Author Archives: james

The drinks are on us…

Maybe 😀 I was amused to discover that not only are Curaçao represented at the World Cup this year, but their manager is called Advocaat. I’m just hoping that they also have players on the bench called Armagnac, Sambuca and … Continue reading

Posted in Random | Leave a comment

The bee inspector cometh

After multiple retries due to the weather and medical issues, our bee inspector arrived today to check over my hives for signs of EFB. She had to do all the heavy lifting unfortunately. By the end I was struggling just … Continue reading

Posted in Bee-keeping, Smallholding | Tagged | Leave a comment

Baby grapes!

I dropped by to check on the vines at the weekend. Hopefully this means we’ll get a harvest of some sort. It does look like a few vines didn’t survive Winter, but overall things aren’t so bad and there are … Continue reading

Posted in Smallholding | Tagged | Leave a comment

Sewing vegetables

Had to take a sneaky photo of these whilst my daughter wasn’t looking. She’s made them to go on the bags and other accessories that she makes from scrap denim that charity shops aren’t able to sell. I’m so impressed … Continue reading

Posted in Random | Tagged | Leave a comment

Believe it or not

This is my resting heart rate, early afternoon.

Posted in Health | Tagged | Leave a comment

So many contrails!

Almost more contrail than cloud 😀

Posted in Random | Leave a comment

More blood pressure stuff

This is about the limit of what I can stand at the moment. If my blood pressure goes any lower than this then I really can’t cope. As long as it doesn’t drop too far below 180 systolic then whilst … Continue reading

Posted in Health | Tagged | Leave a comment

No dig diary, 12th June 2026

Finally got the next compost bay empty today. Just as well, because there’s very little space left in the current one. I also used some of the water pipe hoops that I cut a couple of days ago so I … Continue reading

Posted in Smallholding, Veg plot | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

No dig diary, 11th June 2026

Another showery day meant that working outdoors wasn’t likely to be fun for long, so I did some watering and planted some peppers and tomatoes in the polycrub. Since I had my “pepper head” on, I then found some four … Continue reading

Posted in Smallholding, Veg plot | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

What’s the collective noun for ladybirds?

Shedload? After yesterday’s surprise I was even more stunned today when I visited the compost heap. At one point I counted fourteen native ladybirds mooching about around the vegetation. Some are visible in this photo, but yet again others were … Continue reading

Posted in Smallholding, Veg plot | Tagged | Leave a comment