Odds & Ends

Robin
At the moment, we have a very friendly Robin who seems determined to spend as much time as possible in our garage or shed. Just as soon as I open the garage door, he seems to appear and hop in. Here is a photo of him sat on the waste bin:

Gardening
I mentioned in an earlier Post that I had obtained some bark chippings from the "Newquay in Bloom" team, well, this is a photo of the top rockery suitably weeded and covered; I think that it looks quite good. The fact that the photo shows Maria busy weeding her wall is coincidental.

Earlier in the year I planted some wild flower seed in the top of the walls; it would seem that the only flower to appear, so far, is a Cornflower.

Annette's Dogs
Some readers will know that Brandy, Annette's older dog has been very ill recently. Thankfully, he is up and about again and, as can be seen from the following photograph, he looks well and happy.


Just so that she is not left out, here is a photo of Tia surveying the rockery and wondering whether or not she should walk across it.

Parish Registers for St Mary's Church, Walmer, Kent

One project that has kept me busy over the early mornings, late evenings and rainy Summer days has been the transcription from microfiche of the Baptisms, Marriages and Burials recorded in St Mary's Church, Walmer, Kent. In a moment of weakness, I volunteered to do this for the Kent Family History Society, who have been most helpful with regard to my own Family History research. It is an ongoing project, which will probably occupy me for all the Winter. The baptisms cover the period 156o to 1945 and so far I have transcribed some 3545 records from 1560 to 1830. The Marriages cover 1561 to 1921 and I have managed 747 records from 1561 to 1837. The Burials cover 1560 to 1988 and I have managed 91 records from 1561 to 1582. As you can see I have some way to go!

Roseveare Update

It is a long time since I wrote anything about the house and garden so you, the reader, might believe that I have done nothing over the Summer months. Well, the weather did play its part and made it very difficult to keep the grass in order. For the most part I managed but have plenty of problems that will have to wait for another year. We have had some Stepping Stones laid between the front path and patio as can be seen in the following two photos. In addition, the Patio has been slightly extended with the addition on a row of bricks on two sides. They can just be seen on the second photo.


One ongoing problem we have is of grass growing through the fences from the field. An example of this is shown in the photograph below.

The problem is that, because I have wire below ground level to try and keep out the rabbits, it is difficult to cut the grass. My solution was to put wooden planks below ground level, with the wire on the "garden" side. This means that the grass can be "strimmed" from the field side. So far I have completed the section from the gate to the new wall.

The above photo shows the completed project, although not very clearly. Whilst carrying out this task, I modified part of the fence so that the top two rails nearest the new wall can be lifted off for easier access to the rockery area; the supports can just be seen.

One other job that I have done this year is to cut a border around the top "lawn" to make cutting around the Griselinia hedge easier. The border will shortly be covered in bark, recently acquired from the "Newquay in Bloom" team. Unfortunately, there has been no real improvement in the state of the lawn!

Yet another job was to tidy up the area between the shed and new wall. The first thing that had to go was the Pampas, which was really scruffy (It now appears to have taken root in my rubbish dump). So far, it has been replaced by a couple of Hydrangeas as shown below.

Before

After

One more task undertaken was to fill in the ditch that used to run across the entrance to the field. I don't have a photo of what it looked like before but, it now looks like this:

More to follow at a later date.