An outdoorsie week

On Monday we made our way to Ber via a few stops, like Tesco, the Dacia showroom and the tractor dealer. The salesman in the Dacia showroom was quite knowledgeable, friendly and very, very helpful.  They are having very long delivery times, (probably late October/early November), so it was just as well that we decided to get the process going.  He anticipates a sum of approximately £3000 as trade-in value for the SX4 and the price with extras for the Duster should be around £12,500. We since had a look at the available colours (this seems its weakest feature, as the choice is very limited) and will probably go for the metallic black. That's an extra, so is the "country package", which includes the tow ball and extra tough lining in the boot and on the floor. I have phoned him since and we are seeing him next Friday to get the ball rolling.

The tractor dealer told us that the bit we wanted for the back of the tractor to shred and spread the cuttings, rather than collect them costs £175.  That is absolute highway robbery, we will not pay that on principle for a piece of moulded rigid plastic. Currently Roy is still persevereing with the collector and is trying to work out how to make one for a lot less than £175. After a fairly large Tesco shop we were home by early afternoon.

And then came the complete shock! The gardener had not been, not even once, Nelly was right. The grass was up to our knees and everything looked as if it had no water whatsoever. On closer inspection we saw that the first half of our holiday must have been wet at home, because the plants were not dead just very parched.  Quick watering was on the order of the day and it took me nearly three hours, I had to drown every plant in about 10 times more water than normal. While I was watering, Roy was mowing.  He got on the tractor and did those bits which he reckoned the tractor could cope with on the highest setting. The rest had to be done by the hand pushed mower and the strimmer.  Today is Saturday and he has just finished the whole garden.  It was a heroic effort on his part, much hindered by temperatures of 35+ Celsius every day this week.

On the plus side we spotted the strawberry patch which in spite of being practically invisible under a complete cover of weeds was laden with fruit.  At the most, we found only about 10 strawberries which were not edible due to either being too close to the ground or being overripe, the rest - all 2.5 kilos of it - was gloriously ripe and delicious in taste. Again, it was this morning that we finished eating them and, of course, since then some more got ripe and we will be harvesting them for a good while yet.

Thankfully both the tomatoes and peppers were still alive, but very much stunted for the lack of water. The crop on those is not going to be as good as last year, but I am sure we will have at least some off them.  The herb garden and the peas were absolutely fine, those obviously are either much more tolerant of lack of water or have tap roots deep down.

The biggest miracle was not the survival of all mentioned above or even that of the roses, but the geranium boxes.  Those are partially under the eves, so even when it rains they don't get much and they were still very much alive and blooming.  In fact, I must admit, these geranium plants are the best we have ever had. The only slight weirdness about them that the deep red ones are what the guy in the garden centre said were "half running". They are neither straight up nor totally dangling, they are somewhere in between, which is quite peculiar, but attractive all the same.

The roses are also not as nice as last year, but that is due not only to the drought poor darlings had to suffer lately, but because there has already been every pest and disease roses can have upon them so far and it is just the beginning of the summer. They so far had, green fly, black fly, black spot, mildew, various caterpillars chewing holes in them and the birds nipping their buds off. We are still having some lovely blooms on them, but not the proliferation as in the past.  Of all of them, only about 2 or 3 are having lots of blooms, the rest are more sparse and quite a few have nothing on them.

The herbs, on the other hand, are tremendously prolific. The tarragon nearly killed off the parsley and the dill, because it grew over them and as we weren't here to tie them up, they could not get light.  Thankfully, now that the tarragon has been tied up they are growing happily and I am having lots of things with dill, parsley and, of course, chives on them.  The three different types of oregano is now getting put into teas as well as into sauces and on meat. It is really lovely having a lot of fresh herbs for both culinary and medicinal purposes.

As the temperature had got tropical this week, we tended to hide indoors between 11am and 3 or 4pm. That gave Roy a chance to catch up with his family history buddies and me to catch up with my favourite television programs. Women have been in the forefront of both my favourites this week:  ANZAC Girls from Australia and No Offence from Paul Abbott of Shameless fame.  Both brilliant in their own way: good scripts and acting and all principals being some of the most talented women I have ever seen on television. Joanna Scanlan as the naughty DCI in No Office is a revelation.  The Aussie actresses, whom we don't know are also great and as the story is based on real people and real events, it was an excellent history lesson too. If I had to choose from them I liked both the character played and the actress who played Sister Olive Haynes - Anna McGahan. What a beauty and what talent!

Anna McGahan

Joanna Scanlan

We are now staying in the village for another week, then next weekend we are going into town with Roy staying put there and me going to the South for the Middle Distance Championship and a couple days' visit back to Sombor with Filip and Milica. Next post expected after that jaunt.