Igenlode Wordsmith

I am currently not doing the sink full of washing up because I am wearing a jumper with long dangling cuffs that would get horribly dirty and matted -- or at least, that's my excuse...


I have carried out half the Great Changeover, emptying and refilling the smaller trunk, as usual, in order to get at my thermal underwear (and then finding my bed still occupied by a heap of winter clothing at 5am when all I wanted was to roll into it and sleep until the alarm went off at nine :-p)

I decided to plant one clove of the garlic that did, for once, successfully bulb up this year, in with the tulips in order to give it a chance to overwinter. We still have no idea what the 'mystery bulb' is, since it didn't flower, and died down long ago -- whether it is still alive or has rotted in the recent rain I have no idea.

( Clocks, watches and fic )

After the brief biannual period of wearing my short-sleeved jumpers I am now considering doing the full changeover to winter clothing; I am wearing dressing-gowns (albeit summer ones) in the morning and snuggling down under an eiderdown and two blankets at night, which thinking about retrieving the third one from upstairs! And I really need more vests, even if not quite full thermals as yet.

( Swan River daisy and marigold seed, and pink Linaria )
( Chives and spring onions )

( Poppies )

( Wildflower trough and tomatoes )

( Chillies )

( Basil )

Despite several days of sub-zero temperatures, the pink Linara is still flowering.... (Doesn't it know it's supposed to be in the middle of the winter?)

A couple more of the kale plants have bitten the dust, however, and one of the beetroots -- I didn't really need three anyway.

The very belated honesty seedling is still alive, although it is now sharing its pot with a self-seeded orange poppy -- despite my concerns earlier this year, I am now able to distinguish them from the red field poppies on foliage and growing habit alone :-)

( Garlic and spring onions )

My alarm clock now seems to be working reliably again, thank goodness( Read more... )

( Chilblains )

( Hot water bottle technique )

And... again my alarm failed to go off in time for me to get to market, after successfully ringing every time for a couple of weeks (but alas, the market was closed last week). I'd started to think that whatever-it-was had stopped happening :-(

My heating has been coming on all this week, and I was finally stung into completing the Great Changeover, having as usual been making do for several weeks with just the thermal underwear, by the sight of a hard white frost all over the roofs! So I am currently wearing my really warm dressing-gown instead of the summer one plus a rug round my shoulders...
I discovered from the manual that the flashing bar which had appeared on the left-hand side of my fancy wireless thermostat system was a low battery indicator( Read more... )


I improvised a 'chocolate beetroot upside-down pear pudding' by combining the recipes for wartime beetroot pudding and 1960s upside-down pineapple pudding (and adding an ounce of cocoa). The beetroot pudding is made with half an ounce of fat, an ounce of sugar, and '6oz wheatmeal flour' to 4oz grated beetroot, and tastes precisely as chewy and uninteresting as one might imagine :-p But I thought adding the chopped pear and 3 tablespoons of golden syrup (which took *forever* to extract from a squeezy bottle) might liven it up.

( Read more... )

Planted up a third attempt at Demon Red chillies using the last of the saved 2022 seed, in case there was something wrong with last year's, and put it on top of my (condensing) boiler in the vain hopes that things might be a little warmer up there from time to time -- it is simply not hot enough indoors, with temperatures still sitting in the low 60s. Fine for me, but no good for germination of semi-tropical plants :(
It gets a good deal warmer *out*doors, enough to dry out the pots, but only when the sun is out... we just had a shower of sleet, from which I had to rescue the tomatoes and the washing!

I also replanted a third batch of Swan River daisies using some of the 2022 seed.

Potted up two of the kale seedlings and two of the marigolds into deeper pots, as they didn't seem to be doing much in their small seedling containers; they didn't have a lot of root on them when dug up, though.

Well, I managed a twenty-minute bath without stopping the clock...

My cycle computer (with its brand-new battery) stopped working again after the bike fell over on a Sheffield stand; I initially assumed that the magnet and/or transmitter had become displaced, but no amount of adjustment made any difference. Eventually it occurred to me that the battery might have been dislodged internally, and when I managed to prise off the cover -- always a fiddle -- this fortunately proved to be the case: one end had been jolted sideways enough to break contact but not enough to open the cover.

And after several days of wondering whether the flashing red light on my replacement central heating controller represented 'Alarm' or 'Receive' (according to the labelling it doubles as both!) I finaly got worried enough to look it up on the Internet, having failed to find the original manual in my Box of Manuals, and discovered that it meant 'low battery'. I also immediately remembered exactly where said manual was, and was then able to consult it as to how to change the batteries... yes, you really do need to use a coin to open the battery cover, as directed. A butter-knife will not work! :-p

First hot-water-bottle last night....

The central heating came on this morning for the second time this year, and most of the leaves have gone from the trees; winter is definitely coming on. (Which, in the second half of November, is pretty much when you'd expect it.)

I have progressed from a microwaved oat bag in bed to a full-length YuYu bottle and bed-socks -- but not yet my eiderdown or nightcap, although the former would be a good idea.

Several of my marigold seedlings definitely seem to have got frosted last night (they look like frozen lettuce).
I'm distinctly surprised, as I thought they were hardy -- I'm pretty sure the adult plants have actually survived snow, which the poppies didn't -- and these were some of the most well developed of the various species that have germinated, with several sets of true leaves each. Also, other marigolds in the very same pots are still fine.

Nothing else that was outside seems to have taken any damage, but it does suggest that I was wise to take in the possibly-basil and possibly-mesembryanthemum pots overnight...

Aaand... it's time to complete the great changeover again. On exactly the same date as last year, interestingly -- although I've been cheating, because I emptied the small trunk a couple of weeks back, which provided me with some more jumpers and a certain amount of spare winter underwear.
( Read more... )
The central heating hasn't come on yet, although the newfangled condensing boiler seems to run itself at random far more often than when I actually use hot water and hear it come on. Apparently this is the 'preheat' cycle designed to make sure the water in the heat exchanger is always hot... a bit like having to pay to maintain the temperature in an actual hot water tank, really :-p

The snow is melting, the sun is out, and the greengrocer's stall is back in its place. I went out on the offchance, and came back with 12lb (according to my brass Hughes's Pocket Balance (British Made)) of potatoes, onions, beetroot, lemon, celery, leeks, eggs (local but not free-range, I'm afraid; the small print on the box says 'enriched cages', which are the new minimum-welfare replacement for battery cages) and oranges. ( Read more... )