Wednesday 26 July 2017

Tuesday...

A fairly quiet Tuesday - it is still very hot but we continue to play pickleball until the end of the month.  John is still resting his poorly knee and has physio again tomorrow.

I went out into the cool of the morning to do some early watering as we had been late home last night after our Ooooooo What a Night Jersey Boy concert (thanks and big kisses to the Veasey's).  I am not counting my chickens or my floribundas for that matter but I am very excited about my 'interesting stick'.

When John's stepfather passed away earlier this year we bought a standard rose in his memory to plant in John's Mum's garden.

His mum hoped John might be able to bring a piece back here for me to try and grow.  Unfortunately the piece John brought back was basically a bud with a couple of leaves either side.  Now I am no gardening expert but trying to strike from a bud is night on impossible but I shoved it into my 'nursery' pot where I shove any cutting I get hold of and I left it there.  I removed the bud so the stick wasn't trying to produce a flower and then shortly afterwards one set of leaves shriveled and died and then the second set of leaves shriveled and died so I was left with the interesting stick and John had given up hope.  The stick remained green and whilst it did so I left it in situ.  Then a little bump appeared in the middle of the 'Y' and at that point I transferred it into a pot of its own in partial shade.  The bump grew and then a little leaf appeared and these leaves have flourished and grown.  I have been in this position before trying to strike a Cystic Fibrosis rose from my sister's garden so I know that it is early days but every day it seems to have grown a little more and whilst the stem remains green there is sufficient nutrient to support the leaves.  It is being fed and watered carefully and I have my fingers crossed that it will survive.


Although John is resting he is doing one or two little jobs and were so happy today when we finally solved the conundrum of the shower-room ceiling.  When we had the shower room refurbished by Billy the Kid about three years ago we couldn't wait to get rid of him so the finish was never quite what we had hoped for.  There is still adhesive on tiles which we just cannot shift and Billy had tiled as far up to the ceiling as he had wanted and left an uneven finish with adhesive and grout all over the place.  In some places the gap between the tiles and the ceiling was small in others massive - it looked awful and we hated it but we hadn't been able to find a suitable solution knowing that the walls were so uneven.


In the end the solution was relatively cheap and easy!  We needed something thin, light and flexible and a fortuitous with Alan the Plumber Plumber man led us to discover that you can purchase lightweight polystyrene coving from George's DIY in Polis.  John spent a lot of time making a suitable mitre block to make sure the corners were cut as evenly as possible and did a test 'stick' with a piece to ascertain how tacky it would be in this heat and then we decided to go for it.  I am so happy with the finish - visitors probably haven't taken any notice but it bugged the life out of us and now it has GONE!!!

Gold star to John xx

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.