A Little Work

Let me make one thing clear......I don't like to take medicines of any sort. I hate the thought of these man made monstrocities changing my body chemistry for who really knows how long. However, after four weeks of chest rending hacking, resulting in a brain consisting of semolina, virtually prolapsed nether regions and no peripheral vision, I have succumbed.......and in a big way. In the past I may have reluctantly taken a paracetamol for an extreme headache, but preferred to drink extra water instead. Now, take a look at the picture above......this is my life! The cough is subsiding a little and very slowly indeed. The head at least feels like the semolina has a skin on, and the eyesight is back to it's acceptable state of poor. The stuff in the orange and white bottle is pure codiene...magical stuff if taken with or without a whisky!

 Work is as always starting to loom on the horizon again. This week was going to be one of complete rest, but there are a couple of jobs that have got to be done. This morning was a very quiet and peaceful morning indeed. Being a national holiday day off, all of my kindly neighbours were still asleep at six thirty, that is until I went to hitch up the trailer and found that one of the brakes had locked in place from being still for a couple of weeks. Tried dragging the whole thing around the block, but that only achieved lots of screeching and a very long skidmark. One thing left to do......jack up the trailer, remove the offending wheel, and take a sledge hammer to the brake drum. My how that drum clanged like a church bell, dong, dong, dong!! It freed up the brake though, woke the neighbours as well, but never mind eh? The job, which as usual I forgot to take any pictures of, were six large cherry trees that needed their crowns reducing by two thirds. Totally the wrong time of year to do it, and perhaps too hard to prune them, but it has worked so far in previous years. And the reason that caution must be thrown to the wind is the fact that they are on the side of a very busy four laned road, and the risk of something bad happening is far too great in the busier months. The job went really well, the trees look rather stupid at the moment, but they will look better once the new growth fluffs them up a bit. All the thicker wood was cut into chiminea sized pieces and now sits in my daughters garden ready for burning. The remainder of the small stuff as you can see, must sit in the trailer until ECO opens tomorrow.

I must say that regardless of the coughing that ensued from tree climbing and lopping, it was good to get some work done. Even got a bottle of whisky as a present from one of the residents.

I hadn't noticed before, but upon my return this scene of devastation met my gaze when I checked out the front border. This Yucca started out life many years ago as a tiny plant in a 3litre pot. Over the years it had grown into an awesome plant, throwing up a multitude of creamy coloured flower spikes every winter. Last year one of the limbs gave way after a prolonged cold spell, and we put this down to a one off event, as Yuccas are pretty tough old boots normally. This year the same has happened, only as you can see, both outer limbs have given up the goat, catastrophe! Has anyone else suffered the same?? I suppose that for now the damged limbs will be removed and we will let the remaining upright do what it needs to.

Nothing as yet done to the allotment. I havent seen the fox over the Christmas period, and so hope that all is ok with him.