The Boggy Brae

Thursday, 6 March 2014

Bramble yanking before breakfast

And before the rain.

Brambles bundled – the longest were about six metres long –

and tied with bramble 'string'

Bramble weeding hand protection: old silk glove liners that I used to wear when cycling,

some lovely hand-knitted (and now darned) wool gloves I bought Lochcarron in 1990,

and tough leather for the outside layer

It was quite mild out – about 8ºC – and there are more signs of spring each day

Forsythia flowers beginning to open

London Pride sprouting among bistort leaves

Miniature daffs first to look like opening

Garden fungus 'pancakes'

That drain I dug

Where the moss grows here is constantly drippy – natural hill drainage.

The back garden is all above the top of this wall and the companionway steps

So I dug a drain along the bottom of the holding wall, around the corner and behind the eucalyptus wood pile,

made a hole between the terrace wall (I might knock some of this down when I'm in a sledgehammer swinging mood; some of it props up the den rose though) and carried on the drain

down the hill

The drain seems to be doing a good job.

There is no moat (place to wash your wellies) at the back door

and the runnel along the front of the wash-house is relatively dry

– almost permanently damp counts as 'relatively dry' in Argyll ;-)

You can see from these pics that the back terrace is, technically, gravelled. All the mud has seeped down the garden over the years. It needs digging out and re-gravelling. Got my work cut out for a while.

Wednesday, 5 March 2014

February News

A soggy month at the Boggy Brae even by our usual damp standards, but busy nonetheless, with family visiting, various hospital appointments, and the start of my Level 1 Archery Coaching course. First though, here are some February skies. Sunrises are to be enjoyed in a dark month, and the daymark of the the sunrise, shifting noticeably further north in February, is something I love every year.

Concerts and Archery

I missed the "essential" pre-course archery coaching session because I had, as Jane Austen characters say, a previous engagement: a trip to the Mitchell Library in Glasgow with my friend, Little She-Bear, to hear Rachel Newton in New Voices.

I mentioned to one or two people that an 'essential' part of any course should surely be, well, part of the course and the date for it given along with the other dates when people book onto the course, but my remarks were met with... how shall I put this?... a certain blankness of visage, as if what I was saying were unreasonable.

Hey ho. With hindsight the session I missed does not appear to have been essential at all. Perhaps I haven't given it long enough to turn around and bite me on the bum.

Moving on...

I've been to the first two course sessions in Milngavie (pronounced Mill Guy for the uninitiated) and they have been informative. Nice to get to know some other archers too. Clyde Arrows, who are running the course, are great hosts. Now I have to practise being an archery coach for beginners before the next session in April. There's some written homework too.

Family Visit and a new car

The day before the first birthday of my younger grandson, I went into Glasgow to meet him and his mum, DerbyshireDaughter, and bring them back to the Boggy Brae. We travelled by train and bus because Toad and Toadlet needed the car to get to archery and riding respectively. We have been feeling the need for a second car more and more of late. We've managed with one since my old Fiesta died about ten years ago. There was a used but not overused Ford Focus for sale at our local garage this month and we decided to go for it a week or so later.

Meanwhile DerbyshireDaugter and Howie arrived. On his birthday we went for a walk across the field and up the hill and enjoyed a bright day among many rainy ones.

Next day the 'Diddy' and Manny arrived and we had the birthday party, that is we ate hotdogs in the Poulton Booth tradition, birthday cake, jelly (British jelly, which translates to jello across the Atlantic) and ice-cream. Howie was not so awed by birthday cake as his brother had been at one year old. He tucked in like a goodun. The jelly was a shock but a shock he loved!

One day Diddy took the boys out for a while so that DD and I could arrange some patches she'd collected for a quilt. The random approach didn't work but we had decided on a successful approach before the boys came back and added their ideas ;-)