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Hello Jro - and any other old friends

ObelixxObelixx Posts: 30,065

It's good to know you're still around Jro though I'm really sorry to learn about your neighbour problems.  It must be so dispiriting.  Hope the weather improves soon to cheer you up and warm your bones.

I haven't done much gardening this year either as i've been getting new feet.  Last year I lost a few months to surgery for a slipped disk in my neck and this year i've needed both feet fixing so, apart from some seed sowing and potting on I haven't done much except for a two week gap at Easter between getting the oprthopedic boot off the right foot and having the same op on the left.

Next is lots of physio to teach my toes to bend again and walk properly.  I've discovered you can't put on boots and shoes with non bendy toes so am living in flip flops.  Not good for weeding nettles or digging or doing anything when it's thi s cold.   When it's all over I'm going to hang my crutches on a wall like crossed swords and then display my selection of 3 different orthopaedic boots in the gaps.

All this means the weeds are rampant and i've don elots of embroidery while blobbing on the sofa.   I can at least drive now so am no longer housebound and have been doing garden group meetings and a plant sale and I hope to be back in full gardening and dog walking mode by this summer and dancing again in September.    We've started work on our barn and have a lovely new garden shed which needs painting and shelving and filling and maybe some new beds in front.  

Went to Chelsea with my scientists and a wheelchair and had a great, but exhausting time.  Found it a bit dull for a special centenary show but loved the planting and sculptures in Chris Beardshaw's garden and the use of space and plants in the Homebase garden.   The Stoke garden was clever too but, generally, I found the planting and design in the artisanal and fresh gardens far more interesting than in the big show gardens.   The floral marquee was, as always, brilliant.

I hope all goes well for the A levels.  Possum is doing her baccalauerat in 11 subjects but is dithering about what to do at university.  It was going to be ancient history and archaeology but now she thinks maybe languages...........

Two grandchildren.   Yikes!    Lots of changes.

Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
Plato

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  • janerowenajanerowena Posts: 14

    Oh Lord, it sounds as if our lives have been running almost in parallel. I saw what you said about harsh winters just now - the same here, most disheartening and sometimes I think that if only I had realised that my garden was on the edge of the UK's only desert, I really would not have bought it. Even Amazing has warmer winters than I do.

    Horrible neighbour dug the trench ostensibly to insert a gravel board, but hje never did. He did it to kill off our shrubs by cutting back their roots. He hates plants, won't allow anything to overhang his garden so all of my few remaining shrubs and trees that survived having their roots exposed to the ice all winter (it took him six months after ditch-digging to erect fence) are now neatly sliced back by his chainsaw to about six inches back on my side. He peruades elderly neighbours to let him fell their 'potentially dangerous and getting too old' trees, and then keeps all the wood for firewood. He is awful.

    To add to the lateness of my weather and slightly depressed woes, I then went to a funeral last Spring and fell down a rabbit hole in the ancient graveyard and broke my foot. It took weeks and weeks to heal properly, by which time everything was dreadful. I have never caught up, and with the long winters, it is later and later on in the day before I can warm up enough sufficiently to contemplate getting outside, as I am not allowed to take painkillers because they punched a hole through my stomach and nearly wrecked my kidneys. All of which makes me feel about 20 years older than I feel I should! Son is very considerate, carries heavy bags and makes me feel like his elderly grandma.image

    So I am only doing about two hours a day on dry days currently, (which has meant about two hours a week lately) and have abandoned the veg patch altogether this year.

    Son is dithering, he is waiting to see what his results are first.

  • janerowenajanerowena Posts: 14

    I'm sorry your danicing suffered, along with everything else. I'm just starting to get bad pains in my feet, I didn't know you could get new ones! That's good - they can queue up for after the hips and knees. Wandering around universities on open days was a nightmare, none of them have handrails. I wish DBH were a gardener, but it's all I can do to get him to mow the lawns.

  • ObelixxObelixx Posts: 30,065

    Hi Jro.  For new feet you have to be careful where you go.   I've had bunions for years but they didn't bother me till the metatarsals gave up too and disconnected from the next 3 toes so I've had the bunions fixed and two metatarsals shortened on each foot and the toes reattached.   The third should heal by itself now the pressure is off.

    First chap I saw said the metatarsals were unfixable.  Two other chaps in Brussels said yes we can and I went with the one who would do them fastest so I only lose one season of dancing and dog walking, not to mention gardening.

    Your neighbour is a nightmare.  Are there no rules about damaging a neighbour's property?    I'm sorry you haven't the energy for veggies.  Our crops were hopeless last year because of the cold, dark, wet summer so we've transformed one long veggie bed into a black and redcurrant bed as they look after themselves but I've planted assorted cabbage plugs in one bed and red onion sets in another.   Salads to go in soon and a couple of pumpkins then I have pak choi to sow later on but that'll be it really apart from the other soft fruit and rhubarb which also require very little attention.

    Possum is looking at Louvain-la-Neuve and Namur for university.  Doesn't want to live away from home just yet and doesn't fancy the commute to ULB in Brussels.   They all do open days at the autumn and spring half terms so 6th formers can go and sit in on lectures and see how things work which is great as parents don't have to trail along.   She has all summer to decide and register.  No system of offers and grades here.  They just need to pass their bacc to get in and then pass their exams each year to stay on and complete their degrees.  

    OH isn't a gardener either but he likes it to look good and does labour and will dig or carry when I ask and has been cutting the grass for me.   Since Early April, I have a woman who can tell the difference between weed and treasure who now comes for 5 hours every other week.  It's a bit like painting the Forth bridge clearing weeds in my beds after last year's neglect and my absence this spring but we'll get there and we're already doing plant swaps.

    Sunny here today but it won't last.  More cold and rain expected for the next few days. 

     

    Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
    "The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
    Plato
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