Beginning to wonder if I'll ever keep up! Last week is long gone and it's now nearly the end of this week. So what have we been up to? Well it has rained and rained and rained, every where is muddy, swimming with surface water and we've had a leak in the office roof. Fortunately a bit of moving around of the seals around the sky light seems to have fixed it.
Last Wednesday we got the new water pipe in for the tunnel, this involved me being up to my elbows in a muddy puddle to find the end of the larger pipe. We then fed the water pipe through this larger pipe, great fun first thing in the morning! But it means we can now get on with installing the water system for the tunnel. I did a trial of flowers for a wedding last Saturday I'd been asked to do flowers for. They wanted a natural feel, which was an interesting challenge for November.
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Some pine, rose hips, late Asters, dried grasses and
wild carrot seed heads went together very nicely for the
wedding flowers |
We made the most of the rest of the day which turned out to be the only dry day in the week to finish the stock take. This means I can get on with writing a catalogue and doing the RHS plant finder entry. Then we started strimming the bottom banking outside the cafe and almost got it done before the rain came on. I don't think the bankings have ever been strimmed before, This will allow the smaller wildflowers to get better established in amongst the grasses. There was no need to go to the gym after raking up this wee lot! Not that I go to the gym! So in the end it was a productive day finished off with posh coffee from the cafe, I think we earned it.
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| The bottom wild flower banking strimmed |
Thursday was back to strong winds and heavy rain. Fortunately I had a half day for a doctors appointment in the afternoon, so was able to spend most of the afternoon at home in the warm. It was made even warmer by doing some baking, which I rarely do these days. I started off the Christmas cake and then made some big fat chocolate brownies.
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| Mixing the Christmas cake |
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Dan's bat box, last year my youngest made a bat box which Davd put up in the garden,
and there has been a pipestral roosting in it on and off for the past week or so |
Friday brought us the first snow of the year, along with sunshine, sleet and rain all in the same few minutes! It's lovely to have the views of the Pentlands from the nursery, especially when they are dusted with snow. I spent most of Friday in the office updating the database with the stock take, and catching up on paperwork. I potted the last of the bulbs and sorted out some more of our inherited neglected stock to be potted. I found an hour or so in the potting area potting up alternated with an hour or so in the warmth of the office doing paperwork helped keep me warm and achieve a bit of everything.
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| First snow of the year on the Pentland hills |
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| This is how most of the day looked! |
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| West and East Kip, Pentlands |
Saturday morning saw me doing the eight vases of flowers for the wedding that evening in the restaurant at Whitmuir. What do you think? I think they filled the brief for a natural look. I now have the contract for doing the flowers every week in the cafe, so a wee extra income which will help.
The rest of Saturday and most of Sunday were spent moving the young propagated plants over to the tunnel. We cheated a bit, or made it easier, by loading lots of crates at a time into David's car and driving them over to the poly tunnel. Once the new path from the back of the nursery to the poly tunnel is in place it will be a much simpler journey between the two. I tidied and top dressed all the pots before they went over so that should see them through to spring.
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We've put down some temprary ground cover fabric until we get the ground levelled, but at least the
young plants are under cover |
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| Poppy cat seems to think she's coming to work with me in the morning |
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| We had a lovely wee article in the local paper, the Peebleshire News |
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| Sunset form my poly tunnel |
Monday was spent doing domestic chores and generally hibernating. Out day off and out doing something on a Tuesday took us into Edinburgh this week. David needed his phone looked at and we decided to explore a bit of the new town. Unfortunately the rain arrived much earlier than forecast, so we gave up mid afternoon after a lovely lunch in Stockbridge.
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| South East Circus Place |
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| Waiting for lunch |
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| A wee wine with lunch |
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| We shared, it was very nice |
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| A chandelier shop! |
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| David heaven, he loves cheese |
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| Rodney Street tunnel, we were on a walk to find some Edinburgh old railways |
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| Then and now, Rodney Street tunnel |
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| Scotland Street tunnel, with a bit of selective colouring |
Despite the weather, it's been a productive week and we are gradually ticking jobs off the huge list we wrote on the white board in the office last week. Christmas is also gradually making inroads in to life too, there is no escape. Have a great week.
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