Catching up

 

Today we were catching up with Sheila and Klaus which always makes for a nice lunch/afternoon.  I have been growing some plants for their garden - the plantlets are very small so I thought I should go around the garden and take a photograph of what they would turn into after a while.  The first plant was the one which I like to call the 'purple' plant which flourishes in any condition but will be more purple in direct sunlight and more green in shade.  You can just pinch out the tops and pop them in water and they will root within a few days.

The second plant was the one which I like to call the 'multicolour' plant - I have no idea what its proper name is but again the leaves vary in colour depending on the light conditions.  In full sunlight you get smaller thinner leaves ranging from red to scarlet, in less bright conditions the leaves will be green, yellow and orange and in shade they are just green but grow a rounder shape.  The plant does produce very tiny white flowers - very insignificant and if you aren't careful you can think the plant has mealy-bug.

You can keep pinching out the top of this one and popping the bits in water and they produce roots within a couple of days.  

As with the purple plant I am uncertain as to how the plants will survive over winter so I thought a continuous stream of cuttings would ensure that I have something that will last and that can go back into the garden when it is spring.

I know that Sheila and Klaus are waiting until the road works which are wrapping around their house (and garden) have moved on a bit further before they start to do things in the garden so my little plantlets will need some TLC and some time before they are planted out.

My final offering was Gaura - plantlets that I have grown from seed that I collected one day when we were passing Clare's.  She had some in the garden which produced white flowers with a deep pink edge to them.  I hadn't seen any like this before so I am hopeful that what I have grown from the seeds will produce the same colour flowers.

Gaura is also known as Bees Blossom as it attracts the bees.  It comes in two forms - a stocky shrubby flowering one and another which produces tall arching stems of frothy flowers - the seeds were from the latter.

Anyway before we went to Sheila and Klaus's I had to pop down to the Doctors for a blood test for my cholesterol, lipids and triglycerides.  When I had them done the last time they were on the high side but they wanted to get my allergic reaction under control before tackling that.

I was straight in and straight out - the results will be available tomorrow and if I go after 4pm I can discuss them with the Doctor.  I am anticipating that I will have to take statins.  I was prescribed them years ago and took them for a while but at that time I seemed to get a lot of aching joints as a result - anyway I was unconvinced by the science and stopped taking them.  

Whilst down there John needed some DIY items so we decided to investigate Glykkis now that it has moved to what used to be the bowling alley.  It is a massive shop but a million miles from having all the stock put away and if it is anything like when Maria moved from her old shop to the E&S building what was not put away when she opened never got put away.

We tootled off to Sheila and Klaus's where we had, as expected, a lovely time.  Klaus had cooked a lunch of an upside down fish pie which had the potato on the bottom and a topping of salmon, prawn and broccoli (and other things I am sure) which he served with a salad which was lovely.  I wouldn't have said that this would have been something that either of us would have chosen as normally we aren't lovers of broccoli but it was absolutely delicious and John had seconds so it must have been!

We have arranged to see them in November and put it in the diary otherwise time goes on and before we know it it will be Christmas!!!  Sheila is struggling a bit with her back but otherwise they both seemed to be on good form.  Despite the changes around their home, their move was a positive one and once the dust has settled (literally) I am sure it will go back to the peaceful haven it was previously.