Getting Warmer!

(Tuesday) I'm still intent on going out with Alfie a good deal later. 6.20 is really far too early, but don't ask Afie for his opinion. It started out bright and sunny, but as I write this at 12.40p.m. it's become somewhat overcast. We are promised a bit of a heatwave later in the week. I do hope so, because my shorts and short-sleeved shirt still resides in the wardrobe.

Phil and his son Robert turned up at around 9.40 to attempt to finish off the garden. Robert used the new Strimmer they bought but it shed a piece that prevented it from working, apparently a spring which goes in the spindle on which the fishing line is coiled and which cuts the grass. He managed to cut down the grass at the back of the house and Phil has dug over the flower bed at the front of the house. I bought four plant pots with minature daffodils, which were a speciality of Carol's, and now they have finished he has dead-headed them and planted the bulbs in the newly-dug flower bed. A large amount of broken glass has been found in the flower bed. I can't think where it's come from. Possibly from a window, but I can't be sure. You'd think if someone broke it, from whatever cause, they could at least pick it up and put it somewhere safe. It's the same with the two garden sheds that go with this property. In each there is stuff which must have belonged to former tenants. I wish they could have disposed of it before they left. Part of a computer and oddments in the meter cupboard which is at the front of the house and ancient mattress and oddments in both sheds. Taking up vital space which could be my things and there's nowhere else to store it.

Garry is coming back to help put up the replacement clothing rail in the cupboard in my bedroom. He had to deal with a flood at the school where he works and next week one of his daughters is getting married so he's busy but be spoke to me earlier when Phil and Robert were here and informs me that he will go to get the parts for the clothing rail tomorrow morning. As I will be going to Camphill tomorrow I won't be home until at least 4.30 so he should be able to come and fit the rail tomorrow evening. I hope so, because currently I have the clothing which fell down when the rail collapsed last week. I haven't got enough space in the IKEA wardrobe to put this excess clothing.

The artful squirrel has been back. I saw it hanging upside down on the bird feeding station. How on earth it manages to hold on I can't imagine. I would love to get a photo of it, but  by the time I've set up the camera it would be too late, unfortunately. I suppose I could always set it up on the tripod with the telephoto lens fitted, but there again just a slight noise, probably of the shutter going off would scare it away. It sat on the fence staring at the house for quite some time. It's as if it expects me to be watching. Crafty thing!

Morning Rain

As I write this blog post it's raining. (7.30 a.m.) Not very heavily, but certainly enough to refresh the grass around here. There's a certain amount of water running down the side of the road at the front of the house which I could see when I was in the bathroom having a shave this morning with the window open. Someone just walked past with an umbrella up, so it must be of a certain level to need to use an umbrella. I means I won't be taking Alfie out for his, by now, routine walk around Eaglestone Park, which he won't think too much of. I can always take him that bit later when it's stopped. I just hope it soaks the ground sufficiently to revive the grass around here. At the rear of the house the grass is looking somewhat shrivelled and brown, large areas have more or less given up, so a sudden soaking should do the trick. A lot of the Gridroads around Milton Keynes are looking decidedly patching and brown. 

We were going shopping on Tuesday morning and had intended going to Morrison's at Westcroft. . Carol was driving and we went along Chaffron Way but couldn't get through due to the road being closed off, most probably because they are gradually resurfacing the Gridroads, which in places are in a real need of this sort of work, but it was annoying and we weren't given sufficient warning in advance so we ended up going to Morrison's newer store near the railway station.

I spent some time on Monday and Tuesday morning tidying up the garden at the front of the house, using the Ozito cordless grass trimmer (not actually a Strimmer because it doesn't use the plastic fishing line that an actual Strimmer has, but a similar plastic blade like the lawnmower, which is better because you don't have to keep stopping to pull out the fishing line which keeps on breaking with a Strimmer.) As this machine is cordless it makes things easier when you don't have to connect it to the mains electricity supply with a cable connected to a power point. You just have to remember to keep the battery pack charged. I managed to cut the grass which has grown in the flower bed in front of the kitchen window (if you can really call it a flowerbed as it hasn't ever had any flowers in it, except a few pathetic spring bulbs which appear each Spring.) and then I hooked the cut grass out with the rake we got in The Range the other day. I got the mower out of the shed and used this to cut the lawn at the front of the house, although the grass wasn't really long enough, it's got very scruffy and most of the growth is tusky and tough weeks, giving rise to yellow flowers a bit like dandelions, but which I have an idea are actually called coltsfoot, but I may be wrong. Does it really matter? Our landlord's wife, who visited us the other Sunday, only had one comment about the house, not having done an actual house inspection, and that was 'have you cut the grass?' which is why I'd made this effort with the front of the house, as I imagine, when they'd drawn up in their car, they'd noticed how scruffy things were looking. I also had to hack down the saplings (no doubt they're called that, otherwise the tree-like plants which seem to spring up at the front of the house as well as in the back garden. They always appear along the left-side fence as well as under the lounge window.) I used the loppers to cut it all back and the  put the bits in the green Wheelybin. I've also managed to clear some of the weeds and grass that come up between the concrete slabs at the front of the house which is swept up and put in the Wheely bin as well as the brambles which put out runners all over the slabs and since cut down it all looks somewhat tidier and should now be easier to keep clear, but there is still more to be done to keep it clear. The Wheely bin isn't really large enough for this operation and is soon filled and then put out at the edge of the garden at the roadside, on a Wednesday so that the dustmen can take it to be emptied. So it's a limitation as to how much you can actually manage to trim each week.

I took Alfie out for his walk when the rain held off. It was actually drizzly as we crossed the road into the walkway down into Eaglestone Park. Alfie is generally a good complaint little dog. If he runs off and I call he almost always comes back to me. But as we got round to the open green leading to the shops he ran ahead of me and I couldn't see where he'd gone as there was another bend in the path and some brambles in the way. He ran towards the lady who has the two little chihuahua dogs we've met on a couple of occasions. When I called he just would not come back to me. Then I saw another lady with a Great Dane and Alfie ran away when he saw this dog. He doesn't usually run away from dogs, more likely he will run towards them and run in circles around them, attempting to make friends, which most large dogs don't like or are so stunned by his behaviour, he moves so quickly they haven't got a chance to respond, but this time he ran away. I wasn't sure whether the Great Dane scared him because I was further back on the path and could see, but it was odd that he'd run off.

Alfie got a bit of a soaking in the drizzle, not too much, but the wetting made his coat go all crinkly and wavy which always happens when he gets wet. Once we were in the house he tried to dry himself by rubbing under the over-lapping cushions on the sofa in the sitting room and upstairs he rubbed along the bannister rails which makes an odd sort of noise.

The sun has now come out (9.45 A.M.) so perhaps the day will turn out a good deal sunnier than expected.

Eleventh Chemotherapy Cycle

When we go out we usually have to leave Alfie behind. Going to the oncology department at Milton Keynes Hospital, for example, we obviously can't take a small dog, for hygiene reasons, although we'd love to take him and I'm sure the other patients would love him and he'd be spoilt rotten. He usually stays in the kitchen, where he has his nice warm bed, some food and water and it's generally quite pleasant for him. Sometimes, if I say 'kitchen' to him he goes all pathetic, ears laid back with his tail between his legs. I think tone of voice could suggest that he's done something wrong, even when he hasn't. If I say this, he sometimes forgets where the kitchen is and runs upstairs to our bedroom. Well, you can't blame him for preferring to lay on our nice comfortable bed to being in the kitchen. But yesterday morning, when we were about to leave the house for the hospital, I attempted to get him into the kitchen. You have to have the door into the front hall shut, and get him into the kitchen from the lounge through the door from the lounge. But he wouldn't comply. He usually goes in there without any fuss and bother. But he'd picked up fairly early on that we were going out and leaving him. He goes into the trembling-dog mode, all pathetic and really crazy. I had to attempt to open the kitchen door and just put him through, but he just wouldn't stay, with as much effort as he could, he rushed back through into the lounge. For such a small dog he has quite a lot of strength, surprisingly, so we decided to leave him to it and have the door between the lounge and the kitchen left open so be could wander about safely when we were out, so at least he had food and water and a choice of either laying on the sofa or using his own bed in the kitchen.

So, yesterday Carol started her eleventh chemotherapy cycle. Just one more to go and all twelve will have been completed. We got to the oncology unit far too early. We were due there at about 11.30, but as there can be a real problem with parking we got there about an hour too early and, fortunately, we were able to park quite easily. There were several vacant spaces. We went to the Friend's shop which is near the restaurant, and bought sandwiches, drinks and crisps so we had something to eat at lunch-time.  It was really warm in the oncology department. I know cancer patients need to be warm because the chemotherapy they have to undergo can have the effect of making heat and cold quite unbearable. This was particularly evident over the winter months as Carol had to wear gloves and a scarf, usually over her mouth when we went outside. But it's quite warm at the moment and the doors and windows were open in the department when we arrived but had to be closed as one patient, a fairly elderly lady, insisted on having them closed. A bit unfair on the rest of those in the department.

Today (Wednesday) I've spent some time cutting the grass with the new cordless grass trimmer (as mentioned in an earlier post.) I'm having to deal with a lot of brambles growing up near the fence to the left, because the trimmer isn't powerful enough to cut these branches. It's good at cutting the grass, though, and from my experience of using a Strimmer or at least a cutter that uses fishing line, it's more efficient and I haven't had to stop to deal with the cutting blade (similar to that which is in the mower we have.) With trimmers with fishing line in them, this line tends to brake very frequently and you have to stop and deal with it, pulling out the line before continuing with the job in hand.

This week I'm doing an on-line course through something called 'Futurelearn.' It's called 'Shakespeare: Print and Performance.' It's a course run by King's College, London in association with the British Library and Shakespeare's Globe. I've done several of these courses before, an earlier one on Shakespeare called 'Shakespeare and His World' and another about Hadrian's Wall. Most of these courses are free, but they've started to keep them free for the duration of the course, but then you need to pay to continue to have access after this period. There are video 'lectures' on various topics as well as downloadable material which you can print out as well as points where you can join in discussions and make comments on various topics. A really interesting course as it covers two subjects which I have an interest in, Shakespeare and history. Learning a lot of new stuff about Shakespeare I didn't know about before as well as about the history of Tudor theatre. I never realised until doing this course that there were so many theatres in and around London at this time, because you only seem to know about The Globe Theatre when studying Shakespeare.

10th Anniversary of my Heart Attack

Goodness gracious. How time flies. Sorry to use a really over-worked cliché, but it's true. I can't believe it's ten years since I had my heart attack. The night of 17th and 18th of May 2006 was when it happened. I have written quite extensively in an earlier blog post on here about what happened on that night and how the paramedics came and I ended up in the C.C.U. (Coronary Care Unit) at Bedford Hospital. I feel a good deal better than I did then. Actually, I feel as good as I've felt in a good long while. No real problems.

I've been mowing the grass at the back of the house. (I still refuse to refer to it as a 'lawn.') I did a cut yesterday, and to be perfectly honest with you, it looked really poor. As if it had been nibbled by some strange creature. Scrappy, to say the least. So I've cut it again and now it looks a good deal better. Not really like a lawn (it's never going to be that as it's just horrible grass.  Tough and terrible.) But it looks a good deal better. I've also been Stimming the long grass around the edges and cut some of the twigs that grow up along the fence. It's taken me a while to get the hang of the Strimmer (actually it's not a Strimmer, it's a Qualcast machine. 'Strimmer' is a registered trademark, but it's like 'Hoover' being used as a generic term for a vacuum cleaner.  But it works in exactly the same way.) It was worth buying a more expensive one as the extra power this one has means it does the job far better than a cheaper, lower power machine.)

The shed where the mower and strimmer are housed is beginning to cave in. Or at least the roof is. It has a hole in it. During the winter the wind took some of the roofing felt and left the remains, rotting and just past it, in the garden. So, what happens when the whole roof caves in? I don't suppose our beloved landlord is going to get it repaired. The lady next door, whose shed backs onto ours, had hers reroofed by the Council (they presumably own her house. They repaired the fence when it was blown down by a really severe winter wind some while ago.) The shed is full of the odd belongings of former tenants of this property, such as ancient portable televisions, baby baths, etc etc. Similar leaving are in the other shed, including a really old mattress and other bits and pieces. The meter cupboard, which is at the front of the house, contains similar junk. Why couldn't either the landlord or SmartMove, the agency we originally rented from, have this stuff removed before we moved in? It surely wouldn't have taken too much to get a skip and just throw the stuff away. Too much trouble to expect such a service, without us being charged. Gary, our neighbour the 'other side' suggested he repair the roof of one shed and take away all the junk within and then make one shed waterproof and then put a door in from his garden side so he could use it to store his things. But then he had second thoughts, having spoken to someone further along the street who knows our landlord and said that it might not be such a good idea because once they found out they'd want to charge rent. Also, I imagine that it might contravene our tenancy agreement, sort of 'sub-letting' or something. But it still means that we can't put anything of ours in there, including our bicycles which are still kept in the entrance hall of the house.

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. 

Rainy and Wet

I managed to use the Strimmer I borrowed from Gary yesterday and to tidy up some of the tufty bits of grass around the edge of the garden whilst Carol went into the Academy this morning at it was 'A' Level results day. I must say the garden now looks a bit tidier than it did before our work. Have had to cut back a lot of the brambles which is a horrible job as the thorns have a tendency to get caught in your clothes and stick into your hands if you're not careful. Unfortunately it started raining as the day progressed, beginning thin and weedy and now quite torrential. No thunder or lightening as I write but perhaps we'll get that as the night progresses.

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.

Cutting The Grass

This saga drags on. We have given up the search for someone to come and cut the lawn for a reasonable amount of money. We have borrowed our neighbour's Strimmer and began the task of hacking down the grass when we got back from church yesterday morning. For those who don't know what a Strummer is, it's a gadget with a handle and has a reel of fishing line in the base which spins at speed and cuts grass and weeds. Strimmer will be a trademark for Black and Decker but I expect there are variations on the same gadget made by other companies. As it cuts the line itself gets shorter as bits get worn down, so you have to keep stopping and pulling out more and more line. Some come with an automatic feed which allows the line to fed out of it's own accord. I don't think it's actually that successful because the grass is now so long an extremely tough so it has real problems cutting it. We have been using a pair of garden shears intended for hedge-cutting but they are better at cutting through this tough grass. Once all the grass has been cut down sufficiently we will then have to rake off the loose grass and then use the lawn mower to keep the grass to a reasonable length.

Sunny and Warm

Well, the weather has made a change for the better. It's now bright sunshine and I can hear the merry sound of someone using a Strimmer somewhere near at hand. Possibly in a near-by garden or a Council workman along the Redway behind the house. Our garden is in desperate need of having the grass cut. This is basically because it has been so wet recently, the lawn mower wouldn't work on the grass, apart from it being somewhat dangerous owing to the fact that it is electric. I think the machine would have real problems cutting it as it is so dense and long. The dogs go out in the garden and they get lost, it's so long. We may need to resort to alternative methods of keeping the grass down, for example, hiring some sheep or even geese to trim it!