A day in the workshop

There was a chilly wind this morning, and I did not feel like planting out the beans.

Instead, I crammed a wooly hat on my head, and took shelter in the workshop.  I spent most of the day in there making a pair of rhombus clearer boards.*  They could have been thrown together quite quickly, but I had the time, so I milled the necessary timber framing from pallet wood, rather than buying it from the DIY store.

The job took most of the day, but I enjoyed every minute of it, and am quite proud of my two hand crafted clearer boards ... Also,  30% was delighted to see a huge pile of wood shavings on the workshop floor.  At her request, these have now been swept up, and will be lining the chickens' nest boxes before the week is out.

This evening saw us head over to the Redditch College restaurant for an à la carte evening with Mummy Sheila. The food was quite splendid. I started with a salmon and prawn salad. My main was a chicken Kiev, served with green vegetables and pan fried potatoes. The dessert was a lovely crème brûlée, served with raspberries and mini shortbread biscuits.

I know that I will sleep well after a busy day in the workshop and with a large meal inside me.

---

* If you can bear it, take a look at yesterday's Journal entry. I go on, at length, about clearer boards! 

Preparations

This morning I selected the longest and strongest of our bamboo canes from the car port roof space. I then headed out to the veg patch with them, some string and my trusty Swiss Army knife.

The next hour was spent assembling bamboo teepee frames, which will act as supports for our Runner and French Bean plants.

Having put up the teepees, I really should have made a start on transplanting the bean plants from their pots in to the ground, but I really couldn't get motivated. Instead I watered the ground at the base of each bamboo cane, in preparation for planting, and then found something else to do instead.

That "something else" was to make a start on tidying up the store room. It is in a bit of a state at the moment, and really needs to be clear and tidy so that we can extract the first of this year's honey.  The tidying took a good chunk of the afternoon and I can now report that the floor is clear and the room just needs a vacuum and dusting before I get my honey extractor set up.

Preparation for extracting honey got me thinking. 

 A day or so before extracting the honey, I will need to place clearer boards on the hives. A clearer board is inserted immediately below the supers* that are to be removed from the hive. It acts as a one-way valve. The worker bees will descend from the supers down in to the brood box in the evening. They will pass through the clearer board and, theoretically, will not be able to ascend back up in to the supers the following day.

This means that the supers should be free from bees when they are removed for honey extraction. Trust me, one does not want any bees in the extraction room. Extracting honey is hard enough work, without having frantic, stingy little sods trying to take it back up to the hive.

Now I have had mixed success with my clearer boards. I have removed supers that are totally free of bees, and I have removed supers that are still crammed with the little sods.**

I therefore decided that I should make a couple of rhombus clearer boards. It is alleged that these are far more effective at clearing bees from supers ... we shall see!

I had the plastic rhombus bee escapes, but I needed a sheet of 6mm ply wood to make the clearer boards. It was therefore a quick run in to Redditch to pick up a quarter sheet of ply from the DIY store.

I arrive back and had a while to relax, before I headed in to the village for this evening's Tai Chi session.    The class was very quiet this evening with only six of us in attendance.  It was a brilliant session and we managed to complete all five stages of The Infinite ... It is amazing what can be achieved when the noisy members of the class are away.***

All in all, I think that today was a productive day ... clearly my chi is centred

---

* Honey Supers: the sections of the hive where the honey is stored by the bees.

** Each frame needs to be removed, and the bees carefully brushed off it, before it is put in another lidded super ... quickly, before the little sods get back in there!

*** I find it very surprising that one of the attendees still hasn't managed to work out that a Tai Chi session is about mental and physical focus and control. The bloody woman has been going for years and sees it as an opportunity to talk!

Bees and Carrots

Tuesday started with a dog walk.  Hobson and Dog #4, aka The Rat were my canine companions.

Although Whiffler is much improved, we're avoiding walking him at the moment. Part of the Three Miler requires him to be on a lead, and that might aggravate his neck injury.

Next on my virtual list was to weed and dig over the raised beds in the vegetable garden. That little job took me through until lunchtime and they are both now ready for planting.

The afternoon saw me head up to the orchard and carry out this week's inspection of the hives.

I started by looking at the shook swarm that I established last week, Hive #3. 

There were plenty of bees in the hive and ample quantities of capped brood cells. However, I was disappointed to see no sign of the queen, and I think that she may well have died. The reason for this assumption is that she did look rather scruffy when I found her last week. This is often a sign that she is at the end of her life.

 On a more positive note there was a capped supersedure queen cell in the colony, so I shut up the hive and will leave it alone for two or three weeks. That should allow her sufficient time to hatch and, hopefully, have a successful mating flight.

Hive #2 was not inspected as I know it is queenless.  Last week's inspection identified swarm cells, so it will also be left to let nature run its course.

Hive #1 was inspected and seems to be going really well.  The honey in the supers is being capped off and there was plenty of brood, at various stages, visible. I didn't manage to spot the queen, but the sight of young larvae indicates that she is present and still laying.

After finishing with the bees I returned to the veg patch and planted a few rows of carrots in the larger of the two raised beds.  I used some seed that was left over from last year. It had been kicking around in the greenhouse and I am slightly concerned that the heat may have damaged the seed ... I guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens over the next couple of weeks.

Last little job of the day was to assemble and fit a new hose reel that arrived in the post this morning.  All was going swimmingly until I noticed that a component did not seem to be present in the box. It's a small spring that is used to prevent the hose collapsing or kinking inside the reel. 

It looks like I'll be calling customer services tomorrow ... or should I just go and buy one?

Another day, another DRE*

I was up early this morning and could see that there had been a shower earlier in the day.

As I wandered out to pen up  the chicken coop, I was greeted with that fabulous smell that follows the first fall of rain after a long dry spell. Petrichor is the name given to this wonderful aroma. Petri comes from the Latin for rock and Ichor is the name given to the fluid that ran through the veins of the immortals... That sounds like Trolls blood to me.

Anyway, it was an early start as I needed to be at the Alexandra hospital in Redditch for an eight thirty appointment today.  This is a follow up to an appointment I had with my GP last Wednesday. It is amazing how quickly the NHS can move when they think there might be something seriously wrong with you!**

The appointment was an examination and consultation and the Doctor was of the opinion that my GP may have over reacted. My relatively young age and recent blood tests do not suggest that there is anything to worry about, but further tests will be scheduled to make certain. 

It looks like an MRI will be happening in the next couple of weeks*** and, possibly, a biopsy, depending on the result of the scan.

Back at home, I finished trimming the turf back from the paving slabs, but didn't really feel like doing anything else for the rest of the day. I did check on the feeder that I gave to my recent shook swarm. It seems that they have now taken down half of the syrup ... I wonder if that bodes well?

---

* You really don't want to know!

** By contrast, a friend of ours is a Nurse Practitioner, and recently had a thirty year old demand attention for a lump on his neck ... it was an ingrowing hair!

*** It's actually scheduled for next Thursday. They do move quickly when they need to!

More shit

Sunday morning was spent removing the knackered lights from our trailer, and replacing them with a brand spanking new trailer light board.

This little task took up most of the morning. But I can now report, for the first time ever, I have a totally legal trailer, with working lights and a proper number plate.

The reason for this activity was that we had arranged to pop over to our friends' stables to collect another load of well rotted horse manure.  This took about an hour, as 30% does like to natter while I shovel the manure from the pile to the trailer.

Back at home it was another hour's work to cart the manure to the veg patch and spread it evenly over the earth. My inbuilt estimation function kicked in and I reckon I will need another three trailer loads to get the job finished.

After dealing with the load of manure, I decided that I wanted something a little more leisurely. I therefore wandered in to the greenhouse and sowed some leek seeds into trays.  I may be a little late in getting these in to soil, but it's a Winter hardy variety (Winter Giant), so it should be successful.

Having got the leeks planted, it was still too early to call it a day. I needed to find myself a little job to keep me occupied for an hour, or so. I grabbed a spade and a wheelbarrow and made a start on trimming back the turf from the paving slabs that run across the lawn from the house to the store room. 

It always amazes me how different this part of the garden looks when I do this simple job.

A Garden Party

 Today's big event was Dot's eightieth birthday party over in Oversley Mill.

 As is usual, Dot was blessed and the day was forecast to be splendid; wall to wall sunshine, and temperatures in the low to mid twenties. Just perfect for a garden party.

I spent the morning sorting out a few odd jobs, as I didn't want to get involved in anything complicated, protracted or exhausting.

First task of the day was to fit the replacement number plates to the X3. 

30% could now get on line and get her personalised registration assigned to the vehicle.  I am afraid that it is impossible to leave this subject at that. 

30% has cherished her "personalised" number plate for many years and it has adorned at least four of her previous vehicles.  She swears that this registration is almost identical to her two initials and her surname.

Now I can't see this at all. I will freely admit there there are some personalised plates that are close approximations, or even perfect matches for the owner's names or initials.  I don't, however, think that 30%'s personalised plate is ...  unless you pronounce the digits five and three as the  letters "BA"!

 To end on a positive note, at least we can now both remember the registration when the details in car park ticket machines.

Next little job was to replace the short length of hose pipe from the well pump to the hose reel. This was completed without fuss and I shouldn't need to attend to it again, unless further irrigation disasters occur.

As already mentioned, the afternoon was spent at in glorious sunshine celebrating Dot's eightieth. We had a lovely time and it was great to see everyone. There was a lovely musical interlude when Dave was joined by his grandchildren; Harriet on bass and Alex on vocals to perform a few numbers.

We had a lovely time*, including Hobson, who had come along for a play date with Django**.

---

* I avoided Mrs Tweedy for the entire afternoon

** Dot's son's Lagotto Romagnolo.

Should I mention the hose pipe?*

 Friday was warmer and I was slightly more enthusiastic than yesterday.

Whiffler seems to be improving slowly, but he is still not ready for any exercise ... despite his clear enthusiasm when I gathered leads and poo bags for this morning's walk.

The wander around the Three Miler was enjoyable and, in complete contrast to yesterday, no coat or hat was needed.

The afternoon saw The Coven assemble on the patio and partake of tea, coffee and cake. Various characters were assassinated and much cackling could be heard.

After a few minutes of chat, I left them to it and headed in to the greenhouse. I spent the next couple of hours pricking out my tomato seedlings  and thinning out the brassicas. 

I think that I left this year's planting a little late, but there is nothing I can do about it, just wait and see what the harvest looks like.

---

* After the Coven departed, 30% decided to switch on the well pump, unreel the hose pipe and fill the water butts. After about half an hour she wandered in with a sheepish look and requested assistance. I wandered out to find the hose reel dismantled from the well pump.  30% reported that the hose had stopped running and she had returned to find water gushing everywhere. Now I am well aware that my wife is, shall we say, a little heavy handed, and I would guess that she had give a hefty heave on the hose rather than return to the reel and sort out the issue. Anyway, she attempted to demonstrate what was wrong and I could immediately see that she hadn't got the foggiest idea what the problem was. The poor girl was attempting to reconnect the well pump to the reel in a way that would have meant that the reel wouldn't wind the hose back in, and the water wouldn't flow.  I worked out what was wrong and soon had it all sorted and operational ... I did notice that there was a pinhole in the well feeder pipe, but that can wait until tomorrow. 

For clarity; my dear wife has many, many fine qualities, but analysis and mechanical aptitude are not amongst them.

Holding Pattern

 The weather today was grey with a cold wind blowing in from the North East.

It was a day when I really did not want to be outside and a complete contrast from the balmy weather in the preceding weeks.

Hobson and Dog #4, aka The Rat, were keen for a walk*, so I donned a hat and coat and took a wander around the Three Miler. There have been many occasions recently when I have made poor clothing choices when walking**, but today's choice of warm outer wear was spot on.

Back at home I made an executive decision, and the rest of the day was designated an indoors day.  I curled up on the sofa and alternated between sleeping and reading.

So that is it for Thursday.

There may be other news in due course, but I'm in something of a holding pattern at the moment. 

I did also bump in to Pete The Beekeeper yesterday and he strongly recommended that I get my current crop of honey extracted before it sets in the comb.***

---

* Whiffler was too, but he is confined to home until he recovers from his neck injury

** The Drag Queen look and the back half of a pantomime horse have not been my wisest choices for dog walking.

*** There is likely to be a high proportion of Oilseed Rape (Canola) nectar in the honey, and this will set and crystallise in the comb, making extraction nigh on impossible.

And now there are three?

This morning started with an incredibly exciting job. I emptied a couple of our compost bins. They have not performed well and I was rewarded with a compressed mass of fibrous material that looked nothing like the fine, dark tilth I was hoping for.

This poor performance from the compost bins was expected, as I was well aware that we hadn't been conscientious in layering browns and greens. Neither had we been keeping the bins moist. Todays plan was to restart our composting on a more sound footing.*

After emptying the compost bins, I pulled the lawn mower from the shed and attached the grass box. I then hit the lawns and soon had a large pile of grass clipping piled up behind Rose Cottage.  30% assumed compost making duties and was soon carefully layering the clippings, old compost and chicken coop detritus in the bins.

Hopefully we will have some reasonable compost in a few months time.

I managed to mow virtually all of the lawns, leaving only the verge at the front of the house and the small patch by the garage until tomorrow.

I then pulled on my bee suit and headed up to the orchard to inspect the colonies.

Hive #1 is doing beautifully. The three supers are all filled with honey and the bees are in the process of capping off the cells.  I worked my way through the brood box and, again, failed to spot the queen, but the sight of eggs** and larvae indicate that she is present and laying. I added another super and closed up the hive.

Hive #2 is doing well too. Its supers are good, but not quite as heavy as those in the other hive. However, on checking the brood box I was disappointed to find a capped queen cell. This was a sure sign that the colony is preparing to swarm.

I headed back to my store room and grabbed the components to make up another hive. Basically I created an artificial swarm by locating the queen and introducing her, along with several frames of brood, stores and worker bees, into another hive. Hopefully she will think that she has swarmed and set up a new colony in hive #3.

As for hive #2, I need to leave it well alone for three or four weeks. Hopefully a new queen will hatch, mature and have a successful mating flight, before returning and continuing her mother's fine colony.

Last job of the afternoon was to take Whiffler to the Vets.  He seems to be improving, but is still not fully recovered. He is also classed as a senior canine, as he is now in his eleventh year, so he is no longer as robust as he used to be.  The Vet thinks he has injured his neck and has dosed him up with high strength doggy painkillers. 

The poor boy is now snoozing. Lord knows what he is dreaming with the amount of opioids whizzing around inside him.

---

* The shavings and chicken manure from the coop make splendid browns, and we will have plenty of these going forward. More than half an acre of lawns mean that I am never going to be short of greens.

** With my eyesight there is no guarantee they are eggs!

Shovelling Shit

 No, I have not decided to return to the world of work.

But I have spent a good proportion of my day shovelling shit.  Not the proverbial shit that abounds in ever increasing quantities in the corporate world, but honest, authentic, and well rotted horse shit. For clarity, the stuff that appears regularly from the back end of a horse.*

It has been a couple of years since we added any organic matter to the veg patch and I would like to ensure that we maintain both fertility and the quality of the top soil. 30% has therefore been in contact with a couple of her friends that have a stable just down the road. 

They are very conscientious horse owners, and regularly poo pick their paddocks, to keep the pastures at their best.  This means that they have large heaps of well rotted horse manure that is just perfect for laying as a mulch on top of our veg patch. Just to stress, this isn't the clearings from stables; horse manure mixed with wood shavings.  This is 100% horse manure, that has rotted down over the past couple of years.

Following on from yesterday's abortive trip, we headed over there this morning, and I spent an enthusiastic thirty minutes filling our trailer to the brim with this lovely composted material.

Back at home I spent a further hour moving the manure and spreading it on the veg patch. I estimate that I could do with another four or five trailer loads to cover the entire vegetable garden and will be nagging 30% incessantly until she makes the necessary arrangements.

The rest of the afternoon was spent back up in the orchard with The Beast and the brush cutter. I can't exactly say that I have finished up there, but it does look a whole lot better.

---

* As opposed to the stuff that regular spouts from the front end of a senior manager or any sales executive.

Have we been overdoing it?

We are a little concerned about Whiffler.

He was fine on yesterday's walk, but has been in considerable discomfort since. He appears to have pain in his left shoulder and is definitely not himself.  The poor boy is currently dosed up on a canine painkiller, and is doing his best to find a comfortable spot to settle, away from any disturbances.  We'll be keeping a close eye on him over the next couple of days and he may well be in to the Vet's on Tuesday if there is no sign of improvement. 

Now on to Sunday.

I wouldn't normally recount my early morning poultry care activities, but this morning I had an unexpected surprise. After refreshing their water, giving them some food and opening the pophole, I wandered around to the rear of the coop  and checked the nest boxes for eggs.  As I closed up the nest boxes I hear a rustle in the long grass behind me.

I turned and was surprised to see a Peahen no more than five feet away from me. She didn't seem worried. In fact she seemed to be drawn to the activities of tending to the chickens. I haven't a clue where she has come from as there are no peafowl in our immediate vicinity ... we would have heard them if there were! I decided to throw her a handful of layers pellets and hope that she would find her way home.*

The rest of the day panned out as follows.

We had a short run out with the trailer hitched to the X3. The plan was to pick up a load of horse manure from some friends, but a communication cock up meant that the gates were locked and we returned sans merde.

I spent the rest of my time attacking the long grass in the orchard with The Beast. I estimate that I have now mowed about three quarters of the grass and I am bloody exhausted.  The ground is riddled with dips and mounds and the grass is at least eighteen inches in length. It is fair to say that it is quite a struggle ... and I haven't tackled the steep bank at the rear of the plot.

I can only hope that it is improving the strength and mobility in my shoulders in preparation for the fast approaching motorcycle tour.

---

* 30% saw her later on in the morning heading towards the village. 

Winding down

 Saturday started with a walk around the Three Miler with the dogs.

The weather is still dry and sunny, but the wind has changed and there was a cold breeze.  I was glad I remembered a hat. I do feel the breeze on my scalp these days!

Today was never going to be particularly productive, as I was clay shooting in the early afternoon. I did manage to pop out and buy petrol for the lawn mowers and was amused to see a couple of people doing the same at the filling station.  I guess the bank holiday weekend will resound with the roar of little petrol engines.

Shortly after lunch I headed over to the Cotswold Shooting Ground and met up with Bubbles and Ben. We had an amusing couple of hours shooting clays and my performance ranged from competent to appalling. I ended up with a score of 39/80.  The score really didn't matter, we spent the time ribbing each other and winding down after a busy few days.*

Back at home, 30% and I headed up to the orchard in the afternoon. A Passiflora was relocated from the side of the house to the recently installed trellisses, and a Wisteria was planted at the foot of a tall and spindly apple tree.

Now we need to wait and see if they settle in, and start to grow.

---

* Busy for Bubbles & Ben. Actually, looking back at the week, I've been quite busy too.

Shattered

After yesterday evening's gluttony I did not feel my best this morning.

As a result I did little more than potter for the early part of the morning.  An hour was taken up with another solar energy consultation and today's salesman was doubtful that our planned panel locations would actually be effective.  It may be challenging to come up with a solution that will actually work here.

After Mr Solar departed I mortared the downpipe in to place and then had lunch.

After eating I felt exhausted and took a kip on the sofa. I woke an hour later and felt worse than before. I decided another hour might help and took to the couch once again.

I woke feeling somewhat better and decided that I really ought to achieve something today.

I therefore dragged The Beast from the shed and made a start on mowing the orchard for the first time this year. I managed to complete about half of it before the dinner gong* sounded.

I certainly got some exercise this evening!

---

* The dulcet tones of my good lady

Packing it in

A few days ago I noticed yet another little job that needed doing.

This is the general theme when you live in a very old house that has had minimal, and generally bodged, maintenance over the preceding forty years.

This little job was the replacement of the downpipe from the gutter that runs around the outhouse at the South Eastern end of the cottage.  It was clear that it had been broken, probably by a lawn mower, several years ago, and "repaired" with heavy duty tape. That repair had failed eons ago and it's rectification had just made it on to my to do list.

First thing this morning I headed in to Redditch and picked up a length of down pipe, a replacement bracket and a bag of ready mixed mortar.

I then spent the rest of the morning removing the damaged down pipe and getting the replacement cut to size and fitted. It should have been a relatively short job, but it was complicated by the fact that the steel screws in the brackets had rusted to the point where they did not want to come out, and I needed to fabricate a fitting to allow me to mortar a 65mm square downpipe in to a 100mm diameter circular drain pipe, whilst avoiding clogging the drainage system ... nothing is ever straightforward here.

The afternoon saw a ride out on the R1250 with Charlie. Our route took in a selection of twisty roads that took us over to Stratford, via Bidford, then out on the Shipston road, before cutting over towards Broadway. From Broadway we rode on to Childswickham, Hinton on the Green and Elmley Castle, before reaching Pershore.  Our return leg took is along the B4084 to Evesham and then back home via a few of the Lenches.*

On our return I had time for a quick drink before I needed to get clean and tidy.

30% had arranged for us to attend a taster menu at Redditch College. We were joined by Mummy Sheila and this evening's International cuisine was Mexican.

I have to say that it wasn't their best offering.  There was plenty of food and it was cooked reasonably well, but I am not a fan of sweetcorn and sweet potato fries and I bloody loathe fresh coriander.** 

---

* A cluster of villages and hamlets, each of which is called a Lench e.g. Church Lench, Ab Lench, Sheriffs Lench etc.  I am informed that the name Lench comes from the Old English word "hlenc", which means "hill aside".

** Cilantro

Trellis and Tai Chi

The weather was forecast to be very warm today, so my first duty was the get the dogs walked before the heat of the day.

On my return I grabbed a few tools and my recently assembled trellis and headed up to the orchard. Fitting it was straightforward, once I had managed to shoo away a particularly obstreperous bee. It seemed to think that I was going to attack its hive ... perhaps it knows more than I give it credit for.*

Anyway, back to the trellis. It looks good, but, as suspected, I really do need to make and install another one to benefit the climbers** that are starting to ramble over the sides and roof of Rose Cottage.***

That decision set the agenda for the afternoon. A second section of trellis was constructed and fitted. The stroppy bee made an appearance too, and I did actually don my bee suit to keep the little bugger from stinging me!

Tai Chi has restarted, after the Easter break, so this evening saw me back at the Parish Education Centre. It was a really enjoyable session and I was very surprised at how different I felt afterwards.

I had arrived for the class feeling creaky and lethargic. I left feeling much more lively, after an hour of concentration and coordinated exercise ... If only they could bottle it!

---

* At the rate that the colonies are producing honey, I could be harvesting at the beginning of June

** There is a climbing rose and a honeysuckle that were planted there last year. 30% plans to put a Passion Flower in there too.

*** A corrugated iron shed that has settled, at a jaunty angle, in the top corner of the orchard.

It seems that I over ordered

Today started with a trip to the dentist for a small filling. 

It must have been tiny as the dentist informed me that no anaesthetic would be needed.  I can't say I was delighted at this news, but it was painless, and I was out of the chair and on my merry way home in under fifteen minutes.

I arrived home to find 30% deep in conversation with a chap who had come in response to an enquiry about having a solar array fitted to the outbuilding roof.*

The consultation was long and very detailed, possibly an hour longer than we would have liked, but we are definitely keen on moving forward with the installation of panels and a storage battery.  Apparently it is possible to purchase off-peak power and store it in the battery and then sell it back to the grid during peak hours for nearly three times the price! That was obviously a headline claim, but the full range of benefits of home produced electricity make a compelling argument.

Also, I quite like the idea of actually being able to claim that I own a power station.

Having eventually got rid of the solar energy chap, I donned my bee suit and headed up to inspect the hives. Both were doing incredibly well. The supers on each hive were crammed with honey and the bees are in the process of capping off the cells.  I estimate that each hive has about sixty pound of honey stored already.

There are a couple of fields of oil seed rape nearby and the bees are definitely foraging on that. They are also busy in the apple blossom, that is making the orchard look quite beautiful at the moment.

Another super was added to each of the hives and, weather permitting, I wouldn't be surprised if these were filled over the coming week. I should add that one of the colonies was storing so much honey that the queen was running short of space to lay eggs. I had to remove a brood frame of stores and add a frame of foundation in its place. I hope to see that fully drawn out in to comb, and filled with eggs by next week's inspection.

And now to the title of today's Journal entry.

Back in March I ordered some timber for a few projects. The order included roofing laths and these were used as spacer material for the security bars that I have just finished fitting.  I massively overestimated the amount I needed and now have about forty meters of roofing lath sat in the car port. 

When I say I over ordered, I think I may have included sufficient material to make a couple of trellises.  I installed a couple of sections of trellis to the side of Rose Cottage last year, and I have a vague recollection that I ordered sufficient laths to also knock up a couple more sections.

Anyway, after inspecting the bees it was too early to do nothing, but too late to start anything complicated. So I grabbed a tape measure, saw, hammer and nails and assembled a section of trellis.  

It wasn't really on my to do list, but 30% does want to move a Passion Flower vine up to the orchard.

---

* An acquaintance had piqued our interest in solar energy when he advised that the sub-optimal panels on his home were yielding a better return than having the financial outlay invested in an interest bearing account.

There and back, twice!

 I was up early and had the R1250 out of the garage before eight o'clock this morning.

The reason for this early start was not a run out to the coast, or any other such pleasurable outing. I needed to get it over to the Motorrad dealership in Cheltenham for them to take a look at the gear change issue. 

It was a boring thirty mile run in rush hour traffic, and most of it was on the motorway. Having dropped off the bike and given yet another run through of the erratic gearbox problem. I headed back home on their courtesy bike. It was a little G 310 R and I can safely say that the M5 was not its natural habitat.  It is a low powered, single cylinder bike more at home whizzing around town with a yoof on board.

Anyway, having soundly thrashed the little 310 R, I arrived back home and spent a frustrating few hours fitting the last of the security bars to the back window of the workshop. Basically the bars were slightly oversized and I was not able to fit them to the exterior of the building.  I did manage to get them installed on the inside of the window, but extra fixing holes were needed in the bars, and I will to install an extra stud in the wall at some point in the future.

We also had on-site entertainment this afternoon as 30% had arranged for a mobile tow bar fitter to come and fit one to the X3.* 

The BMW dealership rang midway through the afternoon and advised that my bike was ready for collection.  They could find no problems with the gearbox and advised that it is as expected for a bike with such a low mileage.  It seems that they think that it will smooth out with a couple of thousand miles on the odometer ... I bloody hope so!

This meant that I had to endure another thirty miles on the little 310 R. It may be small and nimble, but it is bloody noisy and woefully underpowered after riding the 1250 R.**

I didn't hang around at the dealership and was soon back on the M5 for the fourth time today.*** By the time I came off the motorway at the Worcester junction I was heartily fed up with the route. As an alternative I came home via Pershore and Evesham just to add some variation to the journey.

And that pretty much sums up my day. Up and down the bloody motorway ... Twice!

---

* We have had no towing capability since the departure of the Defender at the end of March.

** The 310 produces about 34 BHP. The 1250 R delivers 134 BHP once it has been run in.

*** Remember I did this round trip last Tuesday with the car.

A more relaxing day

I did indeed have a more relaxed day today.

The morning was spent dealing with the last couple of batches of honey. It is now bottled, and word seems to have got around, as my local customer base are already making purchases.

The rest of the morning was spent cleaning and tidying up the utility room, having dealt with the 30lb tub of honey.

In the afternoon I took advantage of the fine weather and headed out for a ride on the R1250R.  The mileage is creeping closer to the point at which the first service is due, and I managed to add another sixty miles today.

My route took me over to Bidford-on-Avon and then along Buckle Street, past Honeybourne and on to Weston Subedge.  From there I headed up Saintbury Hill and across to the Five Mile Drive. I then cut off to the right and on in to Stow on the Wold.

From Stow I headed through the Slaughters and on along the A436. I joined the A40 just before Dowdeswell and then continued around the outskirts of Cheltenham. I left Cheltenham on the B4632 and headed up Cleeve Hill and on to Broadway via the pretty village of Winchcombe.

From Broadway it was a quick run home via Evesham and a fuel stop at Alcester.

The Bike is now ready for its gearbox check up at Motorrad in Cheltenham tomorrow.

---

* The local name for the Roman road, more properly referred to as Ryknield Street.

I'm taking the day off tomorrow

Saturday was another productive day.

I started relatively early and got a batch of honey in the Bain Marie to liquify.  I also prepared a single jar of set honey,* requested by an acquaintance a few weeks ago.

After getting the honey on the go,  I headed out and made a start on reglazing last pane of the rear workshop window. During this little job I also managed to bottle the first batch of honey and get another batch on to liquify.

Shortly after lunch I had finished the window and got the second batch bottled too. Each batch is about eleven jars (5½ lbs), so that's another eleven pounds ready to sell.

I felt that I had earned a short snooze, so half an hour was spent inspecting the inner surface of my eye lids, before I headed out and mowed the lawns at the front of the house.

At the moment the front lawn is a complete pig to mow as there are several shrubs, the stump of the fallen conifer and several patches of cowslips that need to be mowed around, and definitely not over.

I made an executive decision. The cowslips will be mowed as soon as the flowers die off.** And I'm going to hire a stump grinder.

---

* Set honey is challenging to get in to a jar without making a very sticky mess.  Normally I bottle my honey immediately after harvesting and it will naturally set over the following months.  I should also point out that very few people actually want set honey, so I don't tend to keep much, if any, around at the best of times. As I am currently a Honey Reseller; I don't have any jars sat on the shelf long enough to set. I therefore had to carefully spoon set honey in to a jar applying judicious pressure to get it to settle in to the space.

** These lovely little flowers take a good couple of months to set their seed. In previous years I have left them until July to allow this to happen, but this makes a terrible mess of the lawn. In my defence I do leave the ones out on the verge to set their seeds.

Bending is generally the most practical option

Friday started with a run over to Bromsgrove for a checkup at the Dentist.

I'm glad I left plenty of time to get there as the normal road to Aston Fields was closed off and there was the most bizarre diversion in place.  I did what any sensible driver would do and, after being directed totally in the wrong direction, I ignored the signage and used the pigeon parts of my brain to find my way there.

The check up went well, although I do need to return next week for a small filling.

Back at home I returned to this week's priority task; the reglazing of the workshop windows.  Pane #2 was carefully removed, cleaned up and puttied in. It seems so easy to type that, but it actually takes a good hour or two to actually complete.

The afternoon saw me complete a circuit of the Three Miler with the dogs and I also gave the lawns at the rear of the house an overdue cut ... I now have several clumps of grass scattered across my usually neat sward.

I will finish today's Journal entry with a discussion held with 30% at lunch time.

On bending to pick up an item from the floor, I commented that it would be really handy if I had retractable legs. I could then simply retract them and there would be no need for that tiresome bending.

I gave the matter further thought and wondered, "If I had retractable legs, would my torso lower to the floor, or would my feet rise up in to the air?"  

I decided that retracing one's legs would have a Hover Option.  If I retracted my legs in Hover Mode, my feet would rise up in to the air.  In standard Retract Mode, my torso would lower to the ground.

30% then posited, "If you had Hover Mode you would never walk anywhere".

I advised of the potential dangers of Hover Mode, pointing out that If I had used it during Storm Darragh I could have been blow several miles away, and possibly been caught high in the branches of a tree.

That sounds like a terrifying scenario to me!