Have a Chat !

Hi everybody ... if you just want to have a chat about anything 'inconsequential' here's the place !

If anything special may have happened.
If anything annoying may have happened.

Perhaps you've had success in the garden. Have you grown any vegetables this year?

Feel free to share.

In the meantime - having said hello, I'm off to have dinner - a scrummy pork casserole  

See you later...

All the best Jan

DON'T talk to me about gardening!
The year started well with all the spring bulbs, and the scented violets which are a weed here and grow in people's lawns and the road verges. The forgetmenots were amazing and went on forever before I pulled them up and turned them into a haystack.
A lot of my wildflowers went completely berserk and as they finished I added them to the haystack.
I didn't water some of the new things I planted enough and they dried up in the drought, then pheasants came in and dust-bathed on their remains. I now have a bunch of empty spaces surrounded by horrendous towers of vegetation. At least next year I'll have plenty of compost. Now I have until October to train the pheasants to climb into the casserole <evil grin>

...pork casserole was lovely. I would share it but we've eaten it all up LOL !

With you talking about droughts? Just wondering in which country you live, as I didn't think we have had any droughts yet in the UK - although anything is possible with our weather system .

I've always liked forget-me-knots, fantastic blue colour - although they do multiply alarmingly.

Catch you later

All the best Jan

Well it wasn't a real drought but it didn't rain for a long time, then when it did it was a deluge. The lawn hardly grew for three weeks or so and I had a relief from mowing. It was covered in clover flowers which were covered in bumble bees - OK so long as they don't fly up your trouser leg. In fact I grew an excellent crop of insects - bees, butterflies, moths, hoverflies - though I did evict the wasps from my shed. Less good were the clegs and midges which have bitten me a few times, and the vegetation (I know not what) which gave me a rash.
Yes the forgetmenots are useful, they are pretty - and scented - and serve as good ground cover suppressing the weeds. Unfortunately they also suppressed a lot of the flowers.

Around ten minutes ago we got an email from Jan's sister, bad news about Uncle Bill. Uncle Bill is old and we immediately thought the old guy had popped his clogs. But we was wrong. It transpires he has gone into an old peoples home. Uncle Bill is a 104 years of age. Without tempting providence, anyone in Jan's family that does not get to 90 years of age, is considered a lightweight. Good luck to Uncle Bill.

Wow born before WW1 !!! Well done Uncle Bill. That's amazing

Ah bless! My mother lived to 95, her cousins were 88 and 91 and her own mother was 90. In the local churchyards you will see octagenarians from a couple of centuries back. One of my neighbours was 108 1/2, though I wouldn't recommend that, her last few years were pretty dire. I hope Uncle Bill lives well and has a good death unencumbered by the NHS. Treasure his memories, does he have diaries or any other written records you can talk about with him? The changes have been quite astonishing in a century or more.

Jeeeez guys. I need to come over here for some sanity. Can we have our own 'scream' thread? lol

zand wrote:Jeeeez guys.  I need to come over here for some sanity.  Can we have our own 'scream' thread? lol

No, why not start one ? Aaaaaaaarrgh !!!!

We got some good news yesterday, our youngest son got his Uni results and is now a BA Hons in History so we are off to a big family garden party today to celebrate. Luckily he got a good job 3 or 4 months ago so he is lucky and did not end up flipping burgers. Not that I have a problem with people who flip burgers for a living, but ya know what I mean.

Hey, congrats to the proud parents - and your brilliant son of course

Well done to your son. That's fantastic news - both the Uni results and the job

Bloody nice one!!! Awesome news!

Congratulations also to the parents. Both sides deserve to celebrate with gusto.

Have a great day Eddie and congrats to your lad :-)

Just think, only a few decades and he'll have repaid he loans and be able to think asbout buying a house!

I'll toast his success with runner beans YES!!! a retired farmer I know keeps his hand in by growing veggies and selling them off a roadside stand. At last his beans have arrived, I bought two bags and they are succulent and tender unlike a lot of the commercially grown ones. I'm going to cook them as soon as I get this drool out of the keyboard

Many thanks to you ALL for the very kind words. We had a lovely day ...  

All the best Jan

PS Chris, those runner beans sound good

Our youngest son is called Rob Carroll. Some may notice he has a different surname to me and now Jan. The bottom line, his Father died when he was six months old, and we thought he should keep his Fathers name to carry the family name forward.  A truly great kid and very talented. At around seven years of age he expressed an interest in classical guitar, we found him a fantastic teacher. A few years down the road, and when we had dinner parties he would play Bach and other great music for our guests. Much to my annoyance he expressed and interest in Rock music and dumped the classical.

At 15 years of age he was earning a few bob teaching rock guitar in the local Scout hut to other youngsters. Then it all went wrong he fell in love with a local girl and his brain went in the mincer, nothing new there eh.

He decided at a young age he wanted to be a pro guitarist. As a kid he could play note for note Hendrix, Jimmy Page and Clapton. We said that's cool but get some qualifications and a 'proper' job under your belt first. Off to Uni and a degree in history, and guess what, he is being trained as an engineer in his recently found job and loves it.

Life eh, a funny old game.

This is Rob at around 15 or 16 playing in our soundproofed home studio. That house was flogged off, but happy days.

Wow he is GOOD! Nothing wrong with having more than one string to your bow mowadays - or your guitar.

I've never made the distinction between genres of music, more between good and bad. I mean, Haydn's endless symphonies were the Top Ten of their day. Bach was much more creative.

Many thanks Chris ... music is such a personal choice, as is reading and art.

I always think we are so fortunate to be able to enjoy them all.

All the best Jan

>.>.>.

I saw this on a friend's blog earlier today and thought what a great thought.  

" It's a new day and a new week, start off fresh to accomplish your best! Happy Monday, everyone! "

So I'm passing this thought on to all readers here.

I hope you all have a great week, and if you would like to share any thoughts, or maybe have something special planned and would like to share ...it would be lovely to see them here

All the best Jan

Finally! my runner beans are flowering. If I hadn't had her cremated my mother would have been turning in her grave, while my father was in charge of flowers and especially his Alpines - he used to take us on plant collecting trips to the Alps, Pyrenees, Mediterranean Islands etc. - she was the Runner Bean Queen.

Many's the time I would get a call that the first runners were ready for collection long before other gardeners had them. Due to a combination of getting them in late and not watering them enough mine were not thriving. The only consolation was that others were also having problems this year.

A few other things have perked up and started flowering/reflowering. Last year my Agapanthus took a sabbatical. Now they have twice as many flowers as usual, they are huge and a glorious luminous indigo.

Also my tame blackbird has reappeared. He would fly back and forth when he saw me through the kitchen or dining room window until I went out and threw him mealworms. He started to look very frazzled as he was feeding a second brood at the nest while still being pursued by the first brood of youngsters, plus he is I think about three years old, so I wasn't too surprised when he vanished.

Now I've seen him a few times, lurking in the shrubbery, I suspect he had an early moult. He won't come out into the open much but I throw him some seed, sultanas and mealworms and he pops out of the bushes, grabs some and then pops back in again.

Did you know that most seed-eating birds are specifically adapted to be so, and with a few exceptions they feed their young on insects as they need the protein and fat to grow effectively?

Did you know that sedge warblers switch to eating plum reed aphids - high carb insects, basically little bags of sugary plant sap - and DOUBLE their weight before migrating all the way across the Sahara, fuelled by their body fat? I'd love to see a study of their insulin levels/IR while they do this.

Food for thought . . . literally

chris c wrote:Finally! my runner beans are flowering. If I hadn't had her cremated my mother would have been turning in her grave, while my father was in charge of flowers and especially his Alpines - he used to take us on plant collecting trips to the Alps, Pyrenees, Mediterranean Islands etc. - she was the Runner Bean Queen.

Many's the time I would get a call that the first runners were ready for collection long before other gardeners had them. Due to a combination of getting them in late and not watering them enough mine were not thriving. The only consolation was that others were also having problems this year.

A few other things have perked up and started flowering/reflowering. Last year my Agapanthus took a sabbatical. Now they have twice as many flowers as usual, they are huge and a glorious luminous indigo.

Also my tame blackbird has reappeared. He would fly back and forth when he saw me through the kitchen or dining room window until I went out and threw him mealworms. He started to look very frazzled as he was feeding a second brood at the nest while still being pursued by the first brood of youngsters, plus he is I think about three years old, so I wasn't too surprised when he vanished.

Now I've seen him a few times, lurking in the shrubbery, I suspect he had an early moult. He won't come out into the open much but I throw him some seed, sultanas and mealworms and he pops out of the bushes, grabs some and then pops back in again.

Did you know that most seed-eating birds are specifically adapted to be so, and with a few exceptions they feed their young on insects as they need the protein and fat to grow effectively?

Did you know that sedge warblers switch to eating plum reed aphids - high carb insects, basically little bags of sugary plant sap - and DOUBLE their weight before migrating all the way across the Sahara, fuelled by their body fat? I'd love to see a study of their insulin levels/IR while they do this.

Food for thought . . . literally

I am into fishing big time these days and one of the baits I use is chopped up pork luncheon meat, a sure fire winner for big carp. I always fish in the same place on one of my clubs lakes and within minutes of setting up a Robin lands on my rod with a look to say where is my share. I chuck him lumps of very fatty meat and he is on it like a rat up a pipe.

Years ago before I knew better I used to cut all the fat off of meat and bacon and place it on a bird table, they loved it. They obviously knew more about good grub than me. Human beings eh, the only creatures with the brains to create their own food, and then stupid enough to eat it.

I planted parsnips a few months back after growing potatoes last year. Being a novice, I didn't know you ought to sieve the soil. My parsnips have now been smothered by potatoes now. Disaster.
When I used to fish years ago, I was always told spam was bait of choice but fishing not really my thing.

mo1905 wrote:I planted parsnips a few months back after growing potatoes last year. Being a novice, I didn't know you ought to sieve the soil. My parsnips have now been smothered by potatoes now. Disaster.
When I used to fish years ago, I was always told spam was bait of choice but fishing not really my thing.

"When I used to fish years ago, I was always told spam was bait of choice but fishing not really my thing"

It might be when you are as clapped out as me, God forbid.