Sooooooo Warm!

Woodlands World Sauna here!!!

Its mild outside and the Rayburn has gone bonkers, so I am in a strappy top and cropped light weight trousers and bare feet! We toyed with letting it out at the weekend, but with the continual rain it gets mighty damp and the washing would never dry. So we soldier on and keep all the windows open.

Mind you according to my other residents its chilly and they need to stay warm!



oh sorry did I disturb you Jake?



close enough to the radiator Sassy?



What are they like and they have a permanent fur coat!! Tango is out and about at the moment!

Whilst I was looking out the window this morning I saw this...



can you see? You may need to click on it to enlarge it. At the top of the Leylandii (Big Xmas Tree). The heron!! Didn't visit my pond as its well netted to stop the leaves haha!

More Crochet

My daughter loves the 'Gothic' style although is not strictly a 'Goth' so I made her a choker last night





this was fun and not so hard on the fingers as wire!

Whilst K was home last week Sassy found her again. Sassy has always been K's cat and only really comes to me when K is not around. She has had pride of place in K's room and is lovely toasty and warm




Only a short post today, lots going on!

Autumn is Here!

I can tell when autumn is here not only by the changing colours of the leaves, or the low hard sun in the sky but by looking round my garden

My Caster Oil Plant, I can still remember the first time it flowered, I believe two years ago on this blog, since then it has been dug up cut back and re-planted and this year yet again it shows me its different developments of its flower..









It always flowers at this time of year, and I love it because it is so different to anything else I have in the garden,

I was given a tuber of this flower Impatiens tinctoria (I believe)





yes there are other types of 'Bizzy Lizzie' lots and lots I have the book to prove it! This one is currently 1 metre tall and flowering away merrily, a sight for sore eyes at this time of year!!


My tree ferns have loved our awful summer and have grown amazingly well, I will stuff the crowns with fleece and leave them to there own devices this winter. This is the small one



and my bigger one has masses of fronds





A sure sign of colder days and nights is I can find the cats relatively easily

Jake's favourite position is half in and half out of the cat flap, I have yet to get a pic but I will



he comes and goes as he pleases now, but I lock them all in at night! Although he is timid he acts quite dominant on occasions, Sassy does not like him at all and avoids him at all costs, when they do meet everyone can hear it. Funnily enough neither Sassy or Tango have given him a swipe, Chimarnie my old cat would have, its all Jake needs, maybe its not in the nature of a Burmese?? Watching him round the house I understand how important a tail is to a cat, he is definitely not as agile.

Sassy likes to be as close to me as she can



sitting on the chair next to me when I'm on the computer. She is so sweet.

Tango is sneezing alot



and is not complaining to much about being shut in, which is unusually for him. I have checked for other symptoms of 'Cat flu' but he doesn't seem to have them, he is drinking and eating so maybe its just the sniffles.

In the autumn I come in from the garden and start to make and do in the home, I have been quite busy so have some nice things to share with you, but not right now. I am away for a few days visiting my mum so will be back next week.

Don't forget the hour changes this weekend!

Cats

As sunday was such a glorius day, and Jake had successfully found the cat flap, plus there where four of us here I though today should be the day when he would be allowed out!!!!!






he had an explore around and kept popping back in for a lie down! Or flop as we call it!



as you can see he is not easy to see



and after more exploring, look at the awful new fence our neighbour has replaced the ivy with!



he disappeared for 5 3/4 hours!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! not that I was counting of course!

So I tried hard to keep myself from worrying and having an early heart attack!





By moving some plants around to disguise the 'fence'! Quite pleased with this.

Sassy as you can see was not atall bothered



Eventually Jake returned, much to my relief, but then Sassy and Tango stayed out all night so I didn't get much sleep last night!!!

Walkies, well maybe not!

Ooo the great outdoors!



Maybe I'll sit here for awhile!



Ah ha! Thats the way in!!!!!!!!



and thats as far as we got!! But look Jake this is the way to do it!!!

First Meeting

Well the first and second meetings have occured, it wasn't planned it just sort of happened. I was upstairs in my room I hadn't realised Sassy was in and then Jake arrived. Rather than worry I carried on nattering away to them both and basically ingnored them carried on doing what I was doing.
Sassy was curled up in the middle of a pile of bags on the floor. Jake came up cautiously at first and then saw Sassy and you could see 'stupid' written across his head as he trotted over to introduce himself. Sassy gave a typical female cat yeowl in the depth of her throat, stayed where she was, but let him know whose in charge.
Jake trotted off.
2 Hours later this occured in the kitchen





as she walked past she did another yeowl and trotted on her way!! Jake has decided eating in the kitchen is far better!!



I'm not so sure the going will be as smooth with Tango, but I remain positive!

Backup!

I'm back!! Some silly virus got past all my security, I ended up having to call a man in to sort it! I've yet to receive the bill!!! But what this has taught me is

BackUp

how long is it since you have backed up your computer, if its awhile, do it, do it now! We are going to buy a large external hard drive to back up too and I shall get into the habit of backing up once a week.
I realised when all my security failed that what I have on the computer could very well be totally lost.
Digital Photos, I have stored but not got round to organising.
Family Tree, both hubby and I have spent many years researching our family trees, these are BIG files!
Letters, sometimes are only copy, what happened to carbon paper!
Keep all your discs and keynumbers, know where they are as you never know when you might need them!! This I am good at and could put my hand to everything I have loaded onto the computer.
Most of my pics are stored online as well.
I use a web based email so would not have lost anything there.
So the biggy for us would have been letters and documents and the Family History files.
So if you haven't, go do it now, BACK UP!

Other things that have been going on:-

Cats

Jake is still isolated from the other two but gets out to play whilst they are outside, he loves balancing on the bannister!



Sassy has been feeling the cold and whilst K was home had spent alot of time with her, she has been missing her and I often find her down K's bad under the bed clothes!



Out in the garden, my jungle did remarkably well this year, surprisingly, I think it really enjoyed all the rain but we could definately done with more sun, I don't think we sat out much at all!





The tree ferns really loved the damp weather..



The transformation down by the pond has been amazing, a real jungle paradise.



I'll have that greenhouse hidden in next to no time!!



The T-rex as you can see has really taken off this year, so next year I'm hoping for great things!!!



Looking back up the garden, you can see the mist this morning, it was a bit nippy only 6.1C when I woke about 06.30, its now 09.00 and has only managed 7C!!!
Where the wood is will be a new veg bed, thats where the chickens had been and opposite I plan to have a strawberry bed in a traingular patch.



The Indian Bean Tree (on the left, yellow leaves) will be moved this autumn. The veg bed beyond where you can see the sunflower growing (more on that in a mo!) Is going, I have had very poor results from this bed for 2 years now so I shall be slabbing it and this is where the Bar-B-Que will go. In hope of some decent bar-b-que weather next year!!! The indian bean tree will move closer to the BBQ area so as not to cast too musch shade on the flower/veg beds as it has a very thick canopy!



The Sunflowers....

when K came home from Uni she asked if she could plant some sunflowers, I said of course. Anyway they where planted very late and bearing in mind the weather this is the best one ever grown in our garden. These pics are for you K!



Comparing it with the Rocket Tree you can see how big it has got



One of the smaller ones she planted, such a lovely colour!