General Chat

Liz the weeds pop up over night and during the day and all the slots inbetween here if thats possible. I swear I pull a weed out and when I walk past next time another has grown in its place.

Frank you were'nt first I beat you to it by about 6 mins. Hope its a nice day for the birthday boy at his party and good to know he is now well.

Birthday greetings to your daughter Liz for tomorrow happy birthday and many more of them.x

Just going to check on the seeds I sowed and do a bit of pottering before lunch.

Is it today Jane is home? I hope they had a lovely time and a good journey.

Well all the great plans seemed to have gone to pot.

I thought I would help Ros by washing all the towels arfer the three of us showered, I put in some jogging bottoms and a T shirt. They are now in the tumble dryer.

I have watered the beans and greenhouse and the patio. I was putting the hose away and caught it round my ankle. Yes, down I went like a sack of spuds. Pulled myself up the fence, grabbed my stick and got indoors into the armchair. Mowing the lawn is of the agenda now. I was going to also put up a hanging basket bracket that come of the garage last year. Couldn't find my Masonary bits. so that's on the back burner now.

I am going to settle into the armchair now.

Afternoon all
The sun keeps trying to peep through the cloud but it does look more like rain now.

Glad you got through the filming ok Famous Ann :-D will it be on line like the last one so we can see it ?

Frank it sounds like the armchair is the best place for you , i can see Ros tying you up to the chair when she goes out with all these tumbles you keep having , you must be bruised all over with the falls , i'm sure the lawns can wait for another day .

Well we have been back to the vet again , poor Max has got the trots again !!
We have more antibiotics plus some liquid medicine to stop the diarrhea and i had to take a sample in for them to send off to the lab ,it will be tested to see if there is a parasite in it and then he can be given the right antibiotic just for that parasite.

I think it will be an afternoon in the garden for us ,at the moment hubby is having forty winks .

Oh is going to take down the old elder tree that is falling over.

My mistake it was'nt an elder it was a hawthorn. It did'nt take much and now its down.

O Mandy poor little devil. I hope they find it is a parasite and can deal with it quickly. An afternoon in the garden sounds good with the way his tummy is.

Not another tumble Frank. We can't leave you alone for a minuet can we? You must take more care and don't try to do too much too quickly.

Sending wishes to all our absentees, William and Carmel and Fiona and Maureen. <3

Well I did it. After a sit down I did the back lawn. It looks a treat with all the lines on it.

Poor little chap Mandy, Give him a big cuddle from me. I hope the medicine does the trick.

Nice to see you have been busy Mel, Do you use the wood from the tree or is it bonefire material.??

Ros has just come in. She enjoyed her time in M K and just dropped Jan off without having to stop a pay parking. When she picked her up Monday, it cost £5.00. After the fiver runs out they charge by the minute. Robbing bugg##s.

They had a meal out at lunchtime,so she won't want a meal tonight. At the moment I don't feel hungry, so I might get a snack at the pub tonight if I go out. If not I will find something in the fridge.

Ros has just opened a package from Jewellery Maker, a string of BLACK DIAMONDS. They will be made into a bracelet. That's her anniversary present sorted. <3 <3 ;-) ;-)

Afternoon All,

I just knew there'd be a catch Frank.........Saturday's Child is supposed to work hard for a living and that's me! :-S I think it would be a full time job keeping you from getting too close to the ground. Mandy has the right idea for Ros to tie you to a chair. It was sensible to come in and sit down as Ros has enough on her plate just now. I can't believe the baby will be one, it doesn't seem 5 minutes since he was born.

Poor Max getting the trots again. :-S Maybe he does have a parasite so it's good the vet is checking that out. Yes Mel is right........the outdoor life for him this afternoon!! :-)

Well I got to beading this morning and there was no one else in the car park. I was just debating whether to text or ring my friend and she rang me to say the teacher's car had conked out on the way and she was waiting for the breakdown people so class was cancelled!! So I went and did some shopping instead and then met OH for lunch. Afterwards we transferred the shopping to his car and he went home and I went to Hinckley to Lidl's. No geraniums were left.......boo hoo I should have got them before we went away!! There is another store near the city though so I might try there early tomorrow. I then called at the cheap nursery near the village on the way home and got some Petunias with white edging for my tallest pot. I want to get them all planted up now. I also want to plant some lettuce in the tub in the greenhouse.

We have 3 weeds that are a particular nuisance Liz! One is a brown leafed clover with a yellow flower that sends runners and pops up everywhere if it gets chance, another is a small weed with tiny white flowers. It forms long seed pods and when you pull it up the pods pop and send seeds all over the place. The other is a tiny grass, almost black that has seed heads once it is about half an inch high. It even grows in our gravel! We used to have twitch grass and some mare's tail, but a whole summer of weed killing them after digging out the garden plants eventually got rid of those!

Well that was good you managed to get the lawn done Frank with no mishaps :-0
They know how to charge at the airport don't they , i wonder how much it is per minute .

Ann i looked for some more Geraniums in our Lidls this morning but they had all gone ,i'm not surprised as they were a good price .
We have that reddy brown coloured Clover in the front garden i think its quite pretty with the little yellow flower , its a shame to have pull it really.
Shame the beading class was cancelled, we haven't seen any of your creations lately ,did you make any thing in your holiday week?

Mel i think Jane said she's back on the 24th , i wonder if they had the boat trip .

O I thought this was just a few days holiday break for Jane and Chris.

What a shame the class was cancelled but not on purpose. I hope her car dos'nt cost too much to have repaired. I did notice Morrisons had trays of geraniums when I went this week. They looked good strong plants.

How's Max now Mandy. Did he enjoy his afternoon in the garden?

I have been up the border all afternoon digging out twitch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! At least I have it clear around the old plum tree on the wall and its is laden with fruit again. Bless its little cotton roots....... The plums are really lovely and even cooked with a nice drop of custard. That was the one dessert I woudl eat as a child. Managed to knock one of the flag iris's flowers off and I had been so careful as I had turned around and knocked it a couple of times then I moved the cane and that was it the top flower came straight off.

Well Frank got his mowing done without any mishaps I see and oh got all our outside grass cut this afternoon after doing inside the wall this morning while I hoovered and dusted.

Lamb chops for dinner with new pots and runner beans.

I hope Max is improving Mandy, pets can be a concern when they cant tell you if
they feel any discomfort It is more of a worry when they are so young, bless him.

I bought a few plants yesterday in Aldi which I have been planting out today, I bought two packs of geraniums, some mixed petunias, three fuschias and a pretty planter of Summer flowers to take to the crematorium one day next week, then it was back to the weeding and taking out pond weed .

Another tumble Frank, thank goodness no bones broken and you were able to go on and cut the lawn.

Happy birthday to your daughter for tomorrow Liz, it's my brother's 70th birthday on
Sunday, we had five family birthdays this month in all.

Ann, that was a disappointment your class being cancelled, it sounds as if your day went well yesterday, looking forward to seeing you do your bitt !!

We had fish & chips with mushy peas for dinner tonight.

This is what ours is Mandy, I just looked it up and it isn't a clover as I thought! It is quite pretty as you say and I think ours must have come with a plant I bought.

http://www.msuturfweeds.net/details/_/creeping_woodsorrel_57/

I can't keep up with Ros Frank.....she's moving too fast! :-) You did well to get your lawn done after all.

I don't think even I will be able to see the film when it's ready as it's part of an application they have to submit so won't be for public consumption. It would have been good to have seen it though.

I did start a necklace while we were away, it's like a little band of beaded leaves but there's still half of it to do. I'll send a pic when it's finished.

I might have another peek at Aldi's plants tomorrow Anne in case they have put more out!

Max seems fine Mel it's just his tummy when he has to go he goes two or three times he's been playing in the garden and laying in the sun but we haven't walked him today ,hopefully the medicine will help until we know what the trouble is .

My mouth is watering now i love stewed plums , and then doing tinker tailor soldier sailor etc with the plum stones .

Anne it sounds as if you have been busy planting again ,we have an Aldi being built ,i shouldn't think it will be to long now before it will be ready ,we can see the roof is on now ,they seem to have lots of bargains like Lidl .

Yes Ann thats the plant come to think of it it probably does come in with plants from the nursery as i have had it grow in some of the pots i have put plants in from the garden centre.

Well will say night night now i feel quite weary tonight ,see you all tomorrow .

Good morning all

We have had some rain this morning but quite useful as I won't have to water the new plants. Ann I do have a lot of that creeping wood sorrel too it's inclined to grow up around the rose bushes making it more difficult to remove.

Mandy it will be nice having an Aldi close by we have had ours for about 4 years now and is about 10 minutes walk away in the opposite direction to Sainsbury. The best days to buy plants are Thursdays & Sundays when they get them fresh in and you can have first choice.
Next Thursday they will have Acers for £10.99 I bought three last year all different and they are doing really well with lovely feathery coloured leaves. I have been told that Aldi and Lidle owners are part of the same family.

How is Caroline now Frank? Your heart must sink every time the phone rings Ros doesn't seem tp have much time for herself at all.

If you have ever travelled in the mid-west coastal area of Ireland, one of the nicer parts of the island, you may have noticed that some of the older style houses have a ring of trees surrounding them. This, I think, was mainly to provide some shelter from the prevailing south-westerlies. However, there was another positive side effect in that many of the trees provided the birds a safe environment to build nests of all shapes & sizes to suit their purpose.

The house I grew up in had a few sycamore trees around the back & side; two evergreens to the front as well as a few apple trees in the side garden. This basically meant that there was rarely any need for an alarm clock in the mornings. The chorus of birdsong would surely waken the heaviest of sleepers. In summertime, they were apt to start tuning up by 5 or 6am.

And if that wasn't enough, some of us had decided to keep a few songbirds inside the house as well. The younger folk among you readers might find it hard to believe how easy it was to catch these prized birds. A trap we called a 'cradle' was one way to achieve success. Occasionally, we simply went out at night & caught them in the trees. A windy evening in wintertime when there was plenty of background noise was ideal. The branches swayed & when we dazzled the little creatures with a torch, them seemed temporarily paralysed, unable to move. We just had to reach out behind the beam to catch hold of them. You could feel their little hearts pounding.

We were warned never to touch any birds eggs or disturb their nest in any way. That didn't stop the birds from having the odd fluttery feathered fight amongst themselves. The magpie was often the main culprit because it often took things that did not belong to it. It's not that there was a shortage of nest building materials out there among the many trees. Maybe they fought over the food or a good nesting place.

One bird that was not too well liked was the Jackdaw. It had a nasty habit of building its nest inside chimneys - a warm & cosy place. I remember one of them falling down inside our chimney & out it flew through the open fireplace. Ashes & soot everywhere! Our parents must have thought of it as a piece of 'bad luck' coming our way & forbade us from speaking about the disturbance.

The lark was reputed to be a good weather prophet. We loved to hear them in the bog as we saved turf for our open fireplace's winter fuel. The saying went something like this: 'If the lark flies on high, the sun will glow. But when the lark stays low, prepare for a blow'.

The call of the Corncrake too was a common sound in those days. You could hear it while we worked in the fields. I'm told they are scarcer nowadays. They nested on the ground in amongst the long grass & would fight fiercely to protect their young. The coming of the mechanised grass harvester was a death knell for many a Corncrake.

One bird that is plentiful in Ireland is the robin. If you were ever digging in the garden, the robin would soon appear looking for worms. In school, we were warned never to hurt a robin because the robin comforted Jesus on the Cross in Calvary & perched itself on his shoulder till the end. The robin even tried to pluck the thorns from Our Saviour's head & was given a red breast by God for all time in memory of its efforts.

Country folk loved to hear the cuckoo's first call because it meant that summer was on its way. For us schoolchildren, that also indicated that summer holidays away from our school books was fast approaching.

The most sought after birds were the linnet, the chaffinch or a gold finch if we were lucky. Most houses in our village had one or two birds in a bird cage strung from the ceiling. The cage had to be kept well away from the prying eyes of our pesky cat. It was lovely to watch the bird chirping away & hopping around on the perches. If the birds were disappointed at being held captive, they never showed any distress. They were provided with lashing of food & water. As night drew on, we would throw a cloth over the cage to block out the artificial light & give the poor animals a chance to rest.

There was a small ventilation opening on the gable of our cow barn & that is where the swallows built their nest. It is said they would come back to the same spot year after year - without the aid of a SatNav. I used to wonder where they had been & what they had seen along the way.

One of my many chores as a youngster on our farm was to close the horse stable door around dusk. Bats would sometimes come flying out & they had a frightening habit of flying too close. Years later, I found out that bats were not birds at all but flying mammals & a close cousin to the mouse. No wonder they had put the frighteners on me.

In springtime, the ploughing would start with horse & plough - no tractor then. The crows & seagulls would appear as if from nowhere. Following the plough, they would help themselves to the rich pickings of flies & worms turned up by the movement of the clay. In the great order of nature, the birds were helping by keeping flies, bugs & insects at bay. But I don't suppose they realised that!

Some farmers disliked the wren since folklore said it once deceived the eagle. Apparently, all the birds gathered together in order to elect a king of birds. In lieu of the ballot box, it was decided amongst themselves that whichever bird flew the highest would be crowned 'King of the Birds'. The big eagle flew to a great height above every other creature but it did not realise that a tiny wren hoped onto its back before takeoff. The wren jumped off the eagle's back & was then able to fly even higher than the eagle. Reluctantly, the wren was named 'King of the Birds'.

We had a version of 'Swan Lake' nearby. We would see the swans as they bopped along. We knew well to have respect for swans generally because King Lear's children had been turned into swans by their wicked stepmother. We didn't want to run the risk of hurting a King's child in disguise. Their grace & beauty were lovely to behold. On rare occasions, we could hear the strange sound of these wild geese flying overhead. They always travelled in a V-shaped formation, each taking a turn at the front.

There you have it. I have rambled on a bit but I thought you would like to hear how we took birds into our own homes & made them part of the family. We know our ancestors did the same thing from the many references to these birds in music & folk songs. Long may we live in harmony with our feathered friends.

Happy memories. :-)

Good morning Dermot

I found all your information on the birds very interesting and your childhood on the farm sounds Idyllic and very happy.

My youngest son had a holiday in Southern Ireland a few years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. We also wake up to a dawn chorus our main birds being blackbirds, Tits, Sparrows, thrushes, wood pigeons, woodpeckers, Jays and of course the Robin also Magpies if only one was spotted we use to say hello Mr Magpie and where is your wife. Our next door neighbours have a large Avery in their garden which is also very tuneful..

Good morning Anne and Dermot and to all my others friends, Eveing Kim,

Dermot I so enjoyed your posting, it was like I was sitting in your house and garden. You expressed yourself so beautifully.

Not a nice day here, very windy and we had rain in the night. Good job I got that lawn cut. They forecast rain for later and tempretures around 14/15 degrees. Brrrrr

Haven't heard from Carolyn, so no news is good news ;-) ;-) ;-) I bet she will be on the phone before the day is out.

Ros went off early as she wanted to go to Tesco for Veg and B & Q for new door bell. She will then go to Martines and go with her to Morrisons and the Garden Centre, to get me some veg plants.

Tony has left his mower in the middle of the lawn. So that won't do it a lot of good getting soaked last night.

Glad that little (not so little) Max has improved. Could he have picked something up on his first walkies. ??

Anne, Ros bought two standard rhodedendrons, they were in bud when she bought them, but now in full bloom (DARK RED) and look a picture.

As I have said before we have "Green Thumb" lawn people. I am a little concerned that since the last "WEED AND FEED" treatment, we are getting a lot of broad leaved grass growing in patches. I worner if it was something in their treatment. ?? Will have to have words on his next visit. :-0 :-0 ;-) ;-) ;-)

It's getting so dark here, I need the lights on. So itwon't be long before the rain.

Hope you all can get into your gardens and do your weeding and planting. Here's one little boy, who will be staying in doors.

Mornin g all,

Bit grey here today and we had quite a bit of rain last night and in the night.

What a lovely thing to read on a Sunday morning Dermot. All those memories of our feathered friends. I too remember some of the tails of the Robin, Wren and Magpie but the latter would fight with others birds because it stole their eggs. Same with the Jackdaws. We get them fly over our garden with eggs in their beaks or see them eating them on our large lawns. The Magpies used to go in my chicken house and take the eggs out of the nestboxes fly to our neighbours side of the garden and eat them in the laurel hedge. I wondered why my egg yield was down and Alan took me to the side and showed me all the egg shells in the ditch under the hedge. I took my eggs to market at the time and the only thing I could think of was "look at all those £1.20s a dozens laying on the ground."

Well its raining again now so no gardening for me today as the ground will be too sticky to work and I got wet yesterday afternoon late all down my back and had to take my gilet off when I came in and dry it out.


The birds really have a bad time in the country and I suppose other places too. They have these corvids that take their eggs, the squirrels, stoats, weazels, rats and other things as well as children. I once found a nest of the blackbird when I was very young on the way to the shop for my mum in my new royal blue blazer. The edge of Roding Lane South was edged by scrub land and then the River Roding and it was along there that I saw a blackbird fly into an elderberry tree close to the road. I peeped in the tree and there within my touch was a nest with four eggs in. Lvely blue speckled egg. I took one and popped it in my pocket, carried on my way and bought the shopping came home and I had broken the eggs in the pocket of my new blazer and stuck my finger in it whiilst trying to get it out. Boy did I get told off by mum.

That was the first and last time I ever took a birds egg. Some one who bred budgies once gave me two of their eggs in a match box lined in cotton wool. They had been blown and were very fragile but my pride and joy and I would show them to my friends and keep them in my treasure box safely out of the way of friends when they came to play.

Off to feed my feathered friends now as the peanuts need filling and the fat balls need replacing and everything else I put out is all eaten up by the hungry parents of all the baby birds we have in and around our garden. Even the blimmin Jackdaws who nest in next doors eves come to the bird table and eat the chickens food.

Afternoon all,

Bright here this more but lots of cloud and quite windy .

Dermot that was lovely reading your posting ,why not join us on here and give us some more of your memories we would all enjoy that ,i haven't heard that saying before about the Larks , i've never heard of a Corncrake, are they a very big bird?

Max is playing out in the garden and we ' re getting a few jobs done out there before we get the showers this afternoon .

Hubby has been cleaning the van out ,i don't think son keeps it as tidy as hubby would like .

I suppose you'll be watching the football later Frank , i think hubby said he wouldn't mind watching it.

Better sort out some lunch now i cooked a nice piece of gammon yesterday so i think it will be gammon rolls for us .

Been busy in the garden for days which is why I've not been online.

Mum is here at the moment so I'll catch up with the posts later <3