The Bank Holiday season is upon us again, we’ve just had Easter, then there’s May Day and with the King and Queens Coronation we get an extra one before Spring Bank Holiday at the end of May, basically a month or so of 4 day weeks!
So, another bank holiday, another drive through the countryside, another trip to a garden centre, this time we bought a couple of plants for the garden and I bought a Cucumber plant.
I have put it for now in my recently acquired cold frame, always wanted a cold frame. I also recently purchased a box of vegetables to grow, so the other Saturday I set about sowing seeds in trays for Beetroot, Broccoli, Courgettes, Carrots, Lettuce, Radishes and Beans as well as bulbs for Garlic, Onions and Shallots.
My cold frame is currently busy and I am wondering where in the garden I am going to plant the seedlings when they get bigger. I have a walk in growing frame which I plan to pot and put the Cucumber, the rest I will work out as they grow.
I have only planted a few of each as I don’t want to grow too many and then be left with tons of vegetable that won’t get eaten. I may have to try growing Peppers from seeds again, tried once before, got a really good plant and a few small peppers but nothing to really pick and use in a salad.
I have also replanted all my strawberry plants in the feint hope that I will get some strawberries. I have converted a wooden pallet into a tiered planter, lined the sections with fabric and planted the strawberries in the troughs that are created.
I could have planted all of these in the raised bed at my Dad’s house but I’m hoping to sell in the near future and I don’t want to have to leave a bed full of vegetables to the new owner, do I?
People say that imitation is the greatest form of flattery, the shortened form of the quote by Oscar Wilde, ‘Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness’. At work they pull my leg, mock me, call it what you like it is only harmless banter and it certainly is not bullying or offensive.
I have a few sayings that I use during the course of the day on a regular basis and they now get either mockingly repeated back to me or said to me before I have the chance to say them. The imitation comes in when they get said by the other guys in a situation that I would use them.
Between us we now have a number of sayings that we are carrying into our everyday lives, for instance, if something looks a bit tricky or technical we say that it’s a bit ‘Techie’. I use words like ‘Gadgie’ to describe things that are maybe just a bunch of loose items or lots of little things, I would just say ‘All those gadgie bits’ and a saying I pinched from a guy I used to work with about 20 years ago, if there is not much of something, I say there is not a Busting lot.
The one that I am trying to say less and less is ‘I know, I know’ which gets used against me more frequently than anything else at the moment, which stating the obvious is when someone points out or tells me something of which I am aware of.
This strange thought struck me the other day, how many lakes are there in the Peak District and how many peaks are there in the Lake District?
We had a job to Ashbourne in the Peak District the other week, the boss asked one of us if they minded a long day as we were going to the Lake District, which of course turned out to be the Peak District.
Trick Pub Quiz question is. How many lakes are there in the Lake District? The answer being one, as there is only one body of water called Lake, all the others are called Tarn or Mere or Water, which according to the dictionary they are just other words for lake! There are actually 16 Lakes and 76 bodies of water. Funnily enough, there are 214 peaks or mountains in the Lake District.
The Peak District on the other hand has but 3 main peaks, 2 of them are just high enough to be classed as mountains, but there are however 106 peaks, fells, hills or mountains.
On the lake front, the Peak district is more famous for its reservoirs of which it has an abundance, well 10, most of which were created to supply water to Manchester and surrounding towns. The 2 most famous are probably the Ladybower which is one of the largest and most recently formed, the other being the Derwent with its imposing Derwent Dam, famously used during WWII for the 617 Squadron to practice for the ‘Dam busters’ raid in 1943.
Obviously the Lake District is so called because of all the lakes or large bodies of water, the Peak District however has nothing to do with Peaks or hills, but gets its name from a group of Anglo Saxons that inhabited that area of Britain called Pecsaetans or Peak dwellers or Peaklanders as it translates to.
I’m really loving AirBnB, , it is making looking for and booking places to stay so much easier, it has increased the selection immensely as people can list their cottages etc much more easily to a much wider audience and being able to search for different types of accommodation all in one place.
We’ve used it for our 60th birthday holiday; Platinum Jubilee weekend away (Late Easter as we missed that) and we’ve managed to book a stay in an old Chapel and another in a Railway Carriage as well as somewhere different at Easter as our previous cottage has stopped being let.
Yes, we did get away for Easter this year and we got back into our old routine of places to see and visit. With a different cottage in a different town we had to find a new fish and chip shop, good it was too. Lincoln on Saturday for lunch, charity, book and record shops and then a visit to the Ten Pin Bowling on the way home, but that was just because we all needed the toilet! Church on Sunday and then a new place for Sunday lunch, in Boston, Goodyards Barn and they do a Sunday carvery!
Back via Woodhall Spa, quick wander around followed by a trip to the Kinema in the Woods (Dungeons and Dragons; Honour Amongst Thieves, before you ask, and yes I did enjoy it! The others went to see Hallelujah, something to do with a Retirement Home).
The missing dog saga! Just very quickly, I think something may have developed, I don't follow the saga on Facebook so I might never know but virtually all of the posters and banners have suddenly gone, there are just a few spurious ones left on the far reaches of the search area.
Either they have given up or he has turned up! Whether it's alive or dead who knows, I suppose I really should try and find out!