INDOORS 40

It is a very rare occasion that there is no laundry to do - but here is proof that it has all been done - three empty laundry baskets! It was warm and windy weather and while my son was away on vacation for a week, though.

Here is my mid-October wine collective. The next major project is my coffee lounge - as you can see, I have let the room go somewhat - mostly because its the last place with junk left in the house. The below picture shows my way from kitchen to back door - and the rest of the room is basically ignored.

Liz gave me a lift to the tip - twice - and we removed some of the junk including the stereogram. This left me the chest of drawers, upper closets....and a pile of 'stuff' to sort out...

Gradually, things are getting cleared...3-4 bags of books and some bric-a-brac have now gone. There are still things to go though. The first photo below shows some of the stuff we cleared last week - along with my sons gum boots and my paints...

This is the hook secured to the inside of the kitchen door - which leads to the coffee lounge. Eventually, when the antiques guy visits this week, and Liz helps me get rid of more stuff to the tip after, I can clean the room over properly. At this point, I will remove the door between the coffee lounge and kitchen and place the hook on the pantry instead. (I need it to hang wet coats on - but I do NOT need the door)

UPDATE: The antiques guy came last night and spent £35 clearing some junk - I now have to sort out what is left, clean, paint and furnish the room...

OUTDOORS 30

Here we go again - with a day's harvest of autumnal produce - a green lumpy squash, a few raspberries, 1-2 tomatoes, a 'hot lemon' chili, and a handful of runner beans. And again, have another similar selection from a different day of early September - beans, tomatoes, chilies, raspberries - and hazelnuts. The nuts are actually from someone else's yard - the gentleman I clean for once a week offered me some.

This brings me to my main October project - re-covering the poly tunnel. The first step is to cut down the weeds surrounding it - as you can see in this shot, there are tons of them. You can also spot some garden spiders with large webs that I have enjoyed observing near my kitchen window recently. In the meantime, I have been grabbing crops -

- a recent outburst of turnips and mooli are topping up the veg, along with the chilies and a few tomatoes. I have not got many tomatoes this year - as ants munched my seedlings. You can also spot a few autumnal raspberries. In the second shot, bramleys from the tree in the yard join the mooli, turnip, 2 spuds, and 6 green lumpy squashes collected on the 3rd day of the month.

And we are back to a range pf photos taken down the plot in early October - the first shows my old rhubarb and black compost bin up the far end - the neat patch beyond, before the fruit bushes, is where I have my broad beans, garlic and shallots planted. Since taking this picture last week, I have now dug out the rhubarb crown in 5-6 lumps and deposited it down the end where 'freebies' are put for other plotsters who might want it.

This shot shows the other clump of rhubarb at the other far end of the plot - the new crown. As you can see, it is doing well enough for me to have faith in it producing my crops for next year - so long as I surround it in horse muck and rhubarb leaves and remove weeds. Also in view are the blackcurrant and gooseberry bushes - with raspberries beyond.

my final shot for today's blog post is of my 2 blueberry bushes, my onion patch, and some dug over/weeded ground - read to grow in 2018. My aim is to remove grass/weed paths and make them all as seen above - trodden mud.