Plumbed

22°C, rather humid. Cloudy

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Plumbed in the 2nd waterbutt. It collects an overflow from the first which works. I used various containers, and a dustbin to hold the water while I worked on the tank (the whole point is to svoid wasting water) then put it all back in.
This all means that I feel rather clever right now.
There is rather a nice phot on my phone of our toad, I don’t have a ready way to getting it off yet.

Got energy back today.that fizz returns, the one that makes me get up and do stuff. the first week of Summer holidays is like this form most teachers, it seems.

Inception

patchy sun, 21°C

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Film: Inception, a sort of Matrix/Bourne Identity cross-breed. Yes, I hated this film, it was full of computer game values: kill baddies, plant an explosive device and get to the next level. It wasn’t just that the film contained a car chase, the usual signifier of a hateful film, it wasn’t just that there was endless shooting and ludicrous fireball explosions. On that, why would a hand-held explosive timer attached to concrete produce a fireball of burning liquid fuel?
As is the trend in recent times, it was three hours long, relentlessly noisy and lacking depth of characters. About normal for a film aimed at teenage lads then. There were twists of plot & layers of meaning but I didn’t care. You do have to care to want to follow a story, some may feel there is deep meaning in there, but that’s as illusional as the backbone of the plot itself.

A Very Long Engagement

22°C, the cloud broke; the air, still

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Film by the same guy who did Delicatessen & Amilie. A but confusing in places, but beautifully shot- once you get used to the sepia. there was no shortage of that French humour that made the other two films so charming & wonderful.

Angelica came into flower today, probably at dawn to be exact. I was not expecting it, it has developed several bulbous burgundy growths, but I assumed new clusters of leaves would fan out of them.what an excellent plant.

Summer holidays

16°C, thundery showers

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It’s always like this– very tired, lethargic and teetering on the edge of a headache. Now I feel it, now I remember that most summer holidays start like this. It takes a good few days to feel normal.

skirting

23°C, thick, muggy and threatening rain

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Sluggish day: blame the very close sticky weather. We finish tomorrow, then forty days.

Photo from last Sunday’s bike ride, taken on my phone. You can tell really, blurring into the corners, blue fringes and so on.
Okay, conditions lead to a lethargic evening so I sit to watch the Tour De France on TV. I odn’t last the show though, it’s adverts every few minutes- I can’t stand it.

five hours

24°C, close, rain has replaced hard sun (Cycle 66 miles yesterday).

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So, the Gulf oil leak has run for 84 days. 184million gallons in the Mexican Gulf; an amount that the USA burns in just over five hours. In a way, this disaster could help the gulf ecosystems. With new drilling banned for a while, some areas could start to recover from the over fishing that has gone on for decades. Since the water is warm, it’s said that the oil will disperse and be broken down by bacteria quicker than in other American oil disasters like the Exxon Valdez. However, fewer dead vertebrates have been found, perhaps because Americans have killed most of them by fishing anyway. the US Dept of Energy estimates that there are 5,000 active oil seeps in the gulf- a natural phenomenon it seems. the Gulf is heavily polluted by fertilisers, especially nitrates causing "dead zones" in the sea.
The clean-up, hoping to safeguard human health, could have the side-effect of restoring some of the long term damage in that sea.
I hope they’re right.

When will this end?

24°C, same weather.

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Seven Slabs in one week. It does create large new planting areas, and is a decent form of exercise.

I assume this is ragwort, I assume they will become Cinnabar Moths. They may use Ragowort’s poison to become poisonous themselves, hence the tiger stripes.

Hurt Locker

22°C, light cloud, still humid.

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Mr Toad was disturbed tonight by my watering. They don’t really jump, more an elbow-full clamber, from the corner of your eye, you’d swear they have three sets of elbows. What can I give him to keep the little amphibious guy going? Nothing I know, but I can make my garden a good place for the stuff he eats to grow.

We’ve had no real rain for weeks and weeks. It’s been the driest 6 months since 1929, say the weather man on the TV. Watering plants daily.

Don’t actually know what kind of rose this is, but it’s quite like dog roses in the wild. I didn’t really like roses much before, but on watching this develop, I’m converted.There is a white-tail bumble bee in there somewhere. I even like the smell, now that’s really unusual for me.

Mr Toad

21°C, mostly grey, warm & muggy

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The air is wet, it feels viscous to move through, it’s as if you need to lean into it to make headway. Our bodies want to take it slowly.
I have met another resident of my home: I saw him a few times while I was preparing a planting bed near the bottom by the trees. There is a pile of well rotten woody compost/soil near the bottom fence which I used to fill a hollow left by the 3 slabs I removed yesterday. There is black soil with shavings and woolly looking fuzzy bits of decayed branch cuttings. Moving these disturbed the toad. He stood for a while on a dead branch in the ground, long enough for me to take a photo on my phone. I can post that here soon, even though it’s blurred. What a charmer, does he get the credit for my relative lack of slugs & snails?

Blurred I know, but it was getting dark

CD binge

22°C, grey & humid

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Bulk order of CDs on its way. Includes Chopin piano, Schumann, Nils Okland, Humcrush, & Eric Satie, piano again. this is last orders before the summer holidays.
Tired out: humidity doesn’t help, & been digging the garden. Same pattern as before: try to plant a something from a pot and so dig. Then spend an hour digging up slabs. I got two plus two barrow loads of gravel. This garden will, eventually, be lush and fertile.
The washing machine is mended, credit to me for this!