Springtime feeling in December

A lot of people are still struggling with the aftereffects of storm Desmond, especially those that were flooded. Here in the quiet corner of the South-East where I live, we didn’t notice the storm so much apart from very windy weather. Spare a thought though for those over 6000 people who got flooded and are now having to spend the next 6-9 months in temporary accommodation while their houses are cleaned out and renovated. Winter storms are a yearly occurrence here in Britain and flooding is quite common, some even get flooded over and over again only years apart. I am fortunate to live on the sheltered side of Britain – we are too dry in the summer but we are also spared the enormous rainfalls in the winter.

EOMV – July - blowing hot and cold

July 2015 has been a month of contrast in my garden in terms of the weather. From extreme hot weather in the beginning to seriously cold towards the end of the month. Well, it’s not as if we have had any snow, but it actually dipped just below 10 degrees C one night and that’s rather cold for July in London. Spare a thought for those further north though, who had temperatures down towards zero that night. Brrr! And a week ago we had 24 hours with rain. Yay!! That was really good for parched gardens around here, would have liked to have a few more days like that, but according to most forecasts there won’t be a drop of rain the next 10 days. I am back to watering every evening.

Merry Christmas from London

It’s ‘little Christmas Eve’ today, the day before the big day for many people around the world, or two days before the big day for other people, depending on which day you celebrate Christmas – if you celebrate at all. I used to celebrate Christmas on the 24th while still living in Norway, but after moving to Britain I have had to postpone the celebration a day, as the 24th is just a normal working day here. My Christmas celebration is mainly about spending the day with family members, exchanging gifts and having extra nice food I normally don’t have. But I also like to surround myself with light inside and outside in these dark, short days of December, while waiting for the days to get longer.

A guest in my garden - and on my blog

Hello folks, I am guest writing on the Graphicality blog today and I just wanted to tell you a bit about what’s going on in the garden right now. But let me present myself first....

Happy Birthday Cat

November is the month my cat has birthday, I am not exactly sure what date, but it is probably in the second half so I thought I would mark it here with another post about him – and some photos. Today’s post is part following up on repeat posts from 2011 and part new, as some of the info here had to be updated.

The sweetest mice for a garden

We have had a nice week of quite warm weather and sunny spells, top temperature of 23 degrees C, not exactly summer but a very nice change from the below 10 we had for weeks on end.

Yippee, post number 200!!

Hello, you have come to the right place, in case you for a moment was in doubt! It’s just that my blog has had a bit of a refurbishment the last couple of days and look a bit different, but everything is here, it’s just the wrapping that has changed. I passed my 2 years as a blogger in silence last month, should probably have made an announcement, but I thought I would save that for today’s post, which is post number 200!!!

Beautiful Blog Award - and my cat

Nadezda at Northern Garden nominated me for an award just before Christmas. I have waited to find a suitable post to write about it, but between posts about spring weather and snow and other things, this one has been put on the back burner until now.

Merry Christmas!

Are you celebrating Christmas Tuesday? Or are you celebrating tomorrow? Around the world, Christmas is celebrated in many different ways and at different times. I live in London, UK, and here, Christmas celebration takes place at 25th December, Christmas Day. I guess we all know the story why we have celebrated Christmas the last 1700 years or so, in one form or another, but it takes place in very different forms on different dates around the world. And in fact, Christmas as we know it is an amalgamation of many different celebrations which people in Europe have celebrated for thousands of years, long before the Bible was written.

Olympic weather in London!

We have finally got summer in London! About time you might say, we have had rain almost every day since beginning of April but now it seems it’s finally our turn to get sunshine and warm weather, very nicely timed for the start of the 2012 Olympics in London. By the time we get to Tuesday or Wednesday this week we are expected to hit over 30 degrees Celsius mid-day, I can’t wait! Those blasted jet streams have decided to go north after all, and they can just stay there until Christmas for my sake!

The troublesome corner

“Once upon a time there was a lady who had a small garden in London whom she was very fond of.” Ehhm…..Let me just interrupt for a moment here and say that these stories usually claim to have a ‘tiny, little old lady’ or a ‘grey-haired old lady’ or something similar, but this story is different, this story is about a not so very old, 47 year of age lady, who is not tiny, not even short…in fact, she is 5’9”, but the last bit is perhaps not that relevant, so let me get back to the story!

My garden is waking up

I have had a long run of migraines lately, quite common for me, but nevertheless exhausting when it happens. I often have more than a week at the time when I have migraines coming and going almost every day and I deal with it by sleeping. Sleeping and sleeping. Often 12-14-15 hours at the time, then I go up to have a bit to eat, maybe watch a bit of TV if I can stomach it (thank goodness for TV recorders!), then usually followed by a stint on my computer with emails and blogging and then back to bed for another 8-10 hours of sleep.

24.12. Merry Christmas!

Are you celebrating Christmas tomorrow? Or are you celebrating tonight? Around the world, Christmas is celebrated in many different ways and at different times. I live in London, UK, and here, Christmas celebration takes place at 25^th December, Christmas Day. I guess we all know the story why we have celebrated Christmas the last 1700 years or so, in one form or another, but it takes place in very different forms on different dates around the world. And in fact, Christmas as we know it is an amalgamation of many different celebrations which people in Europe have celebrated for thousands of years, long before the Bible was written.

30.11. My Tabby Cat

This month my cat is 10 years old, and as I wrote yesterday, I thought I should mark that with writing a bit about cats in general and of course my cat in particular. I had this great intention of making another movie of him, and having a photo session outside in the garden in glorious autumn sunshine…ehh, but the sunshine hasn’t really appeared, it’s been pouring down today too, and a lot of other things have happened the last 10 days as I wrote about yesterday, so I am afraid the movie will have to wait. But I did take some photos of my cat last night in my ‘studio’ (read bedroom), although not under optimal light conditions, but he looks so sweet so I am posting some of the photos anyway. If you haven’t seen the videos I have made already of my cat, please have a look at his page on my web-site, you can FIND MY CAT'S WEB PAGE HERE.

29.11. Happy 10th Birthday Cat!

I had planned to make a film and take some photos of my cat last week, in celebration of his 10th birthday, hopefully outside in glorious sunshine in my garden….but as with all best laid plans; sometimes other things just happens and plans have to be rearranged. The last 10 days have been incredibly stressful here, starting with someone crashing into my car during the night while it was parked. Lots of phone calls to leasing company, police, insurance company, back to the police because the leasing company said I needed a ‘damage self report’, something the police then said they didn’t think I needed. New phone call to the insurance company who wasn’t really interested in taking the claim at all, in their opinion the damage didn’t cause the car to be un-driveable so why make an insurance claim…ehhh…it’s not my car, it’s a leasing car, when I return it, the leasing company will force me to make a claim anyway. New round of phone calls. I have got as far as to establish that I have to pay the excess, since I can’t find the perpetrator. Lousy bastard, just driving off! But I haven’t had the car at the garage yet. I will get a courtesy car while they repair it, but they could not guaranty an automatic car, so I am dragging my feet a bit about calling the garage for an appointment, as I am dreading driving around in a manual car, haven’t done that in 12 years!

10.11. Almost Christmas??

The amazing autumn weather is continuing here in London; I was at my local hospital yesterday to take a blood test and some people were walking around in shorts and T-shirts! Now that would have been taking it a bit far as for myself concerned, but I am still wearing the same jacket I have been wearing all summer when going out and my winter coat hasn’t been out of my wardrobe since late February….and it’s only just over 6 weeks till Christmas!

20.10. Garden is improving

Hello again, just a quick update from my garden tonight, as things are slowly progressing. The log-rolls are ready stained and in the ground, finally, but no gravel yet. I want to finish all the planting first as I keep dragging soil with me from my boots onto the path whenever I go in and out of the beds. Besides, the gravel and also the bark I need to mulch around the plants are quite expensive so I need to save up for it before I go off to B&Q; it is amazing how much things add up to when you go to a place like that to just have ‘a few things’ !

30.09. September heat wave

Last day of September today, it’s almost unbelievable, as I have been in my garden for most of the day and it was 30 degrees out there in the afternoon!  We are experiencing some very unusual warm weather at the moment, not that it hasn’t been warm in September before; it has - and it is quite common with a spell of warm weather sometime in September, but not 30 degrees, and not for such a long period as we have had now.

29.08. My cat and a throw

Hello, how are you? Are you enjoying the last week of summer? Or are you wondering where on earth the summer has gone – again?! An average temperature of 20 degrees in London in August is…pathetic! No other word for it. I have my heating on every evening, in August! The winter will feel very long when last time we had 3 days in a row or longer with higher temperature than 25 degrees was back in May!! We can still have some great days in September, but it’s not really the same, the sun doesn’t take the same way and it doesn’t feel like summer, even if daytime temperatures can reach quite high in the middle of the day, in the sunshine, if you can find any sunshine, and if it isn’t too windy….well, I’m not too fussy after this summer, as long as it doesn’t rain much in September, I’ll be happy…although, as I am writing this, late August Bank Holiday Monday evening, it is 9 degrees outside. NINE!! Ugh.

16.07. I'm back!

Hi, I’m back! Have you been looking for me? Wondered if I was ever going to write here again? Well, I must admit at some point I was wondering myself if I was ever going to get back behind my laptop. If you are one of my regular readers you will perhaps remember that I have been off to hospital to have a hip replacement operation. That was almost 4 weeks ago and I am now slowly recovering at home. Things didn’t go exactly according to plan; when do they ever (!!), but I am not going to bore you with too many details about the excessive bleeding I had the second week after the operation, the two trips to the A&E by ambulance after coming home due to the excessive bleeding and an operation wound that stayed open for three weeks after the operation… well, to sum it up; it’s been stressful and I am exhausted and not doing much else than staying in bed still. Although, yesterday, being 27 degrees and sunny, I did manage to go out in my garden and take a few photos, which I haven’t done for a whole month, so that gave me a kick up my backside to write a bit so I could post my photos.