The ivy league

 It was a day to do some gardening - namely weeding.

This is the year of the bindweed. What an annoying plant it is. Unless you get out every piece of root it will simply re-grow. 

Brambles are a real nuisance too. One part of the garden had a monster bramble about eight metres long. It had grown rapidly and was a beggar to remove. Its thorns were vicious.

Finally English ivy. What a nuisance this is. Its ability to cling and root itself in cracks is what makes it so difficult to get at. It makes everything so dull and is so smothering.

A day out

 We went to Bristol today.

Cabot circus seems to be thriving but Broadmead and the Galleries are a shadow of their former selves. No BHS, no Debenhams, no M&S and others. It does look sad. 

Still, for a day out there were plenty of shops to go in and buy from.

Apart from the internet shopping, it surely cannot help shops when there is an idiotic Clean Air Zone charge, parking charges and exorbitant rents. Well done the dimwits for killing town and city centres.

Springing along

 Time to redecorate.

One of the jobs that I enjoy doing myself is decorating. I like painting the walls - not so much the ceiling as it is extra hard work. But it is really satisfying to repaint a room. It really does make it look so much fresher and brighter.

Compo

 I am always intrigued to see how old banana skins, egg shells, apple cores, pumpkin skins, discarded ends of courgettes, shredded paper etc. are turned into friable compost. 

It was time to empty the compost bin today and the worms along with the ubiquitous woodlice had done their job once again. We even had a slow worm sat on top of the compost this time.

Slow

Have you tried using the slow cooker to make bread?

We have two slow cookers, one large, one small. I decided to make gluten free sourdough in the small one. It is a ceramic pot which I greased first and put some greaseproof paper in the bottom. I put the mixture in and heated it up a bit, then left it to rise. Once risen I put the slow cooker on again on high and it was pretty good - more cooked at the bottom than the top as you would expect but all okay. 

It is worth a go and doesn't take long.

Boxing match

 A sad day as we had to cut back our old box tree after the devastation that it got last year from box tree caterpillars. They had not only eaten every leaf but also stripped the new bark. Looking around the town the box tree moth has been quite widespread. It is unlikely we will try and grow any in the future.

Around the garden there were quite a few rogue holly and bay plants growing. These needed digging out and removing. 

Rain, rain go away

 There is a local weather station in Clevedon and it recorded double the average rainfall for the whole of February, which will come as no surprise to anyone living here.

The rain has continued into March, but a dry day today so a gardening opportunity. Weeding.

There was one main culprit to clear - Lords and Ladies, the wet conditions must be its ideal conditions.

But from seemingly nowhere there were two very long brambles, which had rooted at both ends. Fortunately with the ground being so wet it was a bit easier to dig them out roots and all. The thorns were vicious though.

An ivy growing on a wall was another unwelcome plant which took some removing.

Finally for today were three Himalayan honeysuckles already well established in between a gap in the wall and path. They look a bit gloomy to me, a bit funereal. As the stems were hollow, I left about six inches of stems on each plant and poured a bit of weedkiller into the stem.