Few days worth of stuff here - been v busy so not had time to post. Read on and all will be revealed........

Well the weekend was reasonably sunny if rather windy and wet in places. Saturday i attacked the garden in preparation for the first BBQ of the year - yes, I know its only March, and yes, we are a little, iddy-biddy bit insane. Sunday was Mothers day, so visiting the folks was on the menu.

So Saturday was spent thus:

  • Cut the dead stems from the loganberry and tied that back to wires
  • Pruned and tied back the grapes (they were beginning to attack people walking by, and was a job ive been putting off for ages
  • Cleaned my pond filter
  • Pruned/de-weeded/tidied up the pots of herbs that we left out over the winter
  • Tidied up some of the edging on the new patio
  • Chucked out a load of rubbish that had built up over the winter

Was quite happy with myself, and once the OH got home from work, we went to the butcher and got the protein required for a carnivorous feast (OH insisted we got some bread and salad too) and then cleaned off the grill, chucked a huge heap of charcoal on the BBQ and (drum roll please ) lit the firelighters.

Nothing happened .

The wind kept blowing the damn thing out. Took another 20 minutes of carefull pyromania before I finally got the thing going, and 40 minutes before i got that great whoosh of flame (men everywhere will understand the importance of this) that almost burnt my eyebrows off.

Queue 2 good friends, lots of char-grilled meat, plenty of booze and another year where the 4 of us sit and wonder why we always do this on the first weekend of the year where it 'might' be warm enough, but we actually sit huddled around the BBQ with our coats on. Damn good fun though, and I can’t wait for the next one.

Sunday - Its Mothers Day, so visit my parents and hand over card and choc's to mum, then head over to OH's parents, hand over card and a young bay tree (which OH swapped for 6 of the home laid eggs).

 

Then we progressed with the ulterior motive for visiting - toddle over to their neighbours and load up the car with manure that’s been happily rotting down for the last few years. They made the mistake of telling us they had several heaps of the stuff and we could have as much as we want - plan to get more this weekend.

 

Drove home (in the snow), shovelled manure out the car (in the rain), raked/dug manure into raised bed (in wind, hail and snow).

 

Monday. Should have known the weekend went too well (other than the unpredictable weather, but 'hey', it is March) and something just had to go wrong to balance things up again. I was about 2 miles from home, driving to work as normal, when my car tried to kill me. My left front wheel locked up and I almost went flying off the road. Long story short (or ill never get to the end of the entry), my brakes are completely knackered and need about £500 of work to fix. Great.

 

So car's in for repairs and I have to find a way to work for the next few days. The government are always urging us to use public transport so I have a look. I live about 30 miles from work, and its a 35 minute journey in morning traffic. There is no train station where i live or where I work so its the bus for me. Bring up the web, enter the details, and stare in disbelief. Try another website, enter the details again and stare in disbelief again as the results are confirmed. My 30 mile and 35 minute journey, takes 3 buses and nearly 2 hours 30 minutes using public transport. No wonder no one uses it - I would love to give up the car, cut pollution and go to work on the bus, but it's just not a winner. Really not looking forward to the next few days.