22 May 2017

Sunday

Yesterday, Shirley and I drove up to our local garden centre. It's a small business tucked behind the houses at Bents Green. We have been there many times and even though we could buy plants more cheaply elsewhere, we like to support this independent nursery albeit in a small way.

There was a lot of rain on Friday and a fair amount on Saturday too but the land needed it and now there's a feeling in the air that winter has entirely gone. No more frosts. Warm weather is predicted for the days ahead. You sense that this is  the right time for planting.

I have been growing runner beans from seeds in what we still call Frances's bedroom. Yesterday I planted them around their bamboo wigwam. At the garden centre we bought tomato plants, a tray of lollo rossa lettuces and a number of border plants for our flowerbeds.
Up in the vegetable patch, the potatoes are well through and the the pea and broad bean seeds we planted a couple of weeks ago are also starting to peep through the soil. I should have put some courgette seeds in pots a few days ago but only got round to this yesterday afternoon. Hopefully, in ten days time they will also be ready to go in the ground.

After the garden work I made a traditional Sunday dinner of roast beef, new potatoes, cabbage, roasted carrots, beef gravy and of course the piece-de-resistance - Yorkshire puddings. This was happily washed down with our customary glasses of sauvignon blanc from New Zealand.

Just past 8pm I drove out into the countryside for a little walk and snapped the accompanying photographs near Bamford Edge as the sun sank over the Derbyshire hills.

29 comments:

  1. White wine with beef? No, no, no! Try NZ merlot next time!

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    1. Having suffered from gout, I never touch red wine these days Margaret.

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  2. You had a great Sunday with good food and wine and gardening!

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    1. You are a very observant fellow Red!

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  3. That sounds like a delicious dinner. The sunset photos are fantastic. Our two hot days were followed by extremely cold and windy weather, so there'll be no planting here for awhile yet! I like to shop at our local nursery, too, to help make sure they survive.

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    1. Trouble is not everybody has such an attitude to independent and local businesses Jenny.

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  4. Sounds like the perfect Sunday. Beautiful sunset photos.

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    1. Yesterday afternoon it was a warm as mid-France.

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  5. It sounds like you've got a good garden growing there, Yorkie...one from which you will reap the benefits. Nothing quite like home-grown.

    I had a roast lunch today (my main meal is always lunch these days...I've not had a main evening meal in ages and ages...I set my own rules! :) (When my furry mates Remy and Shama allow me to do so)!

    I had road chicken with roast spuds, sweet potatoes, carrots, pumpkin and steam broccoli, rocket and spinach.

    At 8 pm here it is dark...so I don't go roaming the hills anywhere, any time! :)

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    1. Road chicken? Was it killed on one of the Tambo roads? I bet you spotted it and put your foot down!

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    2. Oh! Shit! I've done it again! I handed to you on a plate, not roast chicken, but another reason to have fun at my expense and my typos!

      I must hold the record for being the only person in the world who makes a typo!!

      I will have to stop trying to multi-task...and just concentrate getting my responses to your posts spot-on; and put everything else aside!


      At least give me some points for keeping you amused!

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    3. Hey! Cool it mama! I have something to admit. I...also...make typos! There I have said it. It's out there! Road chicken sounds like it's free range, not an imprisoned, cooped up battery hen.

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  6. I do so love this time of year, when the mellow evening light is around until after 9:00 pm!
    O.K. and I went sunset-watching from our favourite bench on the hills above the village on Saturday evening. The Vosges Mountains were silhouetted so sharply as if they'd been cut out of black paper. The land lay still and beautiful. Birds were singing everywhere, and the flowering meadows were alive with the sound of crickets.

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    1. That sounds like the beginning of a novel my friend. Continued:-
      "Al of a sudden Oliver rose from the bench and took a small wine-coloured velvet box from his pocket. Then he knelt in front of the former librarian and said..."

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  7. Sounds like the perfect Sunday to me YP. The second to last photo has the makings of an interesting watercolour, I think.
    Hope you're right about no more frosts, because I can remember the rare occasions when it's snowed in June......

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    1. Here in Sheffield I have never known a frost to happen beyond May 24th and I have lived here for almost forty years. The old men near my old allotment used to say you could put anything in the ground from the end of May.

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  8. I know what you mean about the weather. Te plants are all doing well in my little garden too, though sadly I don't have any room for vegetables. Summers a-coming!!

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    1. If you have two or three long canes, you could always grow some runner beans ADDY. As you probably already know, they are also attractive, vigorous plants.

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  9. I have never been a grower of vegetables so I am deeply impressed by anyone who makes the effort.
    The roast dinner sounds good

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    1. There was plenty for you Kylie but you didn't appear. Didn't you get my invitation?

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  10. I wish we had a garden centre that wasn't a chain. Sounds like a great day!

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    1. Have you visited:-

      Mill Lane Garden Centre
      The Open Space
      160 Mill Lane
      London NW6 1TF ?

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  11. Sounds like a perfect Sunday to me YP

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    1. ...And then went to a nightclub, drank a bottle of Jack Daniels and danced till dawn, travelling home on the back of a milk-float.

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  12. Our weather went from chilly 57* a few days back, to almost 90* today. The ground is too wet to plant still. I did put a few petunias in the porch planters, with bunny-poo for fertilizer! Your gardening efforts sound like they'll pay off nicely! Send me a Yorkshire Pudding, I've never tasted one!

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    1. I don't think my wife would want other women licking this particular Yorkshire pudding.

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  13. I'm heartbroken over what's occurred up near your neck of the woods, Yorkie...what occurred in Manchester last night, your time.

    The news broke here around 8.30 am Tuesday (Eastern Australian time). With tear-filled eyes and leaden heart I've been following it all day.

    Words fail....

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    1. It happened just before I went to bed. Terrible. We haven't had a terrorist attack in Britain like it since 2005 but one sensed that it was just a question of time. Trump is right to call the perpetrators "losers". That's what they are.

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    2. Yes...such low-lifes are...and they're cowards, too.

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