Late Winter Bits and Bobs.

[Clive.]

Hello Old H', No progress on the fork heads...I have to have the right head on myself to sort them. In reality I have that many good ideas and projects that they come and go as the mood takes me.!

It was certainly a better drop of weather today although we started with a bit of drizzly rain at first but it soon brightened through. It was 12C in the greenhouses when I went to shut up this afternoon. Snowdrops have noticeably moved forward over the day and I have one yellow crocus up. I ended up pruning the redcurrant and gooseberries in the back garden as the ground was walkable again.

I visited East Kirkby, Lincs Aviation Heritage Centre yesterday to catch up on progress with their projects. It's too close to here not to pay a visit once in a while, I recently took out membership that covers entry, etc.
I had totally got out of the habit of going out anywhere, my car knows the way to work well, but was a bit phased when it was persuaded to head 180 degrees the other way...or rather, I was...
I should have stayed there for a bite of lunch at their 'NAAFI' cafe but scuttled home instead..

A gentleman puts videos he takes of the restoration work on the aeroplanes, particularly Lancaster NX611, onto his you tube channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d228j42t2Oc I keep tabs on these, once I get past the earwax cleaning, etc adverts...but yesterday I was taking in the sights and smells of aviation myself.

C.

[oldherbaceous]

Evening Clive, I am full of these wonderful project too…

I was over the allotments well before 7.30 this morning, and even got offered tea and toast from the lovely person whose house is only 8 feet from my plot…the digging seemed a lot better today, without the soil building up on ones boots!

I should make an effort to get out more I must admit, the trouble is, it’s all too easy to get into the habit of working all the while but, so saying that, I do go shopping bright and early Monday mornings…

Glad you had a good few hours at Aviation centre and yes, you should have stayed for lunch. I will have a look at the link later, as Cook is just dishing up the feast….

[Westi]

Great day down here!

Shed cleared with surprising finds & money saved even, as found a roll of membrane unopened & other things in unopened boxes. Spiders were small so ran away instead of giving me the look which was a huge bonus. It looks neat & tidy like last year when it stayed that way until late spring. No guarantees for how long this year!

Just got to paint it & clear the branch damage to the box thing behind it I store the netting & stuff in & I can move back onto sorting the beds. Fortunately weather looks like it is gonna play as well!

[retropants]

I dug up all of the remaining carrots from last years sowing yesterday. Most were small, but a few proper carrot sized ones. More than I expected, so that's a bonus! The leeks are still lingering, but they look a bit small, shabby and shredded, probably leek moth, I'll investigate them this weekend.

[Primrose]

One solitary early snowdrop spotted in bloom. And tomorrow January will at long last be behind us.
Two positives in one day.
My cup is overflowing !!

[Westi]

It does feel great to think January is over, but Feb can be naughty as well but at least we have better light!

[retropants]

Today was the first morning that I didn't need my bicycle lights on cycling to work!

[Colin2016]

Only 14 days till seed sowing time.

[Geoff]

Planted my tunnel potatoes this morning.

[oldherbaceous]

Still digging, but it’s going well!

[Clive.]

White frost on the paths again this morning, a sunny day and a drying wind, planted 3 fruit tree whips this morning and this afternoon just dry enough on the land to be back onto some herbaceous border work.

It was 70 years yesterday since the East Coast floods....my mother and father were due to go to the pictures in Sutton On Sea that night but as it happened they most fortunately didn't go. My father arrived at the smallholding at Mumby to meet mum to set off to Sutton but the sheets had blown off the stacks in the yard so they got involved in sorting that out and then stayed home. The first they got to know that something was amiss was seeing lights of trucks heading along the main road to the coast.
The water came inland by back filling the dykes and in fact flooded my grandparents Fen field which is on the East of the farm road to their cottage, photo attached.
My grandfather later got a gypsum allowance, I believe, for that field to correct the salt water affects.

Very good fortune that the stack sheets needed sorting, else the story, very likely, would have been different and indeed not at all...

C.

[oldherbaceous]

What a wonderful post, Clive….it must have been an unbelievably scary evening for those involved!

[Primrose]

Clive. Good to hear that story. Strange how life works out isn't it and how if a different action was taken life would have turned out very differently.

The weather always prevails in the end. Somebody told me today that a favourite haunt of ours in earlier years, Birling Gap near Beachy Head in Sussex was under threat again. Most of the coastguard cottages on the cliff edge have now fallen into the sea and the National Trust tearoom there is due for demolition due to a further cliff fall very close to its location.

[Clive.]

Here's a view down the same fields, taken on 13 Feb 2010.

C.

[Stravaig]

It's a beautifully clear day here. We can even see the naval monument at Chatham!