Lucky Me!

I received a lovely parcel in the post, it contained lots of lovely goodies!



A packet of Breakfast Tea, a beautiful new tea cosy and a beautiful china teacup and saucer.

Why would I receive such a goody pack, because I read other peoples blogs and one I like in particular belongs to 21st Century Housewife who was having a giveaway and I won!!!! I admire this lady immensely as she tries to become greener in her everyday living and I often leave her blog with ideas to try my self! So pop across and take a look.

The tea cosy is really welcome especially when you look at my old one



disgusting isn't it! I can tell you the practically the day I bought this, there had been a display in the window of the Oxfam shop (now closed) in our local town of knitted items, when I asked if I could buy one they said 'yes dear at the end of the week' so 9am on the last day of the week I went in and bought it and that was 20 years ago this December! Cost me £2.50, but I thought it was well worth it, and as you can see its tatty but still does a good job, infact it out lasted the old teapot!!!



The beautiful china cup and saucer is so pretty and delicate but to be honest far too small for a cuppa, one sip and it would be gone, so I have put it on the dresser with all my other lovely little nick naks!

Thank you so much Mrs L your gift is really appreciated!

I though I might have a giveaway, so I am off to have a route round to see what I can find, so watch this space.

Then I thought for a bit of fun I might set myself the challenge of posting everyday of November???? I won't promise that the posts will be long and meaningful, but there will be posts!!!lol!!!

First Frost

I was caught out abit today, by the weather!! I know, the weather forecast has been predicting this cold snap for awhile, but who believes a weather forecaster nowadays anyway??

At 0800 when I went out armed with camera to check if the greenhouse was alright it was pretty chilly -3.7C I think. I love these mornings especially now my Rayburn is lit and we are all cosy inside!

I must apologise for the pics, not the best I've taken, but you can see how badly the frost has hit some of my plants





The Tree Fern doesn't look affected by the frost



but it has some scorched leaves.

then the beautiful colour of the leaves of my Rocket Tree



further down the garden by the pond the Gunnera and banana, all floppy now..



The little greenhouse still to be bubble wrapped



Whilst the big greenhouse all wrapped up and with 2 Frost Stat heaters in



the plants look good, No wonder when you see how warm it is in there!!!



Even after the hectic weekend and the drive back, plus it always seems to take longer to recover from the hour change nowadays, I decided the Brugs had to be saved, they can usually take one bad frost, but I'd hate to lose them because I could not be bothered to bubblewrap the small greenhouse.

So I chopped back bananas, gunneras, chopped back the Brugs, bubblewrapped the small greenhouse and moved all my small brugs into it.

Now my patio looks like this



Down by the pond looks like this



Inside the little greenhouse looks like this.....



Off for a cuppa now!!

Weekend Away!

Arrived back after my long weekend away at Mum's. Had an exciting journey back driving through, sleet, hail and rain. The temp has definately dropped. It is that time of year again...



Rayburn lighting!!

Last year we lit on the 19th October, so we have done well lasting so long. But to be honest it hasn't been too bad as we have had the front fire lit!



whilst we have been away hubby survived with just the front fire, he was at work most days so it wasn't too bad but look at the mess he left



can you see all the dust? This is the problem with coal fires and there is an art to cleaning, riddling and stoking and I don't think he has it! Yuk!!!

Let me re-introduce you to my Great Neice Madison,



she will be 2 in December



yep she is going to be a big girl, well her mum is 6ft 2ins!!!

Here she is in K's boots!!!




it was great spending time with Mum, Zoe and Madison, the next time we go up will be Christmas!!!

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!

Greenhouse Jungle!

First of all I had to jet wash the greenhouses this weekend as they are below 'Silver Birch' trees, this is what this one looked like before.........



and I only just remembered to take a pic of it washed after I had started to bubblewrap it!!!!



at the end of each year I label and roll up each piece and then store it in the shed until it is needed again



I then use the ladders and the fiddly little green things to attach it to the inside of the greenhouse. On the roof I use extenders, well thats what I call them, they hold the bubble wrap away from the glass by about an inch, I find this helps stop condensation, which is a killer for some of my banana/ensetes as they have to be kept more or less dry over winter!



here we are all done, with some of the plants back in. You can see the heaters are in place, I have 3 in this greenhouse two fan and one tube. In the small greenhouse I have one tube and one fan heater. All for the love of tropical plants!!



One of the Ensetes is lying down to drain out all the water, I will have to keep doing this untill the soil is dry, as any water stored in the stem is a killer, when it freezes, which hopefully it won't!



I showed you the other day the bananas I had to dig up, on the patio, first you have to cut off all the leaves....





which I think is sad as the leaves are beautiful, they didn't all go to waste as my neighbour is a primary school teacher and apparently their year 3 is studying the jungle so she took a couple of the leaves in for them to see and feel!



amazingly these plants only have very small root balls considering the size the plants get!



I have them sitting upside down



draining out some of the water, fortunately they are not too heavy!



this is one of the 'Xanthosoma' that also had to be dug up, great colour!



Greenhouse beginning to fill up now!



In the pots on the left are my Egg Yams, lopped off as I wouldn't have room for everything and there leaves!!!





Looks quite colourful in here now, I wonder where I'm going to put my brugmansias????????????