blakeyboy

Ooo-er Missus indeed!!!!!!!

Paddy, you left off Erdogan, Bolsonaro, Assad, and the wonderfully named Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov.

At last we have cloudy weather. This gives all my plants in the shade a chance to catch up. Last week, on a sunny morning, light level on the patio was 100,000 + lux. In the shade in the area that gets evening sun, it was 2,500. The next morning, same time, it was cloudy. Patio light level 20,000 lux. Shady spot level was 7,800......!

So- if someone sells a coin to himself, doesn't he pay Ebay for the privilege?

That would be not much use to The Enlightened..... Did coins sell for less than expected? If so, then that's to be expected in lockdown, where you won't have a packed saleroom, so why put coins into an auction at the moment?

Ah...yeah...didn't think it through.......

I just wasn't thinking- I love a bargain - it was going cheep! I got mobbed by nearly twenty crows after that pun- they are a local gang called Corvid 19.... I can only apologise.

There were two in the bush worth just as much...

EIGHT?????!!! How the hell did two birds find enough caterpillars to raise that lot???? It must have been like Heathrow....

Where is mum with my breakfast?

Baby blue tits are just stupid fluffy lumps!

Trump isn't clever enough to realise how stupid he is.

Bloody spellcheck changing 'beer' into 'breeze'...drives you mad.....

Here's a shot of how pleasing just the foliage of Canna 'Durban' can be with the sun shining through it.....

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?