Garden-Tidying and Milton Keynes Marathon

We were informed, by reading yellow signs on the Grid Roads around here, that the roads were to be closed over the May Day Bank Holiday weekend ( Sunday 1st and Monday 2nd May.) From experience we are used to having Golden Drive closed off on marathon days, meaning we usually can't get out in the car at such times. We are also usually informed through the medium of a letter put through our letter boxes well in advance. This didn't happen, although a leaflet was put through our door on Saturday evening, too late to be of any real use. It turned out that, in the end, the runners kept to Saxon Street and didn't come into our estate at all. Which meant we could get out if we'd wanted to. But it would appear, having read the leaflet again, Golden Drive will be closed off tomorrow for another marathon. It's all very well and good, and there's nothing wrong with any of this, but it is beginning to become somewhat tiresome. Why can't they use the Redway, which runs only a few yards away, behind our house? It would surely mean they don't have to cause so much inconvenience to anyone and it must be safer in the long run (sorry about the unintentional pun. These things just happen that way.) as the Redway system was designed in such a way that users don't have to cross the Grid Roads, being designed to utilise bridges and under-passes. 

I have bought a Strimmer. Well, actually it isn't a Strimmer as such. It uses the same technology and is actually a Qualcast Grass Trimmer, 'Strimmer' being a trademark of a particular make of grass cutter which uses plastic fishing line, revolving fast inside a hand-held device run on electricity and enabling the user to trim generally inaccessible grass around a lawn, under trees etc. I purchased it in Homebase earlier in the week. I had a voucher which meant if I spent £30 or more I could get extra bonus Nectar points, so it seemed a good enough excuse to buy the machine and claim the extra points. I have been using the thing and it's making a good enough job of tidying up the grass at the back of the house. As we now have the fence repaired it seems a good enough excuse to start on sorting out the garden. I have also been clearing the weeks and mess from the front of the house. Weeds and grass have been growing between the cracks in the paving slabs at the front of the house and I've been using the hoe we bought in Wickes the other week to scrape the weeds out. It's quite a difficult job but it seems well worth it. The Daily Telegraph has had an offer in the paper this weekend, you cut out a voucher and take it to Homebase and receive bedding plants free, so we went early this morning and picked the plants up, pansies as well as strawberry plants. We also got a rather nice ceramic strawberry planter which will go well on the patio in the garden. We went to Dobbie's garden centre yesterday afternoon and got trays of plants as well as another visit to Staple's garden centre near Flitwick later on this morning and got another plant as Carol has been busy sorting out our collection of pots which we've had sitting around the garden for far too long, steadily growing weeds inside them, but now have some fresh and colourful flowering plants in them. 

Landlord Arranges Visit and House-Cleaning

We had a call from our beloved landlord yesterday morning. He asked if he could visit. He didn't say what it was about. We said, could he come later in the week? He wanted to come that evening. Legally landlords have to give you 24-hour's notice. He's coming on Saturday afternoon. So we have spent most of today day cleaning the house. So most of the rooms are a good deal less dusty,  nd much more tidy etc etc. Floors mopped and carpets Hoovered. Our next goal was to tidy up the garden, to get rid of the weeds which have spring up outside the patio doors. They were beginning to get quite big, along with some rather insistent twiggy trees which have started to infiltrate the fence-line. So, having been stuck indoors again today, and after our cleaning duties, we needed a good excuse to walk to one of the near-by do-it-yourself stores in order to buy strip to go along the bath-edge (the edging strip we put on some while ago, infact it must be over a year ago when the landlord visited and is showing signs of coming adrift.) some dog mixer biscuit and gardening gloves as well as some sort of cutting instrument such as a lopper or pruner to deal with the saplings which I have already mentioned earlier.

Having walked to The Range along the Redway and past M.K.C.C. and then stopping to buy cans of drink in the forecourt of Wickes, where we had gone to search for the bath edging strip but not having any success in there finding it, decided to walk on to The Range further along the road within the Winterhill retail park. We were somewhat surprised to find it really busy considering that it's a Wednesday afternoon and the carpark is really full. We browsed the store and found the food for the dogs (actually cat food mixer, but don't tell either of the dogs that! Why is cat food generally cheaper than dog's? Never could fathom out why?) as well as two pairs of gardening gloves, one for myself and the other for Carol, which pair were quite colourful while mine were just dull and boring. Then gadget to generally deal with cutting the largest saplings that grow along the garden fence as well as some tiresome blackberry brambles which I found interfering with my mowing which I did early yesterday morning. Glad I did now as it would have had to be done with the landlord coming, although, to be honest, I don't suppose he will even notice the grass at back and front has been cut.

We were going to return home and had booked a taxi cab using my mobile phone (for all my annoyance by people using their mobiles inappropriately and the obsession that people have with the things, we couldn't have done without this gadget for this purpose over the last couple of weeks, as we've used it on several occasions to book cabs in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne and to call the breakdown truck when we were stuck on the M1 with the broken-down car on Saturday afternoon.) when we saw our neighbours, Shelley and Gary, drive into the carpark as they'd come to buy curtains in The Range for their daughter who is currently on holiday in Great Yarmouth with her grandmother and Gary is decorating her bedroom as a surprise for when she gets home. So they said they'd give us a lift home so we cancelled the taxi. No sooner done than a cab turned up and we felt a bit guilty that we'd wasted the driver's time, but we had phoned to cancel it so they shouldn't have been so efficient in sending the cab so quickly. Then Gary said we needn't have bought the lopper as he had one in his garden shed we could borrow so I took it back and got a refund and we then got in their car and we were driven home. Gary had lent us the lopper as promised along with his Strimmer which should help us tidy up the rough grass around the edge of the garden. We started to cut back the brambles and to pull up the weeds and generally tidy up and I must say it's beginning to look a good deal better. Let's hope that our beloved landlord tells us that he's going to get the fence repaired as he'd more or less promised over a year ago as we are looking after his property for him and we've good tenants he can rely on. But something tells me this isn't going to happen. So we'll be left with a fence which isn't much use and will get blown down during the winter if we get another strong wind as we did when the fence the opposite side of the garden last winter when a large section got blown down.

Lawn-mowing

The sun is out. Infact it is positively a heatwave. Just don't hold your breath. It may last. The trees are busily leafing like crazy, and blossom is opening rapidly. There are primroses all along the grid roads around Milton Keynes. A veritable hive of activity. The grass in our back garden is growing to such an extent that both dogs are getting lost in the lushness. So it's about time I got out the mower. Which I did early this morning. Hunt for the power cable, plug it in and unwind said cable into garden. Open garden shed and dig out mower. Attach cable to cable and begin to mow. The grass is slightly wet, which might have been a good reason to not mow. Unfortunately the machine grinds to a halt after barely five minutes. Strange noise emanating from beneath machine. Unplug mower and turn over on grass, to discover that one of the little plastic blades has broken off. Not surprising owing to length of grass and the fact that the mower isn't really designed to cut such long grass. More capable of cutting neatly-turfed lawns and not this horrible uneven, tusky grass. Methinks perhaps a herd of sheep or goats might be the answer. I spend a half-hour or so hunting around in the kitchen and other places to see if we have any spare blades. We had a packet with the machine when we bought it but where they are now is a complete mystery. I write down the machine number, a Flymo and decide to head off to the local branch of Homebase to purchase the requisite packet of blades so that I can resume grass-cutting. On arrival at Homebase in Winterhill I find plenty of Flymo mowers but no spare blades. After asking a member of staff where I might find the blades, we still are no closer to locating the required items. It seems you can buy a Flymo mower but when you need the blades they don't appear to have them. I leave, somewhat frustrated by lack of purchase and then go over the road to The Range. The same story there: they have the machines for sale but no blades. This seems quite incredible. I then go further along the road to Wickes but it appears that they don't sell mowers so I return home empty-handed but none the wiser as to where I might be able to obtain the mower blades.

A little while later . . . I have had a good look for the spare mower blades and sure enough I found some in the kitchen drawer. So I managed to attach to the mower and got the machine working again so I have managed to cut around a quarter of the grass. I will be doing a bit each day as it's really hard work as the grass is so long and still a little damp, which isn't surprising due to it's length, even though the sun is out and shining brightly and there's a gentle breeze.