Sofas!
First daffodils.
35 ½ more working days until I retire.
First up, a correction. The films we saw last week – Tár and The Empire of Light – were normal screenings; the Borderlines Film Festival doesn’t start until March 2023.
Tuesday saw a foggy start, and mist lingered until just before lunchtime. It cleared quickly once it started though, leaving us with blue skies and sunshine. A good morning – the hospice collected both the conservatory cane furniture set and Jean’s corner sofa units. What a relief. With the far end of the conservatory clear of furniture, I cleaned the floor of cobwebs and accumulated dead flies in readiness for Thursday’s DFS delivery. Then work.
Frosty again on Wednesday, but new camellias buds are flowering daily.
Thursday, the new sofas arrived at lunchtime! Great excitement. The delivery guys were lovely. We now have a two seater DFS Sofia sofa in the lounge. It’s a perfect fit for the space between the sideboard and the window, and just long enough for me to lie down on it for reading (OK, snoozing…):
…. and in the conservatory, a big Sofia corner sofa – plenty of space for stretching out, snoozing and socialising:
We drove to Stourbridge on Friday for lunch with D&G, plus a stroll around Kinver Edge and kitchen chat. A lovely day.
Groggy start to Saturday after a ropey night’s sleep – pretty sure I can chalk that up to the red wine I had with last night’s cheese and biscuits. A quick drive to EH to post an eBay sale then settled on the lounge sofa and made some progress through The Overstory.
In the afternoon I put together an apple and blackberry crumble for dinner, handily clearing 3 tubs from the freezer in the process, then backfilled the space with three marge tubs of crumble topping.
In the evening, K&N and Kala came for sausages & mash and crumble & custard, plus kitchen / office revamp chats.
Sunday was a beautiful day, and tempted us out to do some of the garden jobs starting with digging the old garden railway concrete and brick chunks out of the compost etc below mower turn. It had seemed like a good idea to put them there to build up the slope but instead they just made it ankle breakingly risky underfoot.
Next up, raking up the twigs by B’s walnut tree and then levering up the old concrete slabs by the small pond on which Nana H’s bench used to stand, plus the paving stones alongside them. Two semi tunnels indicated mole or vole activity, and walnut shells suggested squirrels.
Last part, which I’d not anticipated, was removing the plastic sheeting that has been the liner of the small pond when it had started off as a (too) big pond. Hopefully the snowdrops will spread this side of the hedge. After lunch I wheelbarrowed two loads of compost from mower turn and spread it over the newly revealed compacted clay earth. Scattered some grass seed on top of the compost.
A few orchard / greenhouse jobs – decanting the long dead cherry tomato plant, draining the escaped water butt’s water onto my Herefordshire Russet sapling, digging over the veg patch and herb bed. The rhubarb is thriving.
Phil put up the two bird feeders dad and Jean bought us for Christmas and just before – one for fat balls, the other a large squirrel proof feeder. The small birds are guzzling the balls but still figuring out the other one (we’ve realised it’s better suited for seeds…). I wonder how long it will take the woodpeckers to find the fat balls and the older peanut feeder now relocated to the crab apple tree? (Since relocated back to its original spot)
We had squeezed in the Canns Hill – Wellfield – Thistly Hill walk before lunch, which was eaten outside, it was that sunny. Phil had baked two loaves this morning. What a treat.
Still a bit of light and it’s gone 6pm. An owl hoots.
And down by the old railway line, the first of the wild daffodils are out. Wonderful.
The buds on mum’s Camellia are bursting forth their magenta flowers.
Snowdrops are still going strong, aconites too.
A day out in the Brecon Beacons on Monday, meeting up with Sonia, Sara and Grace at Blaen y Glyn Uchaf car park to walk Fan y Big.
The forecast did not lie … we were up in the clouds all day and it was windy and wet, zero views ….. so we did it in an hour less than the guidebook estimated.
Warming up / drying off was a good excuse for a cream tea in Tal y Bont. I’ve had fresher scones / warmer cafes but it did the job!
TV: The Last of Us, Babylon Berlin (season 4, Ein Tag wie Gold!).
Podcasts: History Extra, The Essay, The History of England.
Photos: Herefordshire week 164 on Flickr.
Phil: w/e 2023-02-19.