Like everyone else I’m both incredibly bored as well as fairly busy. I’m bored with not being able to travel to see friends, family or anything else. But I’m kept busy with work and I’ve also been doing a few things that had been put on the long finger. Sure, I’m not anyway as productive as I could be, but I think that’s acceptable. While some people seem to think that we’re all somehow “obliged” to be super productive while our world is turned upside down I prefer to focus on keeping my sanity!
So a few things that I’ve been working on and fixing etc.,
Prints
I’m still struggling to find the exact right place to hang some of the prints I’ve got. A couple of them found natural homes, like the Ratatouille one ending up in the kitchen. I have picked up some nicely framed and mounted first day covers from Royal Mail over the last couple of years. While I’ve managed to find a home for one or two I’m still not sure about the best place to put most of them. Of course there’s nothing to stop me from moving them around after the fact, but I’d like to at least get them somewhere close to the “right one”.
LED Lights
Speaking of the kitchen. A few months ago I noticed that it was darker than I was expecting, which it turns out was due to a couple of the LED lights no longer working. Odd, as they’re meant to last for several years. The electrician was planning to come over and check them out, but of course that never happened. Changing LED lights isn’t hard, but I put it on the long finger for weeks, which of course then morphed into months.
Of course it’s 2020, so you can opt for “smart” LED lights these days, but for my kitchen ceiling? I couldn’t see any point so I just went with the “cheap and cheerful” option. Now I can see things a lot better in the kitchen. This is both a blessing and a curse!
Salad
I’ve had a couple of Click & Grow gardens for a while. The first one I got years ago was for herbs, while the newer one can do larger plants. So a few weeks ago I planted some tomato plants and lettuce.
The lettuce came along really well and I finally harvested it today. So today’s salad featured my homegrown lettuce! It was fine, but the crop wasn’t exactly “huge”. So while it’s a nice idea, I’m not so sure it’s the most cost-effective.
With the garden centres all closed and the entire country deciding that this was the perfect time to start growing their own vegetables it’s been quite hard to source plants, seeds or other gardening kit.
One of the things I really wanted to do was to revive and expand my herb garden. The rosemary I’d had for a couple of years died last year, so I really needed to get a replacement. I love cooking with fresh herbs from my own garden and rosemary is wonderful with lamb and other meats. Sure, you can use dried rosemary, but it’s a poor replacement for the freshly cut herb.
I finally managed to find a shop selling rosemary plants and it’s now growing in my little herb garden.
My mint didn’t survive last year either (notice a trend?) so I’ve replaced it with a new plant I picked up in one of the supermarkets. I always plant mint in a pot or planter, as it has an annoying habit of trying to takeover if given the chance.
Flowers
I’ve never been a big fan of flower gardens. Sure, they’re pretty and all that, but I’ve never been that interested in spending time and energy growing them. I inherited a few when I got the house, but I’ve no interest in adding more.
However I will make an exception for “bee friendly” ones. I’ll be planting a few over the next couple of days that, assuming the birds don’t get them, will be a nice addition for the bees. Photos to follow assuming they don’t die!
I also picked up a lavender plant in the last couple of weeks. I’ve always loved the smell and of course you can use it as a herb in your cooking or to garnish a cocktail (think gin!). What amused me, however, is that the company supplying the plants thinks they can impose restrictions on how people use the plants:
So they think that they can somehow stop me or anyone else from taking cuttings? I can see that working as well as Disney’s attempts to copyright the “#MayThe4th” hashtag:
(Which of course led to sites like this one)
Hopefully the weather keeps dry for the rest of the day as I need to do some work in the garden!
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