Easy day

 The garden is really grateful for the rain it is occasionally receiving..I am hoping that the latest seed sowing will succeed. Radishes, beetroot, carrots and now at last the dwarf french beans have germinated..just hoping that the slugs and the birds don't get them!!

Today I have been steadily working on edging the hand towels...interrupted by getting into town on the bus. Our village postal collection is breakfast time...and daughter's birthday is on Monday and her husband's the following Saturday!!

Just before going for the bus I checked fleabay...I had a small sale!! That is the first for over a month. Just like most shops, my sales have really slowed down these days.

Quickly processed it....and left it on the table!!  That can go in the post tomorrow, possibly a ride over to Mauchline if the weather is good.

Now I am pinning up the binding on the last two towels and keeping an eye on the commonwealth games on the TV!

While they are away...

 Pirate and our Fife friend have gone to London...a return gift from Pirate as Fife friend took him to Brisbane four years ago....

I am, therefore, having a holiday at home!!

This gives me a chance to go around clearing up all that backlog of little jobs......

Two loads of washing done, and nearly dried....we had some welcome rain today.

Two lengths of moulding varnished twice....these go on the outside corners of the workshop and are untreated wood so cannot just be left bare.

 The main job today has been making bias binding and starting to use it on hand towels made from a larger towel...one down, five to go!!

I am trying to find where my machine was made..I know it was May 1922...and it is a 15K....this might mean that it was made at Kilbowie, Glasgow.

Its first owner survived the Titanic sinking...her great granddaughter gave it to me as her daughter was not interested.

Now what shall I find to do tomorrow?!!

Assorted things...

 The leaf cutter bee is about!! They use little circles of leaf to close up where they have laid eggs. It is quite a small bee, doesn't sting, and is native to Scotland.

It is also a very good pollenator..so I am not grumbling too much that they are cutting some of the pea leaves as well as young rose leaves...they have been pollenating the peas well!

Sunday saw us going to Kirrochtree mountain bike center near Newton Stewart to support our Fife friend in the British MTB cross country champs.

We went over the mountain road through mist and cloud, after Saturday's rain. Some riders had watched Saturday's events and had a ride on the course and decided not to ride..fair enough if you don't think yourself capable in the conditions.

It didn't rain for most of the day. But it was very muddy!!

I sat in the sun and people watched while Pirate handed up drinks bottles...the 60+ age group did three laps..

The effect....and the result...

We left after his event to have our ride...on the bike route, on path, pavement and lane, to Wigton and a mile on to the next village for a lot of tea for two at the pub...the only place open!

Then as it started raining, back to Newton Stewart with a tailwind! Total ride about twenty miles...well, almost!! A snack in the car then home in the car through the rain to see the last of the Tour de France programme..and the highlights of the first stage of the Tour de France femmes! Unfortunately that is online for the rest of the week.

The rain has been very welcome in the garden plus seeing where our construction may be leaking..I think those will be sorted by painting the outside of the internal doors that were used as walls.

The lower temperature is not so welcome...back to 17 degrees but feeling 14 or less due to windchill...it could be worse I suppose!!!

One more step

 

Paddy our "foreman" neighbour, supervising our Triathlete Joiner.

Fitting the secondhand window that we were given about four years ago!

My Space

Beginning to evict all the Other Stuff that has found its way in to here..now the big job is to sort the sheds and to have the relevant things together in their respective sheds, not all mixed up in all the sheds.....pipe dream?!

Pirate is happier today.  A good review from his oncology specialist nurse yesterday helped greatly. The new roof is on and the doors fitted . His bloodshot eye is only because he did a mega sneeze... optician checked and all ok.

Now he is worrying about politics....when the next Conservative leader , and hence prime minister will be elected by about 160,000 party members (about10,000 in Scotland) which is 0.3% of the UK population..thats if they all vote...not that we can do anything about that, but he has to worry about something that he can do nothing about!!

Ta Daa!!!!

 

It was hot...but Fife friend and Pirate started at 8, and our cycling joiner arrived before 10. So nearly all the preparation work was done before he arrived, thankfully.

It isn't the roofing I had planned...but is half the cost....

Plan B....sell lots of work so that we can change it in a couple of years' time!!

Between having plenty of breaks for drinks and cooling down, the window didn't get fitted...but the groundwork has been done, fitting hopefully on Thursday.

Fife friend and Pirate have moved the doors to the front..now it is my turn with the paintbrush!

Meanwhile, I was on catering duty and hold this duty...and have you seen that?????.....

And in between times I lifted the shallots and they are in the polytunnel to dry off, cleaned the earth from the garlic crop, and after a welcome shower of cooling rain (it reached a good 27⁰C today) sowed carrots, beetroot and dwarf french beans.

And the potted rose in the greenhouse looks as if it is doing its job of attracting pollenators to the tomatoes and cucumbers....and the courgette that is lurking at the back!!

Piratical celebrations

 83 today!  We have had a bike ride before it got too hot.. although it is pleasant here, although very windy again.

And plenty of cards and presents.

Beauty

 

I picked a Reine des Violette's Bourbon rose before the wind battered it. They are so fragrant and a beautiful colour.

I am afraid that the roses are suffering this year. They should be in the ground, not in pots, but I can't decide where they should go. I want to be able to sit in the garden and see them...but the garden at the back is for food growing....and the front is too windy and cold!!  When the fences and gates go in, that will give more shelter. However the best place for them is where my car gets parked!! Unfortunately I can't change that.

Life goes on. The roofing sheets are not as strong as I had hoped. What I should have got would have been twice as costly...and I could only just afford what we got. 

Pirate has hopefully been persuaded that he is not a carpenter and should leave it to the one due to come on Tuesday....apart from anything he shouldn't be up on a stepladder.

Are any of you feeling the effects of pollen more than usual?... apparently that is happening this year..I had my eyes checked this afternoon just in case.... thankfully that is all it is...but grumbly sinuses and weepy eyes are no fun.

Summer?

 The sunshine has reached us!!

Steady progress on the cladding, but we need another long pallet...but there is no rush for that, thankfully. 

My next job is finish sanding the front doors ready to paint the outside.

To that end, Pirate hauled out a quarter of his shed, as the trestles were at the bottom...at the back!!

He is fed up of the after effects of covid. Not having his usual horsepower is one..but it is gradually improving. He isn't used to stopping for breaks before a job is finished!!

He always tells others " You are no longer in your 50s"....but that's how he thinks, himself.

While he sorts and reduces the contents, I have been busy too...

Now with 16 km to go on this day's stage of the Tour de France, we are doing 5 minutes work during the tv ads... and 10 minutes watching!

Foraging and life and stuff

 

Pirate had a CT scan yesterday, at a hospital twenty miles away.not the usual...so we took the bikes and had a ride on different lanes...and found some wild cherries.

The first forage this year!

As usual it was nice weather while we were out...but we did get some work done after we returned.

This is the one side of the front of the building..

We got the other side to within three strips of the top.

The strips are pieces of pallet wood.

Today is yet again cold windy and damp...we have been doing bits of this and that indoors...and now to wrap up warm and get a few more strips of wood on and make a template for the angles of the ends of the drips above door level, where they meet the roof.

It is hard to believe that it is July...even the tomatoes are growing slowly..

Keeping warm

 Making chutney with the reduced price tomatoes we bought on the way home yesterday!

Cherry tomatoes...fiddly to de-skin...sweet red peppers, onions and garlic from the garden.

Outside it is cold damp and windy...this is Summer?

Weather

 We had a day away yesterday..only in Glasgow...but the weather was good! Of course we were indoors most of the time in the velodrome, talking to friends before and after Pirate's session on the boards.

Davy is a good coach..and was a brilliant rider.

Today we have outdoor jobs to do..but outdoor is cold and windy and the humidity is in the 90% range....so if it isn't actually raining, the air is damp!!

The roofing materials are ordered, but we can't do much I until they arrive. 

Which makes the weather conditions even more frustrating!!

Blogging comments

 One for Steve...and possibly others...

Thanks for the comment regarding sawflies...I will research that..

However the comment seemed to have gone through onto the comments without me seeing it....it was on the Comments list..at the same time it was in Spam comments....So I deleted the spam.... but both disappeared!!

Evening walk

crab apples... surprisingly there doesn't seem to have been a June drop...I think they may be still small as we haven't had that much rainfall...

And high up in the trees are...

Pears...it will be a short window when they will be just right to juice...fingers crossed!!

 And we could just see Arran. Today we have had gusty winds again...we had planned a bike ride, but wind and showers again wrote that off.

After our walk I started harvesting gooseberries, black and red currants and Alpine strawberries... Without netting the birds would have already cleared the lot!!

Another month!

 We had a break and a day out on Wednesday, and went to see the Galloway Hoard exhibition at the new Gallery in Kirkcudbright. 

New to us anyway!! Four years ago we saw the building covered in scaffolding as they began renovation and adapting the building to be a gallery. They have done a good job on it..the building has retained its integrity, and they have changed as little as possible but it is now a modern usable gallery and space.

The exhibition is very interesting, showing not just most of the hoard items but also short videos of the processes involved. One piece is far too fragile, but with scanning of various kinds they have been able to investigate the contents and create a 3D printed model of the small jar without unwrapping the delicate textiles around it.

It is there until 10 July 2022.. not sure where it will go after that.

We had a mooch around the town, seeing the window dressing left from the day that the cycling elite championship came to town...

Clann is a very good café in an old bank. Clann means children in Gaelic.

We saw people playing bowls...and old buildings being renovated.

The old harbour building, saved and turned into a gallery over a hundred years ago, and a fishing boat by the quay. 

We left "Artists Town" for Newton Stewart, just to have a wander around the town and a local (of course!) made ice cream.

After last week's rain the river was running high..not as high as when it came over the banks and demolished a long section of river wall...but still high and fast!! There used to be a footbridge over the river as well as the road bridge, but that hasn't been rebuilt.

Home over the upland road to call in at the pub where we were married four years ago in May...good to see friends and chat.

Then home again.

Now we are in July already!!

Yesterday we talked to the carpenter who will be helping us fit the conservatory roof, and Pirate started cladding the front...and I saw where it wasn't quite right....He isn't happy, but at least the wood from the first side will do the job properly on the other.

Thanks be for buildings that are not perfect!!

Monday is my pension day so I should be able to order the roofing materials..this job is taking far longer than hoped, but at least it is all slow steps in the right direction