Frogspawn. Auntie A. Reading (thank you, new lounge sofa!).

30 1/2 working days until I retire.

Tuesday morning was cloudy, with mist in Grey Valley and over Garway. Yesterday’s clouds had returned east with me. A good time for doing weeknotes and photos, catching up with photos from Fan y Big. Then work. Pancakes for tea! VWW on Wednesday.

Social whirl on Friday: in the morning, tea with T&L, a flying visit from Firefighter W; in the afternoon, dad, Jean and Auntie A came for tea and a tour of the gardens. Then dinner at The Temple in EH.

AND Phil made cookies.

AND I fixed the dodgy downpipe into the greenhouse water butt.

What a day!

Saturday morning, Phil drove us to Parc Bryn Bach Park to join in the birthday surprise / celebration of one of our neighbours. A nice lake to stroll around, lots of people hanging around enjoying the sunshine – we played the “are they waiting for X too?” game. Cold wind up there in The Heads of The Valleys, but the pussywillow catkins out; they’re amazing.

Home via Abergavenny Waitrose. Late lunch, log stove on, finished The Overstory, started Our Missing Hearts. G&T and 2 episodes of Euphoria. It’s not for me.

Tidied up the greenhouse on Sunday morning before we drove into Hereford for B&Q, Dunelm (curtains and cushion covers), lunch at De Koffie Pot and The Banshees of Inisherin at The Loft. I liked The Loft – independent cinema run by a couple, you hire a sofa and it’s a small space.

The film was OK – a bit tedious watching grumpy / angry / frustrated / depressed men fail to escape their fate. And how come, in late March / early April, on an island of the coast of Ireland, Siobhán only needs to wear a dress and an undone cardigan inside those cold thick stone built cottages? And she has two smart coats? And Pádraic can lift two full milk churns without any effort, one in each hand? A big milk churn holds 10 gallons, that’s around 50kg. EACH.

Home for tea and biscs and my book, and to complete cleaning the haul of surplus plastic pots generated by the greenhouse. They’re off to a good home in Kerrys Gate.

Overcast on Monday – but we’ve not had rain for weeks, so I’m hoping that will change. In the garden, more daffs are coming out and the first snowdrops are just starting to turn. Wild garlic shoots have just broken through the soil. The gooseberry bush in The Coffin has leaves, the blackcurrant has buds, the rose bush I pruned a while back has plenty of new leaves.

Phil spotted two clumps of frogspawn (toadspawn?) in the small pond. The first we’ve had / seen in either pond although we’ve come across frogs / toads in the garden and various wood piles.

A came over for tea in the morning. Read in the afternoon. A cold day. Early to bed.

I’ve created a Retirement Days Tracker spreadsheet. As at today’s date (21 Feb), I’ve 33 working days to go. When I publish these weeknotes (28 Feb), I’ll have 30 1/2 days to go…. I’m going to put that lower number into my weeknotes.

TV: The Last of Us, We Own This City (grim), Euphoria (nope), Julia (at last, something light. Hurrah for Sarah Lancashire, and TA for the recommendation)

Podcasts: History Extra, The History of England, The Last Soviet.

Photos: Herefordshire week 165 on Flickr.

Phil: w/e 2023-02-26.

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.