blakeyboy

While the awning was in bits, i scarily got the ladders to the guttering and fixed a leak- pva glue into a crack that will hopefully cure the drip. Great to gawp into all the gardens in the street for once. Such a shame this year- everyones gardens are fab, but no-one can see them! Here's a pick for Ozjohn- a caesalpinia gilliessii in a border in the UK bit of a rarity - no flowers yet...I wrap it each year but it may be worth the wait.....

Yes- i have an awning that I threw up years ago- wooden frame and polycarbonate, and once the sheeting had got old, a big hailstorm shot it, so this year, with more time and loads of sun, i decided to change it- imperial sheet out, metric sheet on. What a laugh. All with a grape vine to be supported through out the job.... Most important, I've discovered- if you are into tropical or tender plants, you must have a not in, but not out, halfway house, where you can drag plants under for the winter, This gives a bit of shelter from low temperatures, but more importantly, gives you control over watering. Keeping things on the dry side is like an extra 5˚ of frost hardiness. The best money I've ever spent is on this awning. Mind you, when it fell to bits, i did sing 'Awning has broken' , so I kept up standards.:) I've only got 10 by 5 metres to work with, and in a way, it's good. I have so many friends with 5 acres+, and they are not in control of 30% of any of it. All my investments have been in equipment, not houses, so the small garden is a lovely indulgence, not a chore...... Picture from window. early in the year, so all the tropical leaves etc haven't woken up properly yet.

Constantly hassled by a robin we've been training.

It's a riot of colour really early this year.

sorted out the patio seating area finally- wife very happy. Found a nice place for some stained glass panels.

Wow- very difficult to do. Getting them to survive the winter is a pig.

So, Paddy, if you stop an auction to sell to a regular client, for, say, £100, how do you know that the auction, had it continued, wouldn't have raised £200? I've been in the position where I've left a bid of £1000 on some old electronics, and the auction has been stopped at a couple of hundred. Very frustrating. It turned out I knew the buyer and he had offered £500 and the seller took it. I also knew the seller and was going to tell him he lost £500....but did he?.........? Second bidder may only have bidder £110.... The only problem here isn't monetary- it's moral. My view is that if you can't find a buyer for something, then auction it on ebay. If you take it down because a buyer contacts you, you've used ebay as an advertising site, which it isn't. In the vintage pro-audio business, people who mess people about on ebay generally have to pay more for stuff from other collectors since everyone knows what they are like. People in the business don't rush to recommend them either. They are only successful when dealing with people who don't know anything. This costs them in the long run. After all, they have no idea whom they have really annoyed every time they stopped an auction..... If ebay ran like an auction house, so when you put up an item it stayed up until the end, things would be better.

I saw what you did there. Very good.

Also, don't make the mistake of browsing the catalogue on a sunny day like I did last week. The sun heated the spine, melted the glue, and the whole thing fell to bits.....

I know. I saw the police reports.....

I she comfortable under the log now?

Agreed. I only have 10 m x 5m to play with, and I'd love some old heat-soak walls to have a rose of that quality climbing up it...

Damn those Victorian explorers!! Tony Banks, as well as riverbanks...

Oh- another thing- I have a rare trachycarpus takil, and its suddenly decided to flower. Not sure yet if its a girl or a boy. Anyone know of another so i can get some pollination going?

Strange thing is, people are saying how loud the birds are. They are probably 6-8dB quieter because they have less plane and traffic noise to compete with. But humans don't have to try and listen to the birds against the background noise now, so they seem louder to us... Training up some robins- they now come just into the kitchen to look for us. We're not expecting them to be as good as a pair some years ago, which were obviously the ones that migrate to and from Germany every year, and are way pushier than the ones that stay put. Those ones would sit on your hand while you actually poked a mealworm into their mouths... If the food ran out, they would fly round the house looking for us. Here's a pic of the blackbird last year. Asking my wife for more worms. In the bloody kitchen. Only when really close can you see that a male blackbird's feet are AMAZING.

Welsh poppies self-seed amongst the elephant grass and the albums, and it always works....

I'm starting to get really bored now.. .

Do you have six axes of symmetry as well? ('Six axes of Symmetry' is the next album from Megadeath. ) ( Probably)

I the late 70's, when you had a crack forming in a motorcycle perspex screen on a fairing, you just drilled a small hole at the end. To anyone even vaguely interested in this topic, I can thoroughly recommend the books by J.E.Gordon. Brilliantly written- the best loo books ever.

Way better obverse strike than mine, and on the reverse, her fingers don't look flattened.

Sorry, F grade! It was very early for me, and my fingers got the worms muddled up.

It's tricky one, this- the obverse can look interesting, and when you see the reverse, it's nearly always a disappointment . You reverse is nice. makes a change...:) If hadn't been vey lucky, my example of the 1926ME would still be basically be F trade, with no shield detail at all.

Nice specimen, Mike. Was it an Ebay find or an auction job?

Take a short piece of the brown or blue from a length of twin and earth flat grey cable. Bare the end a bit, and file the tip to a chisel. It's soft annealed copper, so won't scratch the bronze at all. Works a treat!

found the picture