Good afternoon all. What a miserable day, wet and windy here.  My gardener came and insisted on working outside he had wet weather gear on and stayed niceand dry.  My garden looks a lot better already.   Hope everyone is OK and staying safe.
 

Good morning everyone.

Its            a horrible, wet dark morning here.

We've got the shopping delivery coming and Sainsburys sent an email saying they are going back bagless deliveries so I will have to stand at the door and bag the shopping.  One thing I liked            was that the shopping was bagged during the virus.  I've got some washing to do as well.  At leastI wont have to   water the Monkey Puzzle Tree which is doing really            well.

Good morning everyone

Its sunny and breezy and feeling decidedly chilly.

Good morning all. Apologies for my absence been up to my neck with work, masks and mask pouches, digging up spuds and picking, pickling or freezing veg, Twitter club stuff, zoom meetings, its been manic. 

Was a lovely day yesterday and had a spare hour or so in the evening so took the first batch of compost out of my small hotbin composter, its lovely, there's still about a third left in there but i'll probably have to restart it again with a hot water bottle to raise the temp when I put fresh garden/kitchen waste in it. The big one arrived the other week and I hadn't had time to set that one up, but did it Saturday, then mowed the edge of the lawn where larry can't reach and put the grass clippings in it with some shredded paper and cardboard and some bulking agent (bark chips). That was belting out the heat yesterday and when I lifted the lid to put some leaves and stuff in it and the trimmings from the mint, clouds of steam blew out across the garden. It had reached 70C inside. They're certainly great inventions and will save a lot of money next year when I need compost. I'm putting it at the moment in empty compost bags to keep for next year. I harvested the last of the new potatoes, only 1 of the 3 different types were any good, the most abysmal was Rocket. Which was supposed to be the best of the lot by reviews. My friend in Yorkshire had them too and hers were a failure. 
The runner beans haven't been much better. Scarlet Emperor did reasonably well, supplying a few dinners and some for the freezer but nothing like it should, and the other wigwam had some other type of runner, with white flowers and they were a dead loss. What a waste of compost to grow them. The marrows are only now producing marrows but they seem ok, a couple of the plants throw a small marrow then it goes yellow and drops off, but the remaining plant is cropping well. The tomatoes are pathetic and the cucumbers, but the outdoor patio cucumbers have gone mad and I can't keep up with them so pickling them like mad. They're called Mini Muncher and I'd recommend them they're gorgeous and don't repeat! 

The mask sales are now dropping off, giving me a breather, and time to make the mask pouches and storage bags. I must have made about 1,000 masks altogether. Quite a few went to the US, some to Holland, and the rest to the UK. Hopefully it will remain a steady thing now instead of a mad rush. I even sold one of my fairies last week, someone's bought it for their baby grand daughter and she was so pleased with it she's going to start a collection of them. 

I bought a better dash cam for my car with some of the mask money, a Nextbase with GPS and an SOS system which links up with my car and my phone. I was driving to Pets at Home yesterday and my info screen flashed up in the car and told me I had a text message and did I want to read it or save it, so I pressed read and it came up on the car info screen. Didn't know about that function, which is rather good. But a bit distracting when you're driving to glance across and read the screen. Luckily I was going along a straight bit of the A30 dual carriageway so could read it. 

Diane, Asda do bags again now. My fortnightly order came Sunday and they have new delivery trays now and the bags of shopping clip on each side and you just lift them off with your bits inside. Very nifty.

Right off to make some mask pouches now. Glad to see everyone's ok. Sorry I missed your anniversary Starry x

Carol hope Brodie is ok today. 

Stay safe everyone! 
xxx

Good morning ladies, looks a brighter sunnier day today thank goodness.

Starry I have a heat pump drier, had it about 3 yrs now I think, it saves lots of money. It takes longer to dry on 100% heat pump cycle but mine as an auxilliary heater so if you wanted something dried faster you choose the appropriate program. Mines a Beko 9kg AAA+. Fab machine and it works out about 13p a load to dry on a combined cycle,  I think I worked it out once with the smart meter it uses 8p a load on 100% heat pump, whereas my previous conventional drier cost about 60p+ a load. So a huge saving.  Its better for your clothes too as they don't get so hot and so the fabric isn't damaged like it is with the usual heater type driers.

I ventured out yesterday in the car to Bodmin, to get my rear view camera module for the dash cam, it just slots into the side of the front camera, brilliant bit of kit. Saves all that wiring etc. with the usual rear cameras as it runs off the front one. So pleased with it. 

The amount of cars with surfboards or luggage ontop, camper vans, caravans and transit type vans on the A30 was staggering. Had to queue to get off at the Cornwall Services turning to go home which was dodgy as it cuts the main carriageway down from 2 lanes to 1 so the potential for an accident there. Was glad to get onto the slip road proper. And they're trying to tell us there are less people down here this year due to Covid. Utter rubbish. The place is heaving with tourists and they're not all considerate or abiding by social distancing and mask wearing either. The guy in Halfords was saying they are flocking in for car bits or minor repairs and are so abusive to the staff. Don't know why people are so aggressive since Covid, must be because they're scared and dont want to admit it or don't realise they are and it comes out as aggression. Can't think of any other reason other than plain ignorance and selfishness. 

Making apple and ginger chutney today from my windfalls, that's if the jars arrive from amazon. Otherwise I'll be making mask pouches for my shop. 

Enjoy your day everyone, and stay safe! xxx