The Week

Normally by this time of year things have started to grow. Grass will have fluffed up a bit and be ready for dressings and treatments, hedges will have started to show signs of growth and trees will be budding up and some breaking out gently into those first new lime green leaves.

This year is quite different as the cold spell has lasted much longer and none of the above is happening yet. As a result things on the gardening front are a bit slower which means that I can catch up with a few of those jobs that get put off year by year.....always on the 'to do' list!

In the picture above, the overhang of Rhododendron and Laurel has been bothering me for years, but as it wasn't a priority job it only ever go a token trim to keep it off any vehicle roofs. Hooray!...loppers and saw are out and later it was all cut right back.

A lot of my work is done from Christchurch to Barton-on-Sea and so rather than go through the town to get to the area I take a much longer, but sometimes quicker, and definitely more pleasant drive through the country. In the photo above is part of Bournemouth Airport, which is quite small but handles Boeing 747's (Jumbo Jets). A very strange sight to see these two parked alongside much smaller aircraft.

This is a view of part of the River Avon that the road runs alongside. In my earlier years I used to do many long distance sponsored walks and to train for these I would go with my brother and sometimes walk the Avon Valley Path from Salisbury to Christchurch, some 38 miles of beautiful countryside following this river.

I mentioned in a previous entry that a mystery person places sweets on my mower at a garden in Christchurch. I was there again on Wednesday and on coming back from getting some fuel I was met with this familiar sight! Part of me wants to know who it is, but the other just wants to keep the mystery there.

At the same place there are some plants that have this green mesh carefully placed to circle some plants. Now you might think that they are for supporting the plant growth as it gains in height, but you would be mistaken! Next to each of these, and there are several, is a bird feeder, and before the mesh was there cats would hide in the thick growth waiting for their prey, but they have been cheated of this daytime snack now!

I was the only member of my family to have been born 'down south' in Bournemouth. My parents had shortly before bought a hotel in Boscombe and my days started in the front room here as I couldn't let my mum get to the hospital. A few hundred yards from the hotel is this block of flats called San Remo Towers. I am not what you might call keen on flats in general, but this block has always been the excepition. They have a wonderfully mediterranean look to them.

As Amanda can't really help me any more with the business, my son-in-law Dom has started to come out with me for a half day a week. Here he is helping me to dead head the Hydrangeas at The Grove.

I just wanted to take a picture of this little fellow, but he wouldn't let me get close enough!

One of the smaller and crummier places that I work at. The Griselinia hedge at the back had to be reduced by three feet and this is the after picture.

Not one of the most exciting weeks, but a cottage pie to finish.