Welcome to family, friends and visitors. Here you will find interesting (hopefully) pictures of my part of the world, news of our household and probably, long ramblings about anything that catches my interest.

Wednesday 9 June 2021

Damp.

It's been a muggy grey day with quite a bit of drizzle. Not the beast weather for roofing but the lads worked hard all day. Not sticking down the membrane but boxing in some bits where the flat roof joins the sloping roofs as far as I can gather. 

The most important event of the day was getting my second dose of the vaccine. Now I feel invincible or at least will be in a couple of weeks as the new Delta (Indian) variant has been hitting people who've only had their first jab. While I'm fine with people refusing to be vaccinated and running the risk of catching Covid they are the people who will maintain the general virus level and make it possible for variants to develop. I had to go to the same place as last time and once again it all ran very smoothly, 20 minutes from entering the building to getting up from the nurse's desk. The area where we were asked to wait for 15 minutes before leaving was in full view of the nurses so I stuck it out for 10 minutes before getting up, wiping down the chair as requested and making my way out. Last time I just headed straight for the exit.

Before all that I'd been down at the zoo weeding again. I may have overdone things a little especially after shifting boxes yesterday as now my back is very sore. When will I learn? Above is one of the rheas with the dud egg in the background.
The marmosets are such funny things with their solemn expresions. Like all primates including humans every individual has a unique set of fingerprints. One of their ways of communicating is with a high pitched whistle and the other day I realised that the blackbird in our garden was mimmicking this sound. I don't expect he's been down at the zoo which is about a mile away but I guess that the marmoset whistle addition to the blackbirds' song has spread from there.
I was a bit pushed for time but one of the tortoises caught my eye. It was slowly and carefully digging a hole - to lay eggs in perhaps?
A new pond in progress.
Once I'd had my jab I dropped into Morrison's which is on the same side of town. There I indulged in more climbers including some double clematis and a blue passionflower. Earlier I'd emptied the soil out of a large concrete planter that had been placed on an old raised bed in the back garden and was too heavy for us to lift back down. I asked the two builder's lads very nicely if they could lift it for me and bless them one of them did. Now I can finish off filling that raised bed and plant up more climbers against the trellis. I also got the two of them to drag the dumpy bag that's half full of gravel, closer to the garage so that we can fit the car on the drive again.
As well as Morrison's I dropped into the new Lidl. It's across the car park from the old store but much bigger. With wider aisles it's easier to get round but so far they haven't increased the range of goods. I expect they will in time. Then I walked over to Homestores and bought more white boxes for my study. I had planned to buy eight of the same ones I have in the kitchen to go along the big window sill but so far have only been able to find three in the whole of Aber. So I bought four of the next size up and find that the window sill of the smaller window is deeper and they fit perfectly on it. 
 

2 comments:

lea said...

Those clematis were very reasonably priced. As I was looking at the photo I noticed that the blue double is called Crater Lake! That lake (a National Park) is in my state, I've been there and it is an incredible blue. The lake is in the caldera of an ancient volcano.

Ruta M. said...

Hi Lea, I find that supermaket plants are often very good value. Our local Morrisons has quite a lot of plants and currently has a good range of climbers. With trellid going around all of the back garden that suits me perfectly. I hope my Crater Lake clematis turns out to be as blue as the photo.