10:00 There isn't much gardening work to be done this time of year, so Lois and I are hoping that Mark the Gardener, when he comes for his next visit on February 8th, will help us sort out our attic. If our daughter Sarah ever decided she wants to move back to the UK with Francis and the twins, we want to get the attic in a better state, so that Sarah and family can either buy the house, or rent it out to tenants. So there's a bit of pressure there, no doubt about that!!!!
The plan is for Lois and me to move as much stuff as possible out of our attic and into the garage, so this morning Lois and I have a look at the garage, to see what nightmares await us there. It turns out to be not too bad, all in all, mainly cardboard boxes, but also some other stuff: religious books and baby clothes, that Lois was intending to take to her sect's HQ - a plan thwarted by the pandemic, like so many other things. My god!
we open up the garage to see what horrors await us there - my god!
we tidy up as best we can and sweep it clean (or cleaner anyway!)
Meantime, we look online to find some tips on cleaning out the attic - as usual Onion News comes up trumps, which is nice!
Luckily, The Onion has managed to condense their advice into 2 easy-to-understand slides, which is convenient.
One or other of those 2 slides will fix everything for us we think! We haven't got a basement, but we've got a garage. Problem sorted !!!!
11:00 While I get on our bed and do the fearsome "List A" exercises that Connor, my NHS physio, has scheduled for me, Lois goes off for her walk on the local football field. She finds that the Parish has made a bit of progress with the so-called "sensory garden".
Lois during her walk today: I'm encouraging her to
get more practice with taking selfies, and I think
it's starting to pay off. This one's a cracker !!!!!
the Parish's much-vaunted "sensory garden" -
at last some progress to report: some of the raised
beds and got some plants in them, which is nice!
flashback to January 21st: Lois and I inspect the sensory garden
for the first time, but find that the raised beds are sadly empty - oh dear!
What's a sensory garden, I hear you cry! Well, this is what an authority no less than Kew Gardens has to say on the matter!
So now you know! Lois and I are not really into mindfulness yet, mostly due to lack of time. That's going to have to wait till we're feeling less stressed haha!
14:00 It's quite a mild day today, but we've been reminded how the cold of winter can make some people's jobs unpleasant.
Our daughter Alison, who works as a teaching assistant, has put a post on social media reminding her friends that she has to spend a lot of time out of doors, supervising lunch breaks, mid-morning breaks, sports lessons etc; and that she gets absolutely freezing some mornings.
16:00 After our cup of tea and fruit scone, I set to work on updating our Address List, which has become sadly out of date. This afternoon, we've at last taken down our Christmas cards and Lois has made a list of the senders. That way I can identify on our address list the people who send us Christmas cards, whether in hard copy or online.
we got between 50 and 60 cards this year - we're not as
popular as we could be, but it could be worse!
I've tried desperately to make myself more popular this year. My latest move was buying a pair of dark red corduroy trousers, but the jury's still out on whether that has done me any good. Well, we'll see!
a recent purchase: a pair of dark red corduroy trousers,
which I'm hoping will win me some new friends:
well, we'll have to see !!!!
The object of this exercise of listing the senders is not to "punish" those who didn't send us anything. It's just a salutary exercise to see how many people have dropped us off their list of card recipients, so we can do the same with them. Nobody wants to bombard anybody with cards who have lost interest in the connection, that's for sure!
It sounds harsh, but, really, it's just being realistic haha!!!!
20:00 We watch some TV, yesterday's programme in the Winterwatch series, which monitors wild life throughout the UK, with the help of a network of hidden cameras and a team of live presenters.
Everybody loves hanging bird-feeders in their gardens, but who knew that we Brits spend £3 million, every year, buying a total of 200.000 tons of bird food? What madness !!!!
The Winterwatch programme's bird-feeder has already had nearly 7000 "visits" by birds just since the beginning of this year, with blue tits and great tits being the most frequent visitors.
And now the question's being asked - are all these bird-feeders affecting the balance of UK's bird population?
Our blue tit population has increased by 30% since the 1960's, and great tits by an astonishing 98%.
On the other hand, numbers of willow tits and marsh tits, notoriously shyer species who are perhaps wary of using the feeders, are down by 92% and marsh tits by 78%.
My god!!! Are our feeders pushing aside the shy birds????
The decline of some species and the increase of others, however, is a complex issue, and doesn't just revolve around food, but also other factors, like for instance nesting opportunities and the predation picture. So the jury's still out on that one.
In the meantime, the programme suggests to viewers that they make all reasonable attempts to "re-wild" their gardens, planting things that are seed-bearing and fruit-bearing, which attract insects and provide a much more natural setting for birds.
The advice is also to vary what you put out to feed birds, and not just put out the fat balls and peanuts that you can readily buy in bird-feed shops.
Try putting out a variety of seeds, which will attract a wider range of birds to your garden, e.g. nyjer seeds [??? - Ed]. These will attract goldfinches. The mixed seeds will attract buntings, chaffinches - ground-feeding birds. Cereals and corn-seeds will attract doves, pigeons, and sparrows, for example.
See? Simples !!!!!
Lois and I are inclined to think that our garden is wild enough already, thanks very much haha! Loads of grassy areas, fruit trees and a nice so-called "shrubbery". And we've got our own so-called "mini-meadow" as well, somewhere down towards the bottom of it. Plus we think we've done more than our share by not keeping a cat any more haha (again) !!!!
flashback to last June: me relaxing in our
so-called "mini-meadow"
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzz!!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment