Fresh morning, but hot days

The garden has been very neglected over the summer months as I wasn't well enough to do anything physical.   I'm afraid the veggie patch on the field and the polytunnel went the same way too.  However, you just can't stop some things and here are photos I took yesterday of the grapevine.

Yesterday we snipped off the leaves covering the bunches of grapes to allow the September sun to finishing ripening them.

In the border there were some interesting perennials which I had planted in the Springtime.

I can't remember what this last one is called and haven't been able to find it on the internet either up until now.

The veggie plot burgeoned with produce, but it was a bit like hacking through a jungle to reach the rewards.  Courgettes had grow to marrow size and most of these went to the hens.  Beetroot, runner beans, spinach and rhubarb have been prolific.  Red and white onions are now drying in the polytunnel and I'm still picking tomatoes and making sauce to go in the freezer.

Sometimes I think I never want to see another tomato!

I am torn between tidying up the flower garden and all the pots and leaving them for my friend, June, to see when she arrives  to stay in 13 days time.  I thought she could at least then get an impression of how lovely it's been, although many things are going over.  Amazingly the honeysuckle is still going after months of flowering and the roses are really lovely. 

Autumn suddenly seemed to arrive on Monday here.  It's been so hot this week during the day time, but the early mornings and nights are definitely cooler and fresher.  For three days running I have sat in the sunshine in the garden reading and have finished two books.

My next book is yet another by Anita Shreve entitled Sea Glass.  Hopefully, this morning's sunshine will last all day and I can make inroads into this one while enjoying the heat in the garden again.

Three things I like:

1.   The gravel being weed free again

2.   Chatting with my neighbour in the lane

3.   Seeing the pile of books I have yet to read

Back again - after a long break

I haven’t written on here for ages, since I started another blog about my mini gastric bypass.  Mainly because of the MGB, I haven’t felt like blogging much and haven’t done anything except stay at home or go to the supermarket, so that doesn’t make desperately interesting reading.  I still don’t feel brilliant and eating is not easy at all, but I have managed to lose 44lbs/20kgs in eight weeks, so I’m pretty pleased with that.  I was 143.1 kilos when I took this photo, ten minutes before I left for the hospital. 

Yesterday, eight weeks later, I am 123.1 kilos.  It may not look vastly different in the photo, but it certainly feels different.

I had the usual problems with my drip, which ended up being put in my neck in a horrible procedure off the ward.

Because I wasn't at all well when I came home, in fact I was eventually readmitted for another seven days, friends asked my daughter, with grandson, to come and be with me.  After readmission, I wasn't well at all, my son also arrived. 

Here they all are playing on the Wii.

This is Charlie on my hospital bed and in the pool in the garden.

They all took advantage of the pool - the water could have been a bit warmer.

Yesterday I watched as Daisy walked across the gravel to where I was sitting reading in the sunshine.  Although her walk wasn’t wrong the shape of her collar was.  I went over to her and on picking her up discovered she had a leg completely through the collar.  It didn’t seem to be bothering her and she made a tremendous fuss when I pulled her leg through.  She’s had that collar on for a year now and nothing like that has ever happened before.  Purrdy also now has a red flea collar and has kept that on with no hassle.  With previous cats, I have never been able to keep a collar on them.  Sometimes the cats have managed to get rid of them within an hour.  I think they use tree twigs to catch them and then wriggle out of them. 

I am thinking of putting a bell on Purrdy’s collar.  She is still very young but is an adept bird catcher.  I came downstairs to find her munching on a thrush, and while I was in the garden reading this morning, she jumped nearly the height of the wall by the pond and landed with a bird in her mouth which, much to her annoyance, I managed to retrieve and it flew away unharmed.  Alfie seems to have recoved well from his eye removal in spite of still have a tumour in his head. 

Here is a little visitor who flew into the windowpane.  I was able to release him after 15 minutes of comforting.  My bird expert friend, Roy, thinks it is a young reed warbler.

 My grandson, Charlie, has started school for the first time.  He seems to be enjoying it and hasn’t had a detention yet.  He looks lovely in his uniform – a combination of vulnerable and grown up, in spite of the silly face he’s making.  

Three things I like:

1.   Being back home

2.   Having the family here

3.   Losing weight so fast