2.05.2025 I am on a roll!

 ~o~

  Friday 2nd 53F/11.7C. Weather change. Variable brightness. Light rain around lunch time. Bright again later. Cooler and wetter over the next few days. 16C mid afternoon today.

 Up at 7am after dozing. No ill effects after yesterday's longer ride. I suppose I should be good and stay at home. To tidy up the observatory. The recycling yard is closed until tomorrow. My interior designer consultant has criticized the way I have stuffed the new cabinet with cats.

 8.00 Time for a walk.

 8.50 Back from my usual walk to the lanes. I was much too warm in a fleece jacket over a jumper. There is an excavator making a large hole in the front field behind a cottage. I hope they don't break the fragile water pipes!

 I spent more time on the verge letting opposing traffic pass unhindered. Particularly buses during today's rush hour. A red kite was circling at my turning point but moved steadily away. It was the turn of the talkative warblers to provide today's chorus. 

 We had the Sparrows first. The Chaffinches and then the Greenfinches. Followed by the Goldfinches and a very few swallows over the last week. Skylarks are always high in the background. The noisy geese doing their routine circuits around the neighborhood. 

 The raps is looking good. Vast areas of bright yellow. As far as the eye can see. It averages around my shoulder height. With lots of slower heads at least as tall as I am.

 11.00 It keeps getting dark and then sunny again. The garden is full of warblers and it is snowing tree petals. I have been belting around with the mower. Battery electric but push along. Drive done, middle and sides. Most of the yard/parking area and the bumpy, western lawn. I became hot, breathless and dizzy. While picking up fallen bark around the now absent, horse chestnut. Need a rest!

 11.40 Back in again after raking and mowing the rest. The mower batteries are flat and need recharging. It is a tank training ground out there in places. After the excavator's comings and goings for the kitchen drainage work. I really need to fill in the hollows with free compost from the recycling yard. 

 Meanwhile I am trying to expand the lawn out over the tree shadow. Which soon became the bramble shadow. Normally grass is self seeding or creeps in. Not this time. It is still largely bare earth. With only a few bramble stems left. These make a racket but are easily cut down by the mower. I am having another rest. Before taking the strimmer out to tidy around the edges. 

 12.15 I used the strimmer to knock down the Rosebay willowherb and dandelions. The excavator in the front field has gone. I'll start making an early lunch. 

 13.15 More raking, cutting and clearing on the western lawn.    

 14.10 63F/17C. I have clipped back the hedges on both sides of the drive. Then clipped the front beech hedge. I am knackered and dripping with sweat. It's a beautiful, sunny afternoon now. I'll probably hang a single shade net on the greenhouse next. I need a nap to recover.
 
Same view from upstairs.

 16.00 The shade net is hung. Which involved fetching two ladders. One for each end of the house. So I could reach the tying off points for the tension rope. 

 I also moved the massive log. Down to the heap of similar remains of horse chestnut. Even using the longest crowbar it was exhausting! Fortunately the log provided a handy seat on which to rest. In between extreme efforts. In theory I should now be able to run the mower. All around the chestnut trunk. Not immediately! Or I may not survive to tell the tale! Poor old devil. I am 78 you know! 😉

 A final run round with the mower. I have not collected the grass so far. It would have taken too many trips with the wheelbarrow. The image [above right] shows the results of my day in the garden. Though the sense of perspective is very deceptive. The boundary is over 20m [66'] away. 12m [40'] to the stump. Another 8m [26'] to the boundary beyond that.

 18.15 All tidied away. Time to make some dinner. I found an easy way to tension the greenhouse shade net. So that the top was horizontal. Rather than sagging into a deep curve under its own weight. I used a bootlace to capture the tension rope through one of the greenhouse skylights.

 Dinner was cheese on toast with tomatoes. The grated cheese looks rather mean but it was half an inch thick before warming.

 

  ~o~