Home and Gardening

I am stiff this morning. Yesterday the weather changed and the rain and gales were superseded by full sun, light or no wind and bitter cold: perfect weather for doing so heavy work in the garden. So that was where I spent the day. I dug out some more cotoneaster roots to make way for wild flowers and Leucanthemums. I dug out Geraniums which had almost stopped flowering because they were busy fighting for dominance of that flower bed with the Astrantias. A lot of the Astratias have gone too. I also cleared a mass of Mombretia which had become unproductive through being overcrowded. The hundreds of Daffodils in beds around the garden spent a day trying to revive themselves from the gales but many were simply too far gone and a lot of the flowers had simply broken off.

I love Astrantia as individual flowers but when they get overcrowded they lose their individuality and their collective beauty is not great.

I've got a lot of seeds germinating in the polycarb and on the bathroom floor at night for those needing a constant warm temperature. The bathroom floor has underfloor heating but until now the last thing I've though of was using it to germinate seeds.

The pond is full of frogspawn but I've not seen a single frog this year which is unusual.

My trip away was successful. Well I assume it was but I've not had the result of my bone scan yet which is  unusual. I had my scans and the drugs trial review was okay and I have my drugs for the next 16 weeks until the next review.

What struck me most when I was away was the total lack of traffic on the main arterial route (the A9) through the Highlands from Perth to Inverness. In 50 years of travelling that road I've never seen it so empty.

Whilst I was away the Scottish Government changed the Covid level for the Islands from 4 to 3 so the day after I got back we were able to meet in a café (a maximum of 6 people from not more than 2 households).  So I've been having morning coffees in The Woodlands with friends instead of phone/video chats. Yesterday was an exception. It's back to The Woodlands this morning.