Early Winter Bits and Bobs.

A place to chat about anything you like, including non-gardening related subjects. Just keep it clean, please!

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Geoff
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We didn't get much.

Camera on 'My Weather' almost working. Double click the picture, click the little square and it will go full screen, esc to get out of it. Meant to refresh every 10 minutes but not doing it that often.
Stephen
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I was 5 during the big freeze, I might have turned 6 before the thaw. In the family photo album there is a picture including me and some icicles longer than I was tall.
I look perfectly happy but hate the cold now.
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Westi
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Puddles on lottie were iced over & temp in the poly with doors closed said 2.6C today. I'm always amazed with the difference between home & there despite just a mile's distance. Buildings are quite amazing for absorbing & releasing heat & I think suburbia might be more my style - re-affirmed every winter watching the temp on the car thermometer drop on the way to the plot!
Westi
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Shallot Man
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7th December, still got rose buds forming.
judyk
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I knew I had this picture somewhere... this was Essex in the freeze of '62 / '63. The kids are my younger brother and me (and the dog). At the time we lived in a 3-up, 3-down workers' cottage inside an MOD establishment, which accounts for the row of storage buildings stretching away in the background. The house had one coal fire for heating, an outside loo, damp patches and we kept our perishable food in a wooden cabinet outside the back door, but we as kids loved it, as we had acres of territory to wander around it, most of it wooded or on the riverside. The back yard of the house had its railings lined with chicken wire up to about 3 feet high - it doesn't show in the photo, but heavy rain before the cold descended froze inside the rings of the chicken wire, and made it into a low wall of glittering glass. Behind the shed was a strip of land that we used to grow vegetables, which were a welcome addition to a rather poor diet in those days.

The MOD site had its own gardeners, and my childhood interest in growing started with watching them. The "old boys", as my dad called them, had a big square pit about 4 feet deep not far from their greenhouses, and each autumn they used to fill it with wood and what looked like charcoal, get it smouldering and then barrow the earth from the greenhouses and put it on top, leaving it to smoke for days. I can only think that they were trying to get pests and diseases out of it, and perhaps the ash and a bit of charcoal helped to condition the soil as well.
Another thing that fascinated me was an ash tree growing near one of the site offices. Its branches went upwards like a normal ash for about 20 feet, then turned down and "wept" like a willow. I found out later that there was a fashion during the 1800s for grafting branches from a weeping ash sport, onto normal ashes at height, to get the dramatic effect. The site had been there since the 1600s, so my guess is that it was grafted. If it's still there, it's probably a rare specimen now.

The plant climbing up the wall at the right of the picture is a rose, which was there when we moved into the house in the early 1950s. It was prolific, had a long flowering season and delicate pink, almost translucent, softly scented flowers. From looking through catalogues, the nearest thing I've found to it is "Dr. W. Van Fleet", but it was a climber rather than a rambler.

The house and the rose have long gone, and the MOD site closed and has become part industrial museum and part wildlife haven, covering over 72 acres. It's closed at present due to the virus, but when happier times return it's well worth a visit. Google Waltham Abbey Powdermills if you are interested. :)
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Kayburton
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Westi wrote:Puddles on lottie were iced over & temp in the poly with doors closed said 2.6C today. I'm always amazed with the difference between home & there despite just a mile's distance. Buildings are quite amazing for absorbing & releasing heat & I think suburbia might be more my style - re-affirmed every winter watching the temp on the car thermometer drop on the way to the plot!


It is warmer in cities because the walls of the buildings still give off heat in one way or another, there are a lot of cars and more people who also exhale warm air. The difference may not be monstrous, but there may be 2-3 degrees of difference.
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oldherbaceous
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What a lovely story and picture to match, thank you for sharing it with us, Judyk....
Kind Regards, Old Herbaceous.

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Shallot Man
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Have hit a problem. Started getting Xmas Cards with just Christion names on them. Memsahib would inform me as to who they were from. problem as she now has dementia. :?: :?:
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Primrose
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Do wish people would exercise a little thoughtfulness when sending cards to their more elderly friends!

2020 has sadly been such a prolific year for deaths in our wider social circle I,ve been putting those little freebie address labels you get from making some charity donations on card envelopes posted to people we only hear from at Christmas in case any of them, especially those living alone, have passed away.
At least then hopefully the new house occupant will know where to return the card to and it will explain why we haven.t heard from them this year. My elderly dad always used to complain that every Xhriatmas his card list got shorter. Now I,m beginning to understand myself!!

We know three "Joans" who live alone so receiving a card just signed Joan is always a bit of a nightmare for us to figure out which one it is. Postmarks don,t give much of a clue these days!
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oldherbaceous
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Gosh, our little Forum has gone quiet, infact, I don't think it has ever been as bad as this....hopefully it will pick up again.

Well on the gardening front, I have ordered mine and Codgers seed potaoes today...50KG of Charlotte, 7.5KG of Kestrel, 5kg of Swift and 2KG of Rooster....I know, we love our Charlotte... :)
Kind Regards, Old Herbaceous.

There's no fool like an old fool.
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Geoff
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They'll take a bit of planting!
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snooky
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The silly season has started on E-bay for the sale of Snowdrop bulbs/plants.Spotted one going for £200(reserve not met)and few for £80-£90 range and still bidding.Too rich for me!!
Regards snooky

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Monika
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Wow, OH, these are a fair load of seed potatoes! I hope you get a good potato growing season! Post-allotment years, we have grown a few earlies in pots, but from next year I am going to use the large pots for rhubarb instead. Good early potatoes can be bought, but rhubarb really has to be newly picked and crisp, so rhubarb it is from now on.

I can never understand how anybody can spend such amounts on a flower which might be just that teeny bit different from one they already own, snooky. And if you plant snowdrops in the ground, presumably you have to lie on your tummy to appreciate them? I suppose most of these rarities are grown in alpine greenhouses.
Westi
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Even I have been a bit quiet, but it is day after day of the mundane! I have been cutting back the hedge row at the back which the farmer used to do with the amazing big orange machine thing but apparently someone got a pane of glass broken so just top & his side only now! Those hedge rows are great for wildlife but it is so established the branches are too thick for the shears & I have to pop over with the saw - into the nettles! Time consuming!

Got the front compost bin to empty but nature is giving me gifts way later than usual so being a softie I play the let's see how this pans out - but this front compost will eventually be my new rhubarb bed & need it empty pretty soon! Add in the new puppy & associated issues I'm just doing as much as possible but basically boring big stuff - & can't even enjoy the burn as if it is not rain it is fog or mist.
Westi
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oldherbaceous
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Well that was nice to wake up to some new posts and interesting ones too.

And Westi, you can make even the most mundane job sound interesting... :)
Kind Regards, Old Herbaceous.

There's no fool like an old fool.
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