4.05.2025 My home. My rules.

 ~o~

 Sunday 4th 46F/7.8C. Overcast, with variable brightness, sunny periods and showers. Increasingly breezy from the north. It should be brighter later.

 Up at 6.55 after lying awake in the night. 

 I plan a visit to the local garden centre. I had better go in the car in car to avoid damage to any purchase. I need to find a more suitable plant for the front hall, charging station cupboard. The supermarkets are having their usual annual push of gardening items. With little obvious care of the goods on offer.

 The huge heap of wood from the observatory demolition hasn't moved. It is just getting darker and wetter. I was spoilt by the very dry weather. Lulled into a false sense of security. Now I can't decide what to do about it. Should it stay? Or should it go? 

 8.15 Daily tablet dispenser restocked. Time for a walk.

 9.00 Back from my walk. I turned back at the saddle. Where the wind is always strongest. The warblers were in particularly fine voice this morning. They seemed to be singing at ten meter intervals in the hedgerows. Often chattering on both sides of the road simultaneously. Always near to invisible. I could often hear that they were within only a few meters. Though I could never home in on their location in my binoculars. Sometimes they moved. Then I could identify their brown and buff colouration. So many different voices too.  

 I had to laugh: My neighbour's goats were practicing their mountain climbing. The neighbours had set up a stone pillar surround with stones. Somehow he smaller goat had climbed on top of the pillar. Much taller than itself and still had room for four secure feet. While it's larger colleague was standing on the highest nearby stone. My picture was taken through three layers of galvanized netting. So I won't show it here.

 9.50 Back from the garden centre. The new rubber plant [Ficus Elastica Tineke "Ruby"] is gorgeously variegated but has brown spots. She suggested it had been under-watered. The top two centimeters of soil were dry. So I gave it some water. 400mls. I may pot it on. With more free draining soil and Perlite in the ceramic pot. I'll let it rest for a while. To get used to its new home. Bright but indirect light required. Not direct sunshine to avoid sunburn. 

 That back wall needs to be white. The grey, cement render does the plant no favours at all. There's no contrast. That means I'll have to move the plant and cupboard if only temporarily. The rubber plant is now on the dining table at a north facing window. 

 Now returned to the hall. Greenhouse door open for more warmth indoors.

 11.30 The remaining bag of render was well past its use-by date. So I scraped off the last vestiges of vintage wallpaper and painted the wall white anyway. It's a rough, rural cottage. It's not supposed to be perfect. Most likely converted from an animal shelter. It was a double hipped thatch as late as the 1950s.  

 I have replaced or repaired everything visible and invisible over the last three decades. I can add architrave and skirting to tidy up the edges. Perhaps more importantly, I am the only one who usually sees it. So it's my home. My rules. 

15.00 53F/11.7C.  Getting away from "interior design" for a moment: The half buried, 1.8m parabolic, TV dish pond in the garden is packed with wildlife. It is little more than 15cm deep but houses lots of huge water beetles and at least one newt. Greater depth would provide better protection against icing to the very bottom in winter. Though the gently sloping sides allow for free expansion of any surface ice.

 I moved the feed pipe away from the house gutter to cut the grass and there was movement all over the pond. Pond skaters and water spiders were running across the surface. I put a small water lily in there when I installed the pond. It is still alive and there is lots of azola. The latter a small, natural, floating water plant. Which provides shade.

 It irritates me that it settled out of level. After I was so careful during the excavation two years ago. Being white plastic does not immediately lend itself as an attractive feature. It does have the advantage of never leaking due to tree root penetration. As occurred with the 3x3m garden corner pond. It is also [almost] level with the surround ground. So creatures can just walk straight into the water. 

 I had hoped it would provide a huge bird bath but I haven't seen any use it so far. I just used the garden trees as a dark background to lower the reflectivity for photography. It really isn't very warm out there today. Not even in the sunshine. 

There is a larger, 2.2m, aluminium TV dish "resting" out there too. Though it is not quite so obvious a candidate for a pond. Due to the three, finger sized holes. Used for fixing the original "legs" out to the LNB TV head. It does have the greater advantage of being 40cm/16" deep. Blanking the holes with rubber washers would work. Do I have the energy to dig out the much larger hole this dish would require? 

 The lawn is sloping. So I could use the spoil to raise a bank around the lower [far] side. Just as I did with the smaller dish. The problem is protecting the wildlife presently in the smaller pond. Or should I just place the larger dish elsewhere? Logic suggests I dig a much deeper hole and line it with rubber pond liner. Just as I did with the corner pond. Only to have it cleared of large goldfish by a heron. Then leak so badly the water level dropped by at least a foot. [30cm] 

 Dinner was mackerel in tomato sauce on toast with halved Sugar Drop tomatoes. 

 I have moved the larger rubber plant to the eastern window. More light, but the sun will have moved around to the south. So it will be blocked well before it gets too hot for the plant. This leaves a lot more room for the Monstera. Which I have rotated 180º to face the room. It was resting leaves on the windowsill before due to a lack of space. I have the bright LED work lamp overhead if it needs it. The shade net on the greenhouse will block direct sunshine through the south facing windows.

   

 ~o~