First greenhouse cucumber, my dad would be so proud

Today, 20 July 2016 is an auspicious day. I cut my very first cucumber from the greenhouse. I was very late sowing them (end of February) so I imagine people who have been cutting cucumbers for weeks now are thinking "what's the big deal?!"

In fact, the first cucumber from my dad's greenhouse was cut on 22 May so I'm almost exactly two months behind him. Anyway, I'm exceedingly proud of it, my very first indoor cucumber! The variety is Socrates F1 (in case anyone was interested!)

There are lots more on the way further up the plant, tons of tiny ones just developing which I'm super excited to see.

I put it to good use in some cheese and salad cream sandwiches for lunch.

I have only managed to grow outdoor varieties in the past. The last time I had a greenhouse was when we lived in Saxilby in the 1980s; every year I tried to grow cucumbers in it, something killed the plants before they even flowered ... much to the amusement of my dad, whose cucumbers won prizes at the local gardeners' show every year.

I just wish dad was still with us to see my success this year, I like to think wherever he is now, he's smiling and saying "well, it's about time!"

I miss you every day, dad.

Activities for the hottest day of the year

I know, says MTM this morning, let's move the sink unit that we bought when we went to West Lynn, you know the one that's been taking up space in our lounge for the last four months waiting for everything to be finished.

Getting the rest of my lounge back and the unit out of the way is very tempting. How long will it take, says me, thinking there are jobs I want to do in my greenhouse that I had today earmarked for.

"Only an hour, two at the most. I can't do it on my own." It IS the first weekend in ages that we haven't had something to do both days of the weekend and we've been fit and well enough to do it. We've been cursed with a variety of minor bad health issues lately but today, we're both feeling fine and we finally have a spare day. OK, you're on! 

First of all, the washing machine has to be moved out of the way as it's been in the skullery as a stand alone appliance whilst we got ready for the unit to go in. There was a lot to do, the dangerous steps whose treads were all different levels were redone, radiator was removed and replaced, two of the walls were stripped of some badly done tongue and groove, boxing in of pipes. Walls and ceiling replastered. The plumbing had to be reconfigured as our predecessor had the waste for the washing machine going through the sink waste for some daft reason, the tiling to be finished off and coats of wax varnish to be applied to the draining board of the unit itself to make it water tight. It's all go here, anyway, that's all been done over the last few months since we bought the unit. Here are some "before and during" pics.

So, we get the washing machine moved into the adjacent bathroom. 

Second job is the sink unit has to have very heavy Belfast sink removed from it. Then the unit has to be carried out of the house and all the way round the perimeter, manoeuvred round three corners and through a narrow side gate, down the slope (moving the wheelie bins out of the way as we go), negotiate a tricky step in order to get it into the skullery because it won't go through the house due to a configuration of a double door combination inbetween the hallway and the kitchen, which would've been a much shorter journey were it possible. 

So we do that, looks very nice in place, surely that's about finished then, I can get into the greenhouse, oh hang on ... it has to come out again in order for the sink to go in. You can't feed it in from the front, forgot that, ha "silly me!". 

So sink carried through (why are Belfast sinks so HEAVY?!) Once that's safely in place, we realise the damn thing isn't level so it has to be pulled out again a bit so we can lift it and twirl the self levelling feet on the bottom, you get one bit level and then the other bit isn't. What a good idea to do this on the hottest day of the year so far! Levelling it would've been easier before the sink went in because it has made it so much heavier. We end up see-sawing our way through it all, sweating, lifting and twirling, we finally get it level. 

I can get out into the greenhouse now, then ... ah, just the washing machine to go in now, love. Sigh. OK. Push and pull and swear the washing machine back in place whilst connecting up the water, waste and plug once it's close enough but when we've got it in, that's not level either. "Oh leave it, I can live with it", I sez whilst putting my gloves on. Well, no, not a good idea, when it goes onto spin cycle it will probably wobble about so much, it will bang against the sides of the unit making a heck of a racket. So out it comes again, more fiddling about with another set self-levelling feet. There you go, all finished, you can get out into the greenhouse now. 

It's too blimmin' late now, I need a shower and by the time I've done that, it'll be time to start getting something to eat. Still it does look very nice! 

There's only the windowboard and handrail to be fitted and painted, tap to be plumbed in, curtains/blinds to be made and a new lampshade and we're finished in that room. I'm wondering how long that little lot will take to get done ... we're waiting on our special joiner, Martin for the windowboard/handrail. Why do things always take longer than you think?!

Halfway through crocheted temperature blanket

I'm exactly half way through my 2016 crocheted temperature blanket. Here it is on my dining room table looking splendid, if I do say so myself.

January is far away at the fireplace end, June is closest to the camera.

So far it is 56 inches long which means it will be approximately 112 inches long at the end of the year making it long enough to generously cover a single bed. We don't actually have any single bed in our home but hope to by the end of the year.

At the moment, we don't have any guest facilities at our home, the only bed is our own double one though we have a sofa in MTM's study which converts into a Futon as an emergency measures and the sofa is always available at a pinch if we need to put anyone up.

One of the rooms I have earmarked for a spare bedroom with hopefully twin beds is planned to have major works on it very soon! Will our renovations never be finished?! We estimated it would take us two years when we moved in (three years ago) to do everything we wanted and it still feels like we have two years yet to do but we have found more to do as we got stuck in, family illnesses have taken up some of our time and also we've got a little more ambitious our plans as we've gone along but there's no reason to rush save it would be nice to finish and then sit back and enjoy it.

Other blog postings about progress earlier in the year on this blanket which details the pattern and colours of Stylecraft yarn that I'm using:

Meteorological colour clashes - 4 June 2016
Warming up on temperature blanket - 4 April 2016
Temperature blanket - 16 January 2016
Starting a temperature blanket - 6 January 2016

Here are individual month close ups of the temperature rows; top of the image is the 1st of the month going down to the end of the month (to within a day or two). Spring temperatures (and colours) arrived all in a rush in May in the UK!

JANUARY

FEBRUARY

MARCH 

APRIL

MAY

JUNE

I have plans to do a weather blanket next year which will incorporate more aspects of the weather like how sunny/rainy it is and wind speed ... am pondering how to do this at the moment and filtering my ideas - more on that soon! 

Nice one Ritchie - Rainbow at the NEC in Birmingham

MTM, our mate Steve and I were very lucky to get great seats to go see Ritchie Blackmore playing some Rainbow and Deep Purple numbers at the Genting Arena at the NEC in Birmingham on Saturday night. We were in Block A and about 20 rows from the front.

This is just a screengrab from some YouTube footage, taken when they were playing Burn, which is my all time favourite Deep Purple track. Before they played the UK, they did two gigs at open air festivals in Germany. Burn was actually missing from the set list on those gigs so I was desperately grateful they decided to treat the UK to it. I think Soldier of Fortune was also a UK only track. I have this dream that one day, when playing Soldier of Fortune either with the reconstituted Rainbow or Blackmore's Night, David Coverdale will walk on stage and take over the vocals ... c'mon David, you're friends with Ritchie again now, you know you want to ...!

My second favourite Deep Purple track is Mistreated, a complex song, slow and bluesy and needs a really good singer. Ronnie Romero is the dynamic young singer Ritchie Blackmore chose to front the new line up, This guy shoved a stick of dynamite in his vocal chords and just exploded at us ... what a talent! Ritchie always has a knack of choosing really great singers and Ronnie is no exception. Nice one Ritchie!

There were too many highlights to mention them all but Stargazer was a wall of sound, the keyboard player was amazing on Burn and Child in Time, in the absence of John Lord, wow! he'll do!

The drummer, base player (Bob with his natty black and white polka dot shirt) and the keyboard player have all been in Ritchie's other band, Blackmore's Night, at various times and all are exceptional musicians.

This was definitely gig of the year in my book by a long chalk. I don't want Ritchie to stop doing Blackmore's Night but I, for one, won't be complaining if they decide to do an album and tour some more.

Long Live Rock 'n Roll!

Brexit, dollars, lampwork beads and me

The United Kingdom has voted to leave the European Union. I am very surprised, it never seriously occurred to me that this would be the actual outcome so I didn't really think through what my shop's currency being in dollars would mean to my beadmaking income. I wanted to stay IN.

I found myself awake in the early hours and so got up at 3.30am to see how things were going on the referendum. With the result looking cut and dried and the pound falling alarmingly against the dollar, I shut my Etsy shop temporarily until I could figure out how it would affect me.

Now I'm up (and far more awake), I realise that this makes no difference to my customers in the United States, they can continue to buy at the same prices (to them) as my shop's currency is set to dollars. A little over half of my customers are the US and so I can hope to continue to enjoy their patronage and one upside is that the exchange rate means I will get more sterling from those transactions.

The downside is that the rest of my customers are in the UK, with a small percentage in other countries in the EU. To them, my prices have increased significantly (10% at the time of typing). I imagine this will mean some of those customers may choose not to buy from me. I have considered lowering my prices or changing the currency of my shop but I haven't increased bead prices in three years, if I decrease them and things settle down again, well, I'm just not willing to make beads for a lower price. I'm not exactly getting rich out of self-employment! I hope that the two sets of customers will balance themselves out and I can continue making lampwork beads for all of my lovely customers.

With apologies to those it adversely affects, I've decided I will be rolling my sleeves up and just getting on with things as they are. It's out of my control, it's pointless to get all stressed about it. I will continue to monitor and make decisions accordingly. Watch this space for news.