Sunday 26 July 2015

RHS Tatton Park 2015

Today was the 2015 RHS Tatton Park flower show, which is the fourth we've been to. Once again, we got there nice and early (setting off at 0820; next time we're going to try to leave at 0800), and were through the gates shortly after 10. The weather wasn't as kind to us, this time, as previous years, and it was wet most of the day. As a result, I have fewer photos; but we have more plants, I think, than any previous year.

We did well, actually, on the sell-off, and managed to get a few things I'm particularly pleased with. Tomorrow, we'll plant them all out!

Saturday 18 July 2015

Summer Prunus Pruning

Today's been spent tidying and straightening. I've mown the lawn and turned the compost heaps, Liz has weeded, and we've cut the paths on the hillside again. Also on the hillside, we've pruned the plums, as well as the plums and cherries in the garden. As such, although there's no specific grand improvement, everything's looking rather the better for it.

Thursday 16 July 2015

Radiators and Elderflowers

A day off for me, today, which has meant, inevitably, getting on with a list of jobs. First was getting the fridge-freezers onto the driveway, and giving them a thorough clean. They, the filing cabinet, and pine desk, were all collected over the course of the morning, and have gone to new homes. The garage is much neater as a result, and the pine desk has been replaced in the front guest room with an adopted antique dresser. That needs a bit of attention, but should clean up nicely.

After the lawnmower's failure last weekend, I then replaced a new switch/capacitor unit, and also lowered and sharpened the blade. It should cut more cleanly, now, and actually works, which is a clear improvement.

I've cut 50-odd elderflower florets, and started a double batch of cordial. That should be ready on Saturday, or Sunday if it's slow. (To the 50 heads, add 6 pints boiled water, 6lb sugar, five thinly sliced lemons, 4oz citric acid. Leave for 2-3 days, stirring a few times, and strain. I also add some wine-maker's stabilizing powder and a Campden tablet, to reduce the chances of spoilage.)

I then did a trip to the tip (sorry, Household Waste Recycling Centre), with a load of left-overs from building work and tidying, and then scurried to a scrap metal merchant to get rid of the accumulated scrap. Most of that's been near-worthless ferrous (a whole £3.80), but the £25 for the old water cylinder is better. That will probably go into the Tatton Park fund for a week's time.

Liz finished her work soon after I got back from that, and together we've hung the two towel radiators in the bathrooms. The guest en suite didn't have a radiator over the winter, as we'd not got one to put up; our en suite had the old radiator (albeit in a different position), which worked, thermally, but was a bit in the way. The new ones fit their spaces really nicely, and were surprisingly simple to put up. I now need to sort out the plumbing, which is a little less urgent, as they're not running. We need to briefly take them down to plaster and paint, and then I can finish off.

I also finished the work under the back guest room floor, where there's a void where the old staircase was. This has a nexus of plumbing, as it's where the central heating flow/return enter the old house, and it's also where the power for the immersion heaters, and the data cabling to the garage go. I took a telephone cable that way, too, and I've now pushed this out into the library alcove, where I'll be putting a telephone point. I also took through another Cat 6 cable, which will mean I can then daisy-chain another telephone point out into the garage, meaning it has telephony, as well as ethernet. Very modern, for an 1841-built house.

All that done, there was just time to vacuum, dust, tidy, wash up, and cook dinner before collapsing. Just.

Sunday 12 July 2015

Brushcutting the Hillside

The hillside, and the verges, have been getting gradually wilder as the season's gone on, and it's now been long enough since the daffodils flowered to cut the verges. I had no such excuse for waiting so long for the hillside.

We decided this year to try cutting the hillside paths throughout the year, so that there are two main routes kept clear: from the gateway to the apple walk, and to the plum arch (or, location of the future plum arch, I should say, as it's just a peg in the ground). The rest of the grass we're letting grow, and will cut it in late summer. This should encourage wildflowers, and create a good wildlife habitat. The only exception is ragwort, which we're pulling up when we see it.

It looks a lot neater, now. I also mowed the lawn, which was also a bit wild, though comparitively not long at all. The mower is, unfortunately, playing up, and I had to borrow a neighbour's: ours needs a new switch/capacitor unit.

Today we've spent tidying up the garage, which has meant shifting our new (adopted) fridge-freezer into the workshop, and getting the old two out ready for collection; repositioning the sofa-bed; using the remaining plyboard to reinforce the sewing room floor; getting the half-dozen plasterboards leant up (rather than stacked on the floor); moving the shelving units we acquired into position; and generally making the room rather more habitable. It's taken quite an effort, but with a trip (or two) to the tip, it's much more like a room, now. Better, the planned work of plasterboarding the walls, and putting in sockets, now seems much more achievable.

Sunday 5 July 2015

Water Heater

We've spent a lot of this weekend inside, getting the new hot water system installed. A few weeks ago we ran a new power cable and data cabling (shielded Cat 6 ethernet) from the utility room all the way to the boiler room. Now, we've removed the two blanking plugs from the accumulator tank (easier said than done: it took a 24" pipe wrench, and a lot of welly), replaced them with 3kW immersion elements, and connected up control gear to them. This is the clever bit: the control system measures the import/export power from the mains incomer (the connection to the national grid), and only puts as much power through the immersion elements as is spare. That means that the water heating is free, as we don't import any power from the national grid, if there's space in the tank to heat water.

Sounds easy, but it's taken an age to get everything connected up and working properly: however, it does look like it's working.

This afternoon we potted up about fifty various brassicas, which will go in the ground later in the summer. They've been in modules, but they're getting a bit sad in these, and it was time to pot them up properly.

Wednesday 1 July 2015

Pond Plants

A day of bits and pieces, but the most exciting part has been digging clay from where I plan a natural pond on the hillside (a reservoir where the water flows naturally anyway), in order to pot up our pond plants into mesh baskets. These have now gone into the pond, where they look a little small...but hopefully they'll bulk up soon!