Back Home

We returned home to two parcels...one for Pirate...and one for me...

Thanks Steve, a nice welcome home from a fellow blogger, at Shadows and Light and far more interesting than catching up on washing and cleaning!
Today's other job should be mowing a lawn, but after yesterday's rain and today's damp air it looks like we will be weeding a patio and bramble clearing. We haven't had a chance to work in this garden since March and it gets overgrown the minute you turn your back!

Ticking over

For a few days we haven't been feeling 100%.. we haven't had a decent summer yet, and friends in Whanganui have been having a warmer winter than we have summer! Although that has changed I hear, with snow warnings on the Desert Road and snow on Te Aroha.
A quiet day today, retrieving a parcel from what used to be our local sorting office..a thirty mile round trip, as a parcel had been sent by a friend to where we lived eight years ago. Of course he hadn't put sender details on it, so it hadn't returned to him. We were lucky that it hadn't been sent to the UK centre for misdirected parcels...in Belfast!
Then back, Pirate to sort bike bits and upgrade the gear on my bike. Me to do potting on, planting out and garden tidying.

Staying safe

In other words keeping busy, making kitchen hand towels..half a dozen, from old towels. To teach the Pirate to use a fresh one every day!!
While I wait for my turn on the easier turbotrainer.
No point going out in sideways rain showers. I have no wish to get soaked or blown off my bike.
We might go for a short walk later. For a change of air.
Or I might stay in the warm and bake!!

Getting better

Another sale! A pair of pedals this time. That paid for an upgrade to the rear derailleur on my bike..we already have a quality but used hanger in stock, and it needed new jockey wheels...£30 and I will have gears on my bike that change smoothly.
Definitely an incentive to carry on selling!!

It has been a funny old day today..Pirate had a hospital appointment...they found nothing to see in his waterworks, so a kidney MRI is next. While he was busy with that I managed to do some shopping..not everything we need, but most.
We headed home and decided to take the scenic route...luckily...as we came across some fly tipping on a back lane.  One door in, home carefully , empty the car and return for the other two.
One needed attention, which it got with the help of a neighbour holding it while Pirate hit it with a hammer!!

 One mended and the others stored

It was a good thing that we found them today, as we are having a typical British Summer...two hot days...over 30 C in Prestwick today...and thunderstorms forecast tomorrow!!

The garden is coming along well with the sunshine and heat..and a thunderstorm will do it good, so long as we don't have the return of high winds!

Giving

The garden has been beginning to yield edibles at last!

Plus salad leaves and radishes and a couple of onions that were beginning to bolt.
We have been indoors mostly for a few days, with the rain going sideways as the wind blows a hoolie once again..somebody remind the weather that it is summer up here as well!
Kent in the far southeast of England had 30 C today and "wall to wall blue skies"  We are promised a couple of hot days soon...probably the typical British Summer...Two hot days and a thunderstorm!!
Meanwhile we have been cleaning bits of bike and taking photographs, along with my pots as well...and are steadily adding them to eBay and Etsy respectively.  Small sales so far, but much better than nothing!
Add to that , the small table by our front path...I am offering plants for free ( or swap )...some cucumber and chard plants have gone so far.   I don't think locals are used to free things.

Being busy

 Make life easier... smaller gears! The strawberries are beginning to colour up

 After today's ride, the kitchen got busy... Elderflower and Rose Petal....then a batch of lime Cordial after that

The bread deigned to rise just enough..I have started a new starter, wheat this time. The Rye starter is safe in the fridge.  Hopefully it's reluctance is just youth and the chilly weather.
While the oven was hot in went a yoghurt lime cake. Bean mushroom and chestnut savoury loaves, flapjacks , fruit crumble and baked potatoes..
All very industrious, but you then think of the listings not done. Seeds not sown, family history still not followed up....let alone any more done on the patchwork started in NZ.

Slow progress

Shopping done and lunch over..we decided to work indoors as the wind is cold and decidedly strong. I took the washing off the line before it took off.
Pirate is busy cleaning bike bits...and is beginning to learn how much is involved with listing on eBay...let alone getting it sold!
I had a break from the paperwork and processed ten bottles of Elderflower and lemon cordial, then back to the computer and got two items listed.
Once I get used to the pattern, the others should be quicker.

Steady

Steady fine rain outside..steady tidying and sorting inside!
And another sale! The other two coffee mugs. I haven't got more on Etsy yet!
Taking photos of shiny clean bike bits..next to describe them.
We had a break at teatime..a windy walk...going the reverse way this time.

A fresh day continued

Posting on Etsy takes time! Even more than making anything.
Photographing from every angle and getting the description spot on so that you get no complaints that it wasn't as described.
Then packing inside and out so that there is as little chance of breakage as possible even if someone does use the parcel as a football!  Also, at the moment I am making the cardboard boxes as I have run out of smaller ones.
Then there is the posting and sharing on social media...

After all that the suggested walk was welcome.

 The first garlic and onion thinnings

And an Al fresco cuppa for him

It should have been baking day today, but with the change in the weather, and me getting busy at the wrong time , the starter and soaker for the bread was delayed in being put together. Consequently the loaves are on a go-slow...therefore they are now in the fridge to make sure that the dough doesn't, hopefully, overtop the tins overnight!
And the good news is that the green espresso mug has sold, with an order for a cup, and I also have a commission for a postcard drawing.
Slowly but surely, getting there.... hopefully!!

A fresh day

We had some rain overnight, but not an excessive amount. The concrete slab paths were dry by 7am. The plants are looking thankful for the rain however little it was.
The winds have turned around to coming from the North so we are back with cooler temperatures,but thankfully still in double digits!
I have been busy photographing pots to put on Etsy

The usual side, top, bottom, detail views, to make up for being online and not actually seeing and holding the item in question.
Next to list them...
Then doing the same for some bike components and tools for Pirate and I will try and eBay those.

Another hot day!

 Last night's sunset. Every one a beauty at present.
One good thing about buying online...free packing for the next order out!

 Two orders posted today, a wee red jug to Glasgow and a drawing to London.
This is the latest addition to Etsy.

I must get my website ticking over properly.
Brother has sorted it to make it easier..word press made it far too complicated!!  If I can get sales through that and the dreaded fb as well as this blog, a little from everywhere it will be good.
Etsy make it easier, but like any shop they do take a chunk of the sale...fair enough, they do provide a service.

It is hot again today, so like yesterday indoors or in the shade now, and do things outside earlier and later.
We rethought the bed planting yesterday and decided that all the brassicas go in the new bed with a finer mesh over them to keep the cabbage white butterflies off...and also the leek moth as I think that that has reached this far north .

Quietly busy

 Not a job for a rainy day! Which we have forecast tomorrow. Pirate has been discovering useful things that we have been hunting for!!

Lime Cordial...an easy job, and the cordial bottle rack is getting very low.  We are keeping an eye out for Elderflowers next.

Otherwise Pirate has been phoning friends and family, and I have been chatting by message...we don't do live talk! Sorting bits in the house, getting a wash through before the weather turns again...and half an hour gently on the turbo trainers to start with to wake up the body!

Painting

Yesterday's work got painted this afternoon.
This morning was quiet as two doors up had a funeral..no, not that...she had dementia, and had been smoking herself to death apparently...the only thing she could remember how to do.
Very sad.

It is cold..that frost nipped the edges of many things inside the polytunnel..and yet the sun is hot. The wind is strong and northerly.  And still it is dry.   We have had record wet February.
A record hot and dry April.  May?????

Inspiring..and carrying on

If you can't buy brackets.... make them!

I pricked out red cabbage seedlings...it was lovely sitting in a toasty warm polytunnel out of the chill wind. It was a day for Jandals, shorts..... woolly jumper and beanie!!
On a day like this despite the sun, the best place was indoors!!