heap they'll keep the lower layers nice and warm to speed up the process.

Once the bay on the far right is empty I shall start piling things into there and so the whole process begins again. Until then, Mike will put grass cuttings into the middle section so that I can sprinkle them into the main heap in layers.

I also wanted to check on my Hoverfly Lagoon Project. This was something I got involved with via Sussex University and it was about seeing how many varieties of larvae you could attract using a bucket of water with a dry filling around it for them to pupate. 

This is now over and so I wanted to empty out the bucket and tidy up the material around it. I was very careful as  I searched through the wood chips and dry leaves as I knew there would be little friends hiding within and I wasn't wrong:

A beautiful Leopard Slug

Look how well camouflaged this little newt is

I put them in the undergrowth by the hedge so they would be safe

When we'd finished exploring and compost turning, Tilly and I headed down past the orchard to sit and watch the ducks on the pond whilst having a swing (well, only I sat on the swing, Tilly mooched around in the long grass!).

I noticed the bright orange seeds of the Iris and remembered why I don't grow it in a more prominent position - the unattractive spots of  'rust' on its leaves, which are not easily controlled, make it a plant for wilder parts of the garden.

The colour of Hawthorn berries intensifies as they ripen

Now the leaves have fallen from the orchard trees I notice the beautiful lichens growing on the branches

I have busy weekend ahead of me. On Saturday there's the ARUK Supporters' Day in London which I can only attend for half the day as I need to get home in decent time (the trains are very unreliable at weekends during the upgrade to London Bridge Station) as I shall be up bright and early the next day for my next marathon.

Oh, I nearly forgot. Following a post a while ago in which there was a photo of some rosehips, Glenys contacted me to tell me that when she was a Midwife during the Second World War, rosehip syrup was given to babies as it's such a good source of vitamin C which was in short supply due to rationing! Here's my version of the recipe which you asked for  Glenys xxx