Meanwhile in the Woodshed

 

It gets quite warm in the woodshed and the roof is clear corrugated plastic , so there is light .

A couple of tomato plants are still producing fruits . 

You can feel the temperature drop after the sun has gone down .

The Dahlias finally putting on a show after we had some rain .

 I will be leaving these Dahlias in the ground over winter . If I can manage , I will try and get a mulch over them .

I would like to add some orange ones into the mix next year .

Black Eye Suzies have now filled the teepee  . Not a very good pic as I can't very easily walk across the muddy grass on my walking frame at the moment .

                                        Agave salmiana var . ferox .

                       I wonder if it will flower next year . It is quite big now .

                  I hope all is well with you . Love and hugs  Debbie x

Sunshiny Day ☀️🌤️

                           It's been a nice , calm and sunny day today .  

                                           Turning a bit colder by night . 

Glad to have got the central heating sorted . Time to get the hot water bottles ready .

                                                  🌿💚🌿

Through the Bedroom Window

 

              💚  Beautiful Gunnera manicata is blooming 🌿

                                                               🌿💚🌿

 

Thankyou for the lovely flowers 💐

Thankyou for lovely flowers .......and giant bar of chocolate .....and for snuggly heat pad comforter ...

 

......and more gorgeous flowers ....

  ....and even more chocolate !      Wow ! Thankyou 🩷 Thankyou ever so much !

🌻Home Sweet Home🌻

 Sorry everyone , I,ve been a bit poorly in hospital this week .

A lot of pain . Cried a lot . Brave I am not .

 Badly ouchy , hurty hip and thigh . 

Home now . Gonna be o.k.  Got a walking frame . Only allowed to gently potter about . Not allowed to go up the main stairs of the cottage  , only the four or five stairs that go to the bedroom downstairs in the extension .  Thankfully we have a bathroom down there too .

I need another frame to save me carrying the one I have been given , up the stairs .  Need one at the top and one at the bottom . Any tips for using a walking frame would be most welcome . 

There is a door to the garden , but , I am not allowed . It is too muddy for the walking frame anyway .

Gonna take a couple of months to heal .

Thankyou to all the wonderful staff on St Mawes Ward Treliske  .

Also want to wish my fellow patients on the ward a speedy recovery too . 

Sending you hugs and loves and healing vibes ✨✨✨

I will be posting again as soon as I am able .

Meanwhile I have been cheering myself up by watching funny things on Instagram . Especially watching the new trend dancing "air walking" ......I won't be dancing for a while ..but I'm closely watching and studying the tutorials and seeing everyone's attempts to do it ...hilarious !  🤣😂🤣

No idea who said it but  ......   " Laughter is the best medicine "  

                         ..........and a big bag of pain relief  😞

                Latest weather - no idea !  

                Latest news - no idea  -  it has done me good to get away from it  !

                         🌻   Love Debbie x 🌻

                                        🐻💗🧸

Early Autumn Cornish Weather

 

    In the morning early --☀️the sun came up and it was beautiful and I put my washing on the line .

I'm not doing much in the garden this week . We're having a whole week of central heating and plumbing things going on . 

 Then it rains  ⛈️ and ...I leave the washing on the line for a final rinse and declare that it can stay on the line until next summer if need be .

          The Tree Ferns and Banoonahs are loving it !  🌴🌿

                               The sun came out again !  ☀️

                        It rains again ⛈️

The sun returns  ☀️but then it became very breezy . The sky darkened . I dashed to bring the washing in .

    Feeling very pleased with  myself because that breeze dried everything , almost .

                            And sure enough ....it rained again !  ⛈️

                                          The Sun came out again ☀️  

                                 And then .....  ⛈️🌧️🌧️🌧️...sigh ....

We put a few logs on the woodburning stove and got the fire going . 

                   ☺️💗Cosy and warm 🤗🪷

We'll be glad to have the central heating and hot water fixed .

There is a yellow weather warning for Cornwall especially around the coast , for sometime this weekend . They haven't given it a name but there will be 80 mile an hour wind gusts  .

I'm having a scan Sunday morning , wish me luck . I'm scared . 

                   Love Debbie x

 

Bambi 🌿🦌🌿

 So I'm not Wild life Presenter of the Year , but I thought I'd share this anyway .

 I'd gone up to the meadow to see the eclipse of the full Blood Moon thing at about 7.30pm......but it was too cloudy unfortunately ..... lovely surprise to see the deer instead .

It stood staring at me for ages while I faffed about trying to figure out how to work the mobile phone camera . ( I'm fairly new to mobile phones ) ..and then it scooted off ! 🦌 lol ! 🤎 Made my day !

Did your mobile phone alarm go off yesterday ? Mine didn't ....no signal in the cottage apparently 🤪

Ricardo's went off while he was outside in the garden . 

Anyway - Today's the day we are having a new central heating and hot water boiler put in . So it will be chaos for a couple of days . I think they will be working both outside and inside the cottage . It hasn't been working for months now ! 🌧️⛈️Very grateful for them getting this done for us before the really big storms come rolling in . ⛈️🌧️

                                         So that's all fer today folks ! 

                                                  Love Debbie x

                                                     🌿🦌🌿

Such changeable weather !

                                            The clouds yesterday evening .

                                                    More proper rain on the way .

I decided to take up my meagre harvest of pumpkins and butternut squash . 

They should be twice the size , never mind . Try again next year .  

I brought them into the shed to finish ripening , then they will go onto the shelf in the woodshed . Usually to use over the Winter months , but it won't take us long to use these up !

Next job is to strip out all the weeds in the Pumpkin bed and probably have a bonfire on top of it .

Anyway , today we were going on a nature walk over in Falmouth .

I don't mind walking in the rain , but this was ridiculous . It rained so hard you couldn't see St Anthony's Lighthouse ! Stair rods ! ⛈️  There was only one yacht out there . ⛈️  We watched as it turned back and went painfully slowly back up into Falmouth docks . Not a good day for sailing ⛵.... nope ⛈️ 

We cancelled the idea of the nature walk and toadstool hunting .......and when the rain eased off , I went down onto the beach for a little while .

This is the beach along and in front of The Falmouth Hotel .

Haven't been down there for years . Lots of lovely rockpools . Little yellow shells .

It's amazing how calming it is when you go down on to the beach . I guess it's partly happy childhood memories .

 So relaxing . The rhythm of the waves as they gush over the rocks , the smell of the seaweed . Gentle rain on my face . Picking up shells , stones and cuttle fish bones .

Deep in thought ,yes ,  really deep in thought , I walked a bit too far along and when I turned around realised it was now too far to walk back , so that the best thing to do was to carry on walking to the next slope up to the promenade . Not in any danger of the tide coming in , but suddenly very aware of the uneven and slippery seaweedy rocks . . . . Walk slowly . Walk mindfully .

Beautiful . Not enough time .

               It poured with rain again . 

 It was tooo high to climb up onto the promenade and now absolutely drenched , I walked mindfully a bit faster .

And when I got back to the car , I was ordered to take my cagoule off before getting in ...which I tried but was so wet that it stuck to me  . Now even more wet , I got into the car anyway . 

           Ricardo not happy with me  .  Drove home . 

                                                 The sun came out .

                                                           🌿☀️🌿

 

Up early to finish yesterday's work 🍂🍃🍁

           Good morning ! 

       Well , the sun is trying to come out . This was at around about 7 am .

I wanted to finish off what I had started yesterday . So I gave these trays a brush down .

Tipped the spent compost from the Tomatoes onto the Keyhole bed and got them folded up and put away ready for next year .

 These plastic pot /bags have been brilliant . This is year four or even maybe five now of growing my tomatoes in these . The Tomato harvest has been great this year also .

  I stood and scratched my head over the sight of one very weedy African Keyhole bed .

It's a "weeding frenzy" job for another day I think , as my Achilles ankle thing is still not up to it .

  For a second year the Butternut Squash were very disappointing . A combination of dreadful compost , then two heatwaves with gales , not having the garden hose fixed up properly .

So I will take off all the surrounding chicken-wire and metal rods , have a good old weeding frenzy  (when the mood comes over me ) , we'll have a big bonfire and I shall dance and chant magic spells and then I will start it all over again with seaweed , grass clippings , spent compost , leaves, shredded sticks , leaves , newspapers and cardboard . ...combination of green and brown , you know how it goes ....

                   Just not today !

 There are only two , small but useable Pumpkins and three pathetic Butternuts  😞

                          We'll not give up . We will do better next year .

                      ⛈️   Make it a great weekend , whatever the weather ☀️

🌿"Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile , but , sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy " 🌿    Thich Nhat Hanh   🪷

Autumn tidying continues 🍂🍁🍃

 Tomato and Sweet Pepper plants out .....except for one Sweet Pepper which still has a few fruits on .

Start bringing back in the Cacti from the front porch and any less hardy succulents  , Agaves to go under the bench. Gave it a good sweep out . So many cobwebs ! 

Then Ricardo announced that he wanted me to take all the plants out of the shed because he had to do a few maintenance jobs on it .

This was an incredibly scary job . More cobwebs and spiders 🕷️ I had to close my eyes as I carried out trays and plants  🕷️ 

The polystyrene under the bench will be used in the unheated greenhouse to stand and surround precious plants on , during the cold winter months . I have my trusty roll of insulation stuff to unroll along the rafters and car windscreen frost screens to fix up along the North side of the greenhouse too .

The lantern and candles are also waiting in the wings .  I didn't use the lantern much last winter , but for me , it is wise to have it there ...just in case .

Also a pile of newspaper sheets to throw over plants on cold evenings .

Still under the bench to clear out . Just want it a bit tidier and enough space for two chairs by the table .

We had to fill in the ends of the window fittings to stop little birds coming in .The window frame doesn't go properly to the end of the shed building . It's usually the clever little Blue Tits ; they come in to shelter for the night , but they are not clever enough to remember how to get out again . It's o.k. I am up there everyday to let them out . 

I will be happy when Ricardo blocks up these holes .

Also the window glass wasn't the right size for the window frame and there was a quarter of an inch gap all along the top .

This had really puzzled me , and then one year there was a thin line of snow all along the inside on the bench . We rarely get snow so I hadn't noticed it before then . 

         As for the window , I daren't open it , in case it should fall off ! 

Apart from all that , it's quite a nice little shed . 

     🌧️ Hopefully it will get through yet another stormy Cornish Winter .🌩️🌧️

                  This side is much better now .  

    

                                           💐Good enough for me anyway 💐 

I gave the purple Tradescantia a trim .

Found a damaged bag of compost reduced to £3.00 .  All ready and waiting for starting my vegetable seeds next year .🌱🌱🌱

I gave everything a good drink of nice fresh rain water from the now refilled water barrels .

                                    Tasty strawberries are still coming !

           I love this time of the year best of all . Early Autumn . My favourite time .

     Wishing you a relaxing weekend . Make time for yourself and do something that you love . 

        Something that eases all your worries and brings some gentle happiness .

                           Thinking of you , hugs . Debbie x

                                                    🍂🍁🍃

⛈️Dodging the showers 🌤️🌦️

 

                        There are still some hefty showers coming through !

I kept Ricardo company while he made a start cutting down the old grape vine arbor /arch  .

   At this point , I was a little worried that it might not turn out quite as I had planned !

It is going to become ( hopefully ) a very la-di-da and uppity over-wintering pergola for my Musa basjoo . 

When the weather starts to get really bad ....

I'm going to staple gun fleece or windbreak mesh onto it . Maybe a clear corrugated plastic roof or something over the top .

If we get a particularly cold weather warning I can throw an old coat or duvet over it .

  My thinking is that I want it to be tall enough , that we can use it again for a second year . After that , it will be left uncovered .

It is very rotten in places and pieces falling off . It would be great if we can save it .

                          Almost finished !                                                 

                                           Oh ! I love it SO much !

         A steaming hot Cornish Pasty for lunch and a nice cuppatea !  🫖☕

                                                       🌦️🌧️⛈️🌦️☀️