OUTDOORS 1

Here is where we were at at the start of September. A newly erected fence next door, allowing me safe access to my own yard with plenty of work to be done.

After digging out about 4-5 kilo spuds to carry home in the early morning, I went back to my allotment plot just before lunch to dig the area over, pull a few weeds, and dig out the grass clumps that used to be a path. The above shot shows the area I dug over looking towards my shed, while the photo below shows it from the shed looking back over the dug ground...

...and you can see where I stuck a few stray garlic/onions that decided to grow late/not grow, in the hopes of something happening. You can also see some pumpkinny-squashy things growing - not sure what they are yet as they came up from the compost!

It is now Mid-September and here is my kitchen windowsill filled with ripening/drying/storing crops. I am currently grabbing 5-15 cherry toms per day from the poly tunnel, have a few more runner beans going to seed on the plants at the plot, and am harvesting a few bramleys as and when I bother to - I always have far too many of those cooking apples and allow the magpies and blackbirds to take their share as well as making annual apple drops on Edna, and Liz, and...

In the garden at this time of year, the mini-cyclamen are showing colors - purply mauve and whitish mauve. This is one of 2-3 clumps, taken by the end fence under the hedgery.

Finally for today, a shot of under the small eating-apple tree. I don't much like these apples - they only grow to a small size and the tree is poorly situated and 'in the way'. I have ideas to cut the tree out and replace it with a cherry tree - I like cherries more than apples, and would still have the bramley tree.

You may notice I transferred Liz's pinky-purple flowered silvery velvet plant here - my neighbor appeared to have poisoned the weeds along the shared fence where it was before, and due to rain some poison seems to have seeped thru - I therefore cannot eat my corn, mint, coriander, parsley, turnips....and have decided to move my favorite plant - just in case!

FALL CLEANSINGS 61

Here is the kitchen table early September. Runner bean seeds are drying out on a sheet of paper, while self-grown garlic, tomatoes, onion and runner beans are ready to be prepared for lunch. In a wider view, you can see the bramleys on the windowsill and hanging basket which now contains onions and garlic I have grown.

I am still toying with ideas for the kitchen pictured above and the first room to be painted when I inherited the house - but my main plan for the rest of this year is to get the bedroom re-decced. The next step of this plan was to move the computer etc downstairs into the spare room. I had moved 3-4 small pieces of furniture the day of the dog bite, but stopped due to my leg swelling. I began again with the removal of furniture from my bedroom to the downstair spare room in the middle week of September.

The first shot shows the computer set-up in the bedroom as was. I estimated that to wipe over and carry down the printer, tower, screen, accessories, and three items of furniture they rest upon then to reassemble all would take around 1 & a 1/4 hours - at least, somwehere in the 1-2 hour region. I began at 1pm.

The next shot shows the area to which the computing set-up was to go, along with the laptop, currently in situ. Below you can see the progress I had made after around a half hour. The computer and accesories were all wiped and carried down, but the furniture remained in situ. This would be the most difficult task, as my leg still had a bandaged lump.

I took a break to wash thru the former diaper, now reused as a cover for the envelope box upon which the screen sits.

THE PLOT 19

Here is the bagfull of spuds my friend Liz dug up for me while my leg was unable to allow me to function properly. Also how I am storing the spuds this year. I have decided to wrap dry unwashed spuds in kitchen towel and store them in the bread bin....let us see if this suffices!

Here we see the produce from the plot gathered on the first Sunday of September. I have had a few corn cobs at home, but this is the first from the plot, along with a cabbage, nasturtiums, raspberries, tomatoes, beans....

On site the second weekend of September, I took a shot of my corn and runner beans - with a purple brussels sprout plant and the corner of my nasturtiums....

Just a few steps along, here is one of the two strawberry beds, nasturtium bed, continually rising artichokes - with raspberries in the rear.

My leeks are going well - several really strong thick ones and a few still growing along. Behind you can see the dead-pale brown-white stalks of my spuds (and raspberries, yet again). I have dug about 8 kilo spuds out since Liz dug up the bag full shown above, but there are still around 2 dozen plants left to dig up.

GARDEN GLIMPSES 43

Inside the poly tunnel as you can see, the tomatoes have taken over. I have all sorts of things keeping them upright - one is held in position by a pitchfork, another by a twisted peice of metal wire hanging on a thread, another leans against the wall poked behind the bar... Plenty of toms and flowers going though!

As you can see, I do have a few other items- basil and chives for example. Also, a couple sacks of leaves turning into leaf mould and a compost bag and watering can or two....

In the yard itself - I did have a clear border with a few herbs and tomatoes and corn...but...alas the bindweed took over! The corn and toms are still doing ok though!

September has now arrived and the above shot shows the produce collected at the close of last month from yard and poly tunnel along with the first Sunday of this month's garden haul. Below you can see one of the plants my friend Liz gave me is doing well - despite the bindweed.

Alas said bindweed has remained in situ and grown steadily over the four weeks that I was unable to do much more than drag a lame leg to the tunnel to water and crop a few toms...

YES! Finally, the neighbor has erected a new fence - a dog proof fence - meaning I am safe to roam my own yard at all hours once more without fear of another biting session.

FALL CLEANSINGS 60

Alas, my plans to move furniture downstairs from my bedroom into the newly carpetted spare room, strip the carpet from my room, buy paint and get to work redecorating my bedroom have had to be postponed due to being munched in the leg and arm by a large dog. Let us jump to the other side of that incident, to September, and give you an update before falling back to what happened in the interim.

As September allows me to walk on two legs instead of 1.5, ideas and plans for the house upgrade begin to flood back to my mind and heart. I may not yet quite have the oomph needed to carry larger pieces of furniture about, nor to rip out carpet, nor stand around painting for a few hours if able to carry the paint home, BUT...

I am still hoping to move the computer downstairs and only use the laptop upstairs shortly. From thence onward it depends on my leg recuperating and Liz's available time as to when the larger items of furniture can be shifted downstairs, paint purchased, and carpets ripped out for the tip.

Colors are bouncing about. Originally I planned to go with silvery gloss. It is currently pallid gray, so just a shiny version of that, I thought. Now I have a few other ideas floating around and will await my next trip to B&Q and peruse their paints...possibly, if I can find a decent shade of Dulux that comes in both matt and gloss, I might drop the notion of shiny walls and ceiling - we shall see!

Here is a reminder of how it was when that fateful day arrived - newly carpetted and 'ready'...but this is as far as I got - I was unable to move more than 2-3 small pieces of furniture before my leg ballooned....

And there is where we leave it until the next step. This 'unwanted inheritance' recliner chair having made itself useful after all, recently.

SUMMER SLOSHING 23

This picture illustrates the difference in taste between my parents and myself. The top left hand picture shows the 'lounge' I grew up with - the carpet arriving when I was a few years old, the wallpaper not long after, and the ancient settee dating from 1953 when my parents moved into a newly built council house that they later bought and I later still inherited.

Over the last year or so I have been redecorating the room, which turned from a lounge to my father's bedsit for the final 1-2 years before he passed away due to his inability to handle the stairs and our need of a third bedroom when my son moved in with us. A major stage was when Liz and I scraped the 45 year old carpet off - along with its lumped up underlay - to reveal tiles, last year. Previously, multiple pieces of furniture and bric a brac had to be sold/donated/taken to the tip. This intermediate stage is shown in the second photo - top right.

Finally, August 2016, and the recently painted room had new carpet laid, as described in my last blog post. As you can see, I am not afraid of bright and colorful decor - but I really do dislike the recliner chair. I was considering keeping it as it is only a spare room - but I have to live in the room whilst I redecorate my own bedroom, meaning in the same room as that horrendous chair.

This I do not look forward to - it is bad enough having to live downstairs rather than in an upstair room where I can leave the window open all night, but the room will be cramped and feel wrong to me, I am sure. It is also at the front rather than back of the house, so I shall not have the tree and garden birds to look out at when the sun and I wake up - but cars and people as the sun keeps me awake. I fear it will be like having a forced vacation in a place I do not want to stay - made worse by that dreadful chair that nobody wants.

Talking of nobody wants - does anybody want any of this junk? Once I have gone around the house touching up any damaged paintwork and tossed out the old paint cans, and once my onions and garlic have dried so I can put them in a box - I shall still have this room full of 'parental accumulations' to dispose of before I can install a lounge and coffee table and have MY coffee lounge room in situ.

SUMMER SLOSHING 22

Behind this door lies the spare room that I have been working on. Early August made major progress in the carpet being laid. It was a somewhat dramatic event and is not yet ended due to the recliner chair. This second shot is how the room was looking early in the first week of the month, whilst I trotted off to order and pay for the carpet - and then directly after it was laid.

As you can see, it brings more color and less dullness to the room and the carpet and curtain colors match well - if the pink gloss paintwork is a little clashing - however the chair remains a major problem, but was not the only one of carpet laying day.

To lay the carpet, the guys had to remove the door to the room. My mind swirled into visions of buying a new door, eased slightly by the idea that Liz might have a plane and either she or my son might hold the door for me while I screwed it back into place...

However, when holding it against the hinge area to see just how many plane-scrapes I would need to remove, it did not look too bad a fit. I decided to try to put it back anyway - stuff it if it wasn't 'perfect' - I wanted my door!

As you can see, I managed to rescrew the door into place solo without the need to scream down the phone to Liz or call out and disturb my son. With the draught excluder removed (unwanted anyway) it more or less fitted back in place, just a little slowed by the new carpet, but not stuck or stopped.

So...this is the room as I left it that night despite my original plan to take down some smaller pieces of furniture directly. I was put off by the recliner chair and wanted it OUT of the room before I rebuilt the room with its new/my old furnishings. I got quite upset about not being able to sell the thing - ebay, gumtree, facebook, shop ads, and word of mouth all having failed.