that strange glowing orange ball in the sky thing came out today. Did not recognise it. Funny how a little sunshine makes everything seem different.
Tidied up some of the mess left over from wall removal/ reconstruction and ended up chatting away to a number of neighbours.. not seem much of them during the rain..
We wrote a huge list of all the things we would achieve this weekend, and then achieved very little of it. Mostly because it was unrealistic.(We knew that.. just all of this stuff still needs doing!), but partly because of the ’something always happens’ factor. Today it was the old greenhouse. I went in to sow the first of my cauliflowers, which I did, but whilst in there noticed the roof had deteriorated a lot more and it needed propping up. So we spent some of the day finding and cutting wood, and jamming it in as new supports and promising ourselves for the second year that we must do something about a total repair…
Himself rehung the door on the new wall, and it fitted. most strange.
We did manage to prune the old bramley apple tree. Last year we got a bloke round to give us some advice. This is what I learned:
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It’s not rocket science
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don’t try and repair a tree in one go, maybe work on a 1/4 to a 1/3 each year.
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what you are aiming at is for each branch to get light
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when choosing which branch to cut, choose diseased or damaged first
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don’t treat the cuts with anything
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prune Jan/Feb
So himself climbed the tree with pruning saw in hand, and after each decision we decided the next. the prunings were cut into bean poles, pea sticks, logs or kindling, as appropriate, and stashed away.
Sunshine, washing dried outside, most of our day working outside.. just like the summer days, only with more jumpers and woolly socks, and it all stopping suddenly at 430 - sun down, winter back.
