Despite the way of the world, good things still happen and we now have Caitlin Rose Birch to admire and be grateful for. She has the same birthday, 22nd February, as John Hargreaves Jnr. who is thriving in Melbourne. Congratulations to Wishaw General, Maternity Unit who gave Emily, Richard and Caitlin such excellent service. Well done one and all. Now the fun begins! Too early to tell though whose genes she might have. I can officially confirm that there wasn’t any red hair in evidence but we left Richard pondering the complexities of the “sweepstake”. He may need an Open University Maths degree to sort things out.
February has been the driest month for quite some time, the ponds are as low as I’ve seen them. Sunny for the most part too, so the build up to the Carnethy race was relatively straightforward. Unlike the race itself which for no obvious reason left me sore and hobbling for two or three days afterwards. It was quite some weekend, with trips to see the film of Les Mis on the Friday night; Takin’ Over The Asylum on Saturday at the Citizens’ and Time and The Conways at the Lyceum in Edinburgh. A really mixed bag with T.O.T.A. head and shoulders above the rest.
I finally made the time to pull together montages for Jo and John’s and Emily and Richard’s weddings. They seem to have turned out well once I’d corrected the date on Emily and Richard’s! Whoops!
Woodshed filling has continued and I’ve finally managed to clear all of the slabwood which had been stored along the edge of the driveway. Repairs to the front fence are just about complete but we need topsoil for the border and will need to buy some in. Looks like McFadyens from Campletown are going to be the cheapest option by a long way. I hadn’t realised how pricey top soil is. Still we aren’t going to grow anything successfully with what we’ve got.
After a bit of soul searching, I finally decided to enter the Jura Fell Race only to find that about 200+ people had already beaten me to it. With a race limit of 240 it looked touch and go but Graham Arthur, the organiser, must have taken pity on me because he has given me a start together with a stern warning about doing enough training. So the mountain bike that Richard has kindly lent to me has been seen ploughing along the Kintyre Way. We even managed a paddle in the West Loch where we saw an island full of herons plonked on top small trees and bushes. Apparently, it’s where they nest every year but it looked really odd.
After the very wet winter, I’ve been staying away from the vegetable garden to give it a chance to recover and warm up. The seaweed mulch and the carpet have protected it pretty well but where I didn’t get any cover on, the reeds are coming through!
We were given some fruit bushes by someone who wanted a low maintenance garden and some strawberry runners by Emily, so that’s the fruit corner full now even if we’re not too sure what’s in it. It will be fun finding out.
The first daffodil appeared a week earlier than last year but it must be an odd early variety because it is still blooming in complete isolation. Some more heathers from the Healing Garden are filling up the front borders and they are looking not too bad after a couple of days’ weeding and hoeing. We’ll be taking a few more plants from Mum’s garden prior to getting that relandscaped and working up a planting scheme for the driveway.
I’ll be chitting seed potatoes as soon as I can get my hands on some and hope to get a few other things started in the greenhouse. Last year I was quite late and missed out on some good crops so fingers crossed I don’t go too early this year. I have a few interesting seeds to try from my seedy penpals.
The list of potential projects is growing alarmingly (I say alarmingly because we are hoping to do more orienteering and kayaking this year, not to mention getting to know our new granddaughter).