We’ve gone radical and uber-edgy with our decorating and have started painting everywhere white. It might not sound very adventurous, but the hall and stairway areas are already looking bigger and brighter. Having lived with a sort of coffee-brown colour on the walls for two years, we’ve finally realised how dingy the place was looking. The living room and library will not be going white, though. At some point they’re destined for possibly a heritage green. Or maybe a vibrant orange. Hang on, though: we might still have some of that coffee-coloured paint left. I’ll see if any tins are lying around in the shed. After all, it’d be a shame to waste it.
Yearly Archives: 2009
Owls about that, then?
For weeks (actually, make that months) we have heard hardly a hoot, despite always having the bedroom windows open even in the chilliest of weather; yep, we sure are a pair of hardy souls, aren’t we? But this past week the local tawny owls have been determined to wake Shana up in the middle of the night. If I’m right in thinking that mice — and all the other small animals that are top of the owls’ menu — are getting ready to hibernate, then it would make sense for owls to be having a last feast (a pig-out, even) before their food supply suddenly dries up. Presumably, that’s why we’re hearing so many at the moment.
Although we never reveal in our blog posts exact details of where we live, you can find out easily by strolling round the outskirts of Lincoln in the wee small hours and listening carefully. First you’ll hear the distinctive too-whit-too-woo call of the one and only Strix aluco. Seconds later will come a blood-curdling shriek of Shut up!!
Just follow your ears. And, if you can, please bring a spare set of ear-muffs — Shana will be most grateful.
Posted by in life, nature notes
Venetian blinds
A spot of relatively simple DIY this weekend. Or, as they call it up north: DIT — ‘do it theesen’. Some call them home improvements; we’ve taken to calling them home impairments. Read on and you’ll soon get the picture.
All we’ve done is replace our library’s net curtains (or, to be more precise, our tab-topped voiles) with venetian blinds. The library curtains have caused many an annoyance. First, though, I should explain what I mean by ‘our library’. It might sound like one wing of an Elizabethan mansion, with six-foot-thick stone walls; however, it is roughly ten feet by ten, full of books and, since it is also full of a table, also doubles up as a breakfast dining area.
The window is about eight feet long by two feet high and you have to stand to be able to look out of it. Strange as it may sound, though, we like it just the way it is. It lets in plenty of light, but if it were much bigger the library, being south-facing, would get too hot and bright in the summer, so we’d end up having to part-close the curtains anyway.
The only real problem with the library window is its length, which meant we had to buy three sets of blinds; and we shall still have to make a couple of adaptations to finish the job (about which, more to come soon — with photos). For privacy, we tried fixing a net curtain last year, but, after a few problems with attaching fixings to our crumbly 1950s walls (that and a good helping of drill-incompetence on my part), opted instead to hang a couple of voiles. The only way to hang them (or so it seemed to us at the time) was to thread them along an eight-foot length of heavy-gauge green gardening wire and loop the ends of the wire over our ‘stylish’ aluminium curtain rail. I know what you’re thinking: It all sounds a bit tatty.
Guess what? You’re right!
Only a fortnight ago, we were all set to put up a set of vertical blinds. Proper fixing instructions never arrived from the suppliers, despite repeated requests, so we eventually returned the blinds and got a refund. The country might be in a recession but it seems some companies don’t care about losing a sale. Their loss, not ours.
And so we gravitated towards venetian blinds. We bought three, used two in the library and will use the third on our upstairs landing, where we currently have a thick chocolate brown curtain. Meanwhile, we also found some blinds we bought over a year ago — when we had an under-powered drill that wasn’t much use for doing DIY work. This means the kitchen will finally be getting blinds as well.
Compromise, hack and fudge we might, but eventually we do get round to getting those little jobs done. Honest!
Green Fingers
We are slowly learning the dark art of gardening. Our piece of hallowed ground is part of a larger community plot, this photo was taken on the 5th June 2009, before the assault began!
The border on the left was where a shed used to stand. In front of the fence is a row of Verbena bonariensis. And at the beginning of September 2009, 2000 wildflower seeds were liberally sprinkled over the area which was a mix of Bachelors Buttons, Siberian Wallflower, Garland Daisy, Shasta Daisy, Plains Coreopsis, Larkspur, Sweet William, African Daisy, California Poppy, Perennial Gaillardia, Globe Gilia, Baby’s Breath, Spurred Snapdragon, Blue Flax, Sweet Alyssum, Evening Primrose, Rocky Mountain Penstemon, Prairie Coneflower, Black Eyed Susan and Catchfly.
Above is the back border with the 3 Pyracantha ‘Orange Glow’ shrubs. Since then we have planted several Oxalis ‘Iron Cross’ plants. On the 18th September 2009 we sowed some seeds in the back border behind the Pyracantha, though that might not be where the plants, if they grow, stay. The plant is Eryngium giganteum (Miss Willmott’s Ghost) an absolutely stunning Sea Holly.
Eventually we want to cut back the front of the lawn and have a border along there, possibly transfer the Sea Holly to the front.
But for now, we rest!
Here lies William McBeath
Visiting Canwick Road cemetery in Lincoln this afternoon, we spotted a small Scottish saltire flag planted at the foot of a tree at the cemetery’s northern boundary. Had it not been for another grave further along, almost completely hidden by foliage and bearing the strangely appropriate name, Bush, we could easily have missed it. After that, though, we were actively looking out for other hidden stones, hoping desperately to find evidence of a deceased Hedge, a Tree or even a Lurker.
No such luck, as it happened.
But then we saw the flag. And looking further we spotted a brass plaque fixed to the nearest tree trunk.
The plaque reads:
In this place lies William McBeath, who in 1872, along with three friends, had an idea to start a football team. That football team became Rangers FC.
Sports journalist Gary Ralston explains in his book, “Rangers 1872: The Gallant Pioneers”, how Rangers was formed by four young boys walking through a park in Glasgow who simply decided one day to form a football club. Apparently McBeath had quite a sad life, and in the ended his days in a Lincoln poorhouse on Burton Road. It is also said that a charge of bigamy and a fraud trial also featured in McBeath’s life before he died in 1917. He now lies in an unmarked grave in Washingborough Cemetery.
So, although someone has already researched McBeath’s life, his final resting place is still not marked by anything other than a little flag beneath a tree. Seems a shame, doesn’t it?
Posted by in photography
The balloonists
Spotted over south Lincoln around 7.30pm yesterday. Probably the biggest ladybird you’ll see this year.
