Just one more

I once bought some echinacea plants from Future Primitive Plants. They have a wonderful selection of unusual plants, but they are rather expensive. That is they cost roughly the same amount as plants in the garden centres, but since I tend to buy my plants as plugs from ebay I usually pay much less. Each month Future Primitive email me a newsletter. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who can't say no to 'just one more'...

So, June has arrived...pretty much.

At this time of the year, most of you will have filled those spaces in the garden with new plants....to replace the ones you managed to kill last winter...am I right?
You're not alone - you'll be pleased to hear.

My fatalities this year are...

We will experience a lull in June - it always happens...we all take a much needed rest and scan the borders in the garden to see what we've achieved so far with our planting skills.

There will always be a little room for 'just one more'...the magazines inspire you whilst you lay in bed reading them...then you buy more plants...and hide them from your spouse...then you sneak them into a gap, which is too small!

Marriage is like a jacuzzi

I use both facebook and ebay daily. That is I use facebook several times a day - I check it as often as I check my email. I tend to use ebay only once a day unless I'm actually bidding on something. Most of the time I search for plants - I find it a wonderful way of finding new species, which I then add to my list of plants that I'd like (if I had money and space).

A couple of days ago a facebook friend brought this ebay item to my attention. I'm not sure how long this will be on the web, but do check it out if you want a laugh...

A few excerpts:

Available for sale is my ex-wife's Trek 1000 Alpha. This is one of those items she absolutely had to have so her life could be complete. Somehow I wound up with it in the not-so-equitable distribution...

Although the previous owner was posessed with demons, I can not guarantee the bike, itself, is haunted.

Proceeds from this sale will be invested in anger management classes for me, and possibly a few additional voodoo dolls of the ex.

Remember, marriage is like a jacuzzi. After you get in and get used to it, it's not so hot.

Eaten by a bear

I was going to blog events from our trip to Cumbria in the order that they happened, but came across this today and simply couldn't wait a few days to blog it.

Recently I blogged about the website www.last.fm - a great free site for playing music. Today I had it running for quite a while whilst doing some work and after an hour or so it stopped and gave me the following message:



I love this so much!

Sunday 10th May

On Sunday we set out to have a walk around Grasmere. Unfortunately the weather deteriorated the closer we got to Grasmere and by the time we arrived we simply sat in the car park in the rain and then left. Instead we visited the main branch of lakeland in Windermere.

On the route to Grasmere we passed Yew Tree Tarn



This is Rydal Mount, once the home of William Wordsworth



Later in the evening we had a walk around the woods at Brockwood:

Barrow in Furness

On my birthday we went to Barrow in Furness to see some places from Ian's youth and to shop at asda.

The car park was rather windy, but we were lucky enough to have a friendly herring gull land on the car bonnet.

Brockwood Hall

Last week Ian and I stayed at Brockwood Hall near Millom in Cumbria. Ian and Gary had been there for some sort of event when they were children, but all Ian could remember from that time was that he had to guess the length of a piece of string.



Brockwood has a number of self-catering wooden cabins, the largest being close to the main hall and the smaller ones being located in the woodland on the hillside. We stayed in Esk - a two-bedroomed cabin at the bottom of the path. The location was fantastic, the cabin being surrounded by bluebells and ramsons, although the adjacent rookery was a little noisy during daylight hours.

Esk:



One of the larger cabins:



The view from our bedroom window:

Stafford North

On our way up to Cumbria we stopped for some food at Stafford North services on the M6. It's definitely my favourite service station on the route North. The main dining area overlooks a large pond (or small lake). Having observed a heron whilst we were eating we went outside to see if it was still there and were rewarded with a lovely photoshoot:

CJE in Exeter

Dad and Jo arrived in Exeter last night for a visit and this morning we had a wander round the garden. Dad and Jo were polite enough not to stand on the new lawn



William was not



Dad picked up a newly emerged small white butterfly to help it warm up



The verbascums have just started flowering this week



This afternoon we visited Chudleigh Knighton Heath and Stover Country Park. As usual I took the opportunity to photograph Dad photographing something else:



For more posts from Dad see CJE in Exeter.