Oh the end is Bill Nighy...

Hmmmm, seems this year is determined to attempt to piss me right off, what with the rain, rain and more rain. But what the hey, we're all still alive; we're all having the proverbial laugh; Boris Johnson, well, err, just Boris Johnson really (cripes he's a twat isn't he, don't get why people love him so much, oaf); still have a roof over our heads (the windows and doors are a bit of a struggle, but at least we're dry); we have a number of parties to go to in the coming weeks; s'nice.

So, the last few weeks have been very busy, Saturday working to try and catch up on stuff so I can at least leave my regular smaller gardens in a tidy state until next March. It's a desperate race to do this in time for the beginning of November. Did I say desperate? Pah, just do it Murray is all!

Anyway, here are a few picture to show what's been happening:

The view from the roof at Quainton, looking down to the stables. It was very windy that day and I was holding on to the scaffolding for dear life - never been good with heights.

Lots of trimming and shaping of hedges over the weeks, this is Pat's place in Berkhamsted. My new Tanaka hedge trimmer is picture on the left and is a splendid addition to the Murray tool box, I actually love it, bizarre!

...a bit of topiary at Julie and Andrew's place in Buckland. No really enamoured of that sort of thing but I do actually quite like doing it. I think it appeals to my sense of putting things in order - bit fascist...

A newt. This is something I am generally in complete accordance with most Friday nights - and Saturday and possibly Wednesday or Tuesday too. I had disturbed this poor little fella while weeding the rockery at Buckland, she/he was very sleepy, so I made a new nest for him/her and sang, to the tune of "If you're happy and you know it": 
Oh, I wish I was a naughty, little newt.
Oh, I wish I was a naughty, little newt.
Oh, it would be all right,
To stay out every night.
Oh, I wish I was a naughty, little newt.

So onwards to the end of another gardening year, my third and it has gone from strength to strength, even with the rubbish weather. The best thing of all is that I will have more than enough work for the winter too, four lovely big gardens with lots of lovely big trees and shrubs to tend to.

The newt lived by the way...

Happy happying...

Dear Lord and Father of...

...humankind, forgive our cockamamy ways...


Listen, there must be something going on. It's obvious isn't it? All this weather we are having, it just can't be right. Too wet, too windy, but most of all too naffing cold. Quite frankly I am now pissed off. I can't work and if I don't work, blah blah blah...


Strangely though, on Monday this:

23-04-12

Turned into this:

30-04-12

What a difference a week makes, but then again I am not working today again, which is the third week on the trot that I have missed a day of work. It's becoming an obsession, I should learn to relax; ommmmmmmmmmmmmm...


Seriously though, I don't mind the wet or even the wind, it's the cold that gets to me. I reckon I haven't yet got used to the cold since coming back from our three year sojourn in Oz - that's the Antipodean rather large island as against the wonderful land of... OK, it was all of 42 years ago we got back, but I continue to not appreciate having me nutz frozen orf.


Anyway, Pat's on Monday. It was actually quite nice all day. I even cut the grass and doesn't it look nice:

The wisteria continues to flourish

Nice tulips, new this year. I think they are Tulipa viridiflora, 'Spring Green' - isn't that nice?

I believe this is Clematis 'Montana Rubens'. Masses of flowers every year and never fails...

The partare at Pat's, with freshly trimmed box hedges. I love trimming
up hedges, it's what I go to bed dreaming of!

Another post later on with a rather sad welcome for me at Rebecca's on Tuesday this week, a la this:

This is the horse chestnut at the top of the drive in
Quainton. A branch was lost in the storms at the weekend.

Laters! Or should I say L8rs?


Happy chopping!

I can't stand the rain...

Hello! Here we go again. After the no show yesterday I was determined to get out to work today. Every second Thursday I have four gardens to do in Hemel Hempstead - or Amyl Hempstead as my mate Phil says. I had to take out an old conifer in the first house and then went on to just do some basic weeding at another.


While weeding, two women walked by, mid-30s, non-descript I guess would be a way of describing them. "Fancy a threesome?" said one, she cackled like an erstwhile female Sid James (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aj7D65SFOhM). She stood over me, I looked up and there was a toothless grin beaming out of a face that had seen a lot of living. I smiled, "No thanks," I said and got back to the dandelions.


Don't know what she muttered as she moved on, but the word "serious" was spluttered. Shame really, don't know why I mention it, but I have become rather overtly aware of sexual harassment recently. There was a Radio 4 programme on last week called "My name isn't baby" or something like that, it talked about women being harassed on the street. Now I'm not saying I was harassed per se, but it's not a particularly nice experience; won't say it made me feel dirty, just sad that people feel the compunction to say such things. Like say, sad.

Tuesday was spent at Rebecca's place as normal. The rain wasn't too bad actually, which was nice. I moved a few more flowers and smallish shrubs around and weeded all the main beds near the house. The bed outside the kitchen window that I started to re-plant is looking quite lovely

Most of the above was elsewhere in the garden, so I'm very pleased they have all taken so well. It's a nice project and it's going to be a delight watching it develop over the year

Have I said I like a bit of brick?

That's B-R-I-C-K. If you look closely on the row of bricks ten rows up, there are a series of numbers and letters imprinted on them - see below:

These are the idents from the brick yards that made them. I believe you can even date them from the these numbers too. Little fact I picked up from a BBC2 programme called "Brick by brick - rebuilding our past", a little gem of a show, fronted by the brilliant Dan Cruickshank

And here's the drive way at Rebecca's, another little area that I have been trying to tidy up since I started there, some eight months ago.

Gosh I love my work!


And then today, Thursday. "I can't stand the rain..." indeed. Hail again, but this time I had a hat on so the hail didn't sting quite so much - I believe we baldies should have government supplied hard hats for such situations.

...who would want to harm that head?
Yeah OK...

On to Tom and Vicky's place in Aldbury and I substituted trimming the hedge for cleaning up the brick laid path and patio area at the top of the garden - did I say I like a bit of brick? A wise choice as the rain kept a-comin' and a-goin'. 

Note to self: take BEFORE pictures too!!!

And so, it's Friday tomorrow, back to Glassmill House and the delightful fella who got very outraged at the fact that I was using a leaf blower to blow leaves. Looking forward to meeting up with him again...


Happy blowing... (know-wad-eye-meen?)

Back in my day droughts weren't wet...

As I have said in the past, I am not one for moaning really. Not a whinger or a whiner; not me. BUT, oh dear, what the bejesus is going on out there in the big wide world?


THIS:

The only thing to do is sit in the car with a nice cuppa...

Thing is, of course this rain will be the wrong kind of rain. It won't replenish the reservoirs or top up the underground natural sources and I won't be able to work. That last statement is nice if you don't have to work, but seeing as I need to work, it's, quite frankly, boring. As I sit here the sun is shining, but there is a massive black cloud coming in over the Chilterns, looking like it's gonna dump a biblical amount of water yet again. Apparently this current drought is due to a blocking anti-cyclone - sounds like something that goes wrong with your Dyson. 


Anyway, there we are, drought, schmought, I just hope I can get back to work tomorrow (Thursday 26th April). I have a conifer to chop down, so it doesn't really matter if it's raining - just a lot of mud to roll about in again (mud wrestling a conifer does not sound like a good idea though...)


I have doen some nice work over the last 10 days though, here are some pictures...

Julie's last week, little bit of weeding, etc

Isn't it ironic? New grass once settled in looks so much better than old grass. I'm going to tidy up the edges of the new stuff and re-seed so it kind of blends together. As they say, work in progress...

...love it, here comes summer... and the bluebells

Another bit of "cruel to be kind" pruning at Pat's place. Titchmarsh
should stick to gardening - fine advice, the cruel stuff

And talking of cruel to be kind, the wisteria carries on on it's wispy way, can't wait for the flowers to bloom

Oh, blue sky has appeared above the Chilterns, but just been out to look at the chickens and the run is like a mud bath and the gells are looking most bedraggled. We continue to get 4 eggs a day, which is good as Alison had loads of cakes to make in the coming weeks, plus we have the Aldbury Mayday Fayre to prepare for. Here is the stall from last year...

A splendid cornucopia of loveliness...

So, there we have it, that was Monday, Tuesday was actually totally dry and I will post some pictures from then in a little while.

Happy munching!

Coming soon...

...reality. Yes the real world has interrupted as usual and I really have to get cracking and get some new clients and fill the coming weeks up with lots of lovely work.


It's all very well sitting in doors looking at the snow, wind, rain and other stuff mother nature chooses to throw in our faces

- lovely girl that she is - not overly fond of green myself, but there you go - but there's a time to get back to where you once belonged; out there with your thermals, woolly hat, hoodie and steel toe caps, wielding clippers, trimmers, loppers, secateurs and every other sharp tool one has at one's disposal. Actually Friday was spent doing exactly that and I got rather hot wearing the aforementioned clobber.


I have the last dregs of photos from the cold snap - I truly hope I'm not tempting fate here - the first picture is from Monday last week:

Chicken prints on the roof of our rabbit run - I do believe that chicken shit on the right hand side, but I think we'll ignore that, eh?


Next is from Monday, when I peered into Pat's huge living room in her house at Berkhamsted, thought it was funny to see me staring back. Well mildly funny. Don't ask me what I was doing peering in there, I forget.

On Wednesday I completed the sorting of the compost at Julie and Andrew's place in Buckland, near Tring. I have managed to compost about a third of the flower beds with it. It's taken me about 8 weeks to finish it. This included the now famed "fire in the face" episode, you may remember (http://simonmurraygardenservices.blogspot.com/2012/02/happy-new-year-if-tad-late.html). Death defying, that's me. This is the final cleared bin. I had to grub out an old tree stump too, which was difficult because I don't have any tools anything like robust enough to do that, but there it is, gone!

And finally on Thursday, a visit to Quainton and the picture I took of the pond in the Autumn, all nice reflections and stuff, was like this:

Slightly distorted with ice. Just as beautiful though.


This is my design idea for my new one page website:

Alison's new website launched this week. I'm going to get her web designer to have a look and hopefully within the month mine should launch too. Here's a link to Alison's Crimsoncandy Cakes website:


http://www.crimsoncandy.co.uk/




There you have it! Onwards and upwards, probably over on the allotment for a while tomorrow, continue the tidy up for the oncoming beauties of Spring and the longer and longer daylight hours, so I can become something akin to human again...


Happy browing!

Hello!

I'm not gonna lie, oh no. I'm not even gonna give any lame excuse. I just couldn't be bothered to write anything in the past 3 weeks or so, but, fear not (as if) here I am and here's that bunch of grapes I've been monitoring at Julie's lovely place (400 year old cottage in 5 acres, with the lovely pond - more of that later).

4th August

10th August

Stupidly forgot to take one today, but I have to say the wasps are beginning to have an effect. However, I am determined to get at least enough for one bottle of wine, Julie and Andrew don't bother with them you see, not even to eat!


Well, it's been busy out there in the land of the garden. I have had so much work I think I'll actually be able to pay my tax bill this year - my first one since going self-employed, it's on last year's earnings so thankfully it's not that big and I have just about 2/3's of it tucked away in the mattress, ha ha! It's another thing to be slightly concerned about innit?

4th August it rained. And I got wet, but I like rain drops - not on kittens with mittens though, 'cos that's basically not fair - especially when rain drops fall on water, like this:

I'm not going to write the obvious caption from a certain "cowboy" movie of the early 70s, THAT would be too too obvious!

Some actual gardening for a change, a novelty on a blog about gardening - does one say "on" or "in" a blog? Anyway, I have today been attempting to control that weed of all weeds, Mare’s-tail. A bastard that grows like a big bastard in cultivated land.  I prefer the latin of course, being that way inclined(?), Hippuris vulgaris - fantastic latin innit? Well, my little sun flowers, it turns out that the bastard isn't mare's-tail at all but, indeed, 'tis Marsh Horsetail, Equisetum palustre - from equus, meaning horse of course and seta which translates as bristle or hair. Well, imagine my chagrine at that news. I can tell you, I pulled that weed up with ever increasing violence once I had found out it's true identity. Masquerading as another weed like that.


Basically, all you can do with it is move house...

...and here it is, in volumes filling me big bag up to the very top...

Oh! More gardening, following is one of 8 pumpkins grown from last year's Halloween pumpkin as purchased from Tesco (yuck!).

Not the biggest, indeed it's the smallest we have,
but I thought it looked dead cute - if a vegetable
can be cute of course.

Point is comrades, if you can get seeds from anything you buy at the supermarket and you have access to even the smallest bit of ground you can grow anything in the right conditions. A great way of sticking one on the corporates, 'cos you basically get it for free. I have 6 tomato plants from a Tesco bought pack of tomatoes too. They taste better than anything you buy - even if that statement isn't true, I believe it it's a psychological thing, they seem to taste better, fresh from the greenhouse, all lovely and warm...


Aha! here's a picture of all the tennis balls I found over this summer at Pat's place:

9 of them and not one chewed by Fergus -
he's the dog

The grass at Pat's is looking a bit ragged at the moment. She has a separate company to come in and look after the lawn and it looks like the "treatment" has re-acted badly this year:

Those patches are all dead grass and there's not a lot of re-growth in them too. Sad, but with a bit of luck and a bit of feed and fertiliser in the spring it should be ok in time for next summer.


I have an announcement to make of a devastating nature. I shall just say it, so take care, my boots are dead. 


Boots:  A sturdy item of footwear covering the foot, the ankle, and sometimes the leg below the knee. 


Yes, 20 months into this new life of mine and already I have gone through two pairs of steel toecaps. These were a pair of JCBs, bought for £12.50 on E-bay (RRP - allegedly - £58.99), so I believe I got a damn fine deal there. The new ones are Dickies, apparently legendary footwear. Well, MR Marketing bloke, I shall be the judge of that. Here's the old pair:

They're letting in water, so they have to go, but
bless them, they served me well

Here's the new ones:

I would market them as "Dickies - more than just footwear, Legendary footwear"

Actually, a boot's a boot innit?

And finally. Today it rained. It rained a lot. So much I actually had to give up and come home. Here's the evidence:

Happy drowning!

Peace innit?