Hot and tired

That was hard work.... Again, I didn't drink enough during the morning so was dehydrated by run time.  But then getting to the proper hill climb section and my calves were absolutely screaming - I'm assuming its the impact from the long run two days ago.  Felt fine at the time, and afterwards, but when running they were very sore.

Looking at the splits, the pace wasn't that bad on the hill sections.  I was obviously tired and suffering from the heat because the downhill sections were slower than last time I did this route.

Fair way

After a cracking weekend with the new Mr and Mrs Miles, and a visit from the Baxter boys it was time to get out on a long run.  Half marathon is getting closer so I really should get some more miles in.

I took the 7.5mi loop that I do from the house and out to Golly and Burton Green, and added an extra bit at the bottom of the hill to add the extra mile.  Unfortunately this still left me with the hideous climb up to Croes Howell!!

It wasn't really that bad.  I love the first bit of the run with the up and downs round Shorley and Golly which might be because its generally down hill! I tried to keep the pace slower 9.30/10 min miles, so that I'd have plenty for later on.  That worked well for the rest of the run, although I did have the usual achy knee problems because of the increasing distance.  I'm hoping that will disappear as I get used to the distances.

I managed to keep it going all the way up the steep hill and didn't have to walk at the top - well I was running, but it was very very slow!

Progress of sorts

The polytunnel is coming along slowly - it really serves us right for buying such a big one!  Over the past few weeks, Mal's been putting soil back into the beds (after it was originally removed to flatten the area for construction).  While that's been happening I've planted the tomatoes in the back bed.  I'm quite surprised at how well they're doing really given that the seeds were all planted late and then were eaten by mice in the cold frames (I've since found out that mice don't like the smell of mint and I have lots of mint plants so that's next year's defence).  I think there's some Gardeners Delight and Alisa Craig varieties there.... and there's even some fruit on some of them!

Mum and Dad were visiting for a few days on their way back from holiday on Ynys Mon and Mum very kindly offered Dad's gardening services! As well as the boring job of clearing weeds on one of the flower beds, he also planted some of the pepper/chili plants in the small polytunnel bed.

We had a lovely flying visit to Ros, Gavin and the boys (and an evening watching the Olympics open ceremony). Once back we had a efficient session filling part of the right hand bed as I really wanted to get the sweet potatoes into the ground.  As well as them, I'd been given some cucumber plants from a colleague so they went in as well.

Lots of the veg aren't doing so great this year - a combination of the weather (wet and cold and grey), the the Japanese Anemone's are doing fantastically well.  Michelle gave me a plant and I put it under the laurel next to the veg beds and it's really grown this year - up to about 4' and peeking out from among the hedge.

I'm quite proud of how well the flower border is turning out and the bees are impressed too. With the echinops and lavender you can easily go out and spot a dozen bumble bees when the weather's good.  Plan for next year is to move the Crocosmeia and tidy up the corner with the Kerria Japonica, and try and make it into a purple/blue coloured bed.

Tatton!

Feeling hot hot hot

So just got the max min thermometers and put them in the tunnel for the day.

Quite surprised that it got down to 10deg over night but I think that's because I roll the sides down too late in the day. Went out tonight at half eight and it had already dropped to 14.

And if I'd realised it was going to be that sunny I would have rolled the sides up more than a foot!

Shiny shiny bike

It seems like I've been doing this for ages! Back near the beginning of the year, I had my annual bonus (a small one) and decided to put it towards a new bike. I haven't bought a bike since 2009 so it was about time. My plan was to build something that could be used for commuting on road and off (with a plan to cycle home over the Clwyds, which might be a little ambitious), playing off road, and light cycle touring.

So what I really needed was a cyclo-cross frame with rack and mud guard mounts, made from steel (obviously) and in a size small enough to fit me!

Eventually I decided on a Surly Cross check - it fit all the criteria and when I saw one in Alf Jones' I fell in love with the colour!  There was lots of discussion in the shop about what size I should buy - I'm not that small (5'5'')!  Involving taking the Trek in for them to measure seat tubes and top tubes, and consultation with the Surly dudes in the US. After all that we decided I needed the smallest one, as the top tube was closest in length to the Trek.

Then I started collecting bits..... The groupset was a bargain Shimano 105 from Merlin, 3x10 with 30/39/50 on the front and 11-28 on the back - should give me enough to get up the hills with loaded panniers.  After advice from the CCM collective I went for Tektro Mini-V brakes.  Second hand wheels - Shimano XT on Mavic A719 rims courtesy of Russ from CCM, and even a second hand Brooks saddle from STW.

On the whole I think it looks absolutely lovely and I can't wait to get out and ride it!

Bag v2.0

I can post this up now as it's been delivered! Mum saw my small messenger bag that I made around the end of last year and decided she'd like one.  Not much advice was given on the type of fabric as long as it "wasn't flowery"!

So I had my first ever trip to Calico Laine fabric shop/warehouse near Neston.....Mmmmm fabric.  So much nice stuff and great to see it instead of trying to work out what it would really look like from website pictures.

I went for a lovely purple/indigo/violet/pink/blue swirly pattern fabric in the end, and decided on pale blue as a complimentary colour. I thought going for purple solid colour as the second fabric might be a bit much and hard to match the colour against the pattern.

I didn't alter the design at all from the original one I did. On the whole I'm really happy with the way it turned out..... I'm getting better at using the machine to sew around corners. There were a few places where the fabric gathered or tucked a bit - I'm not sure if that's down to my inexperience or the fact that the machine struggles a bit with the amount of fabric I'm getting it to punch through!

A definite NEHITD weekend

It's been absolutely mad this weekend, firstly on Friday the polytunnel arrived (see previous blog) so Mal was at home to supervise the construction and provide cups of tea!  Then friday evening saw us in Ruthin for the last instalment of the Bee-keeping course with South Clwyd Beekeepers. This time we were covering honey extraction and sale.

The following day we were back in Ruthin again for the final session - more on honey extraction and a recap on the previous weeks subjects, particularly treatments for varroa.  The weather was so bad (cold and wet) that we decided against opening the hives so had a brief look at the Associations kit for honey extraction.  It's very impressive with a fully lined wipe clean room, stainless steel worksurfaces and extraction equipment.

The following morning it was up early to head off to Gardener's World Live at the NEC, Birmingham.

It's here!

Well the site is finally ready to go, it's been a lot of work (mostly from Mal) to clear it and level it but the end is in site and it's going to look amazing when its in!

As promised the guys from Haygrove were here by 8am, and I could get to see them before leaving for work.  As usual the ground to site was sodden but the actual tunnel area was fortunately not too bad.  And it was actually not raining when they arrived, which was a bit of a bonus.

No messing around - the construction guys were straight in to unloading the van and starting to put up the frame. Unfortunately I had to go to work, but Mal was under strict instructions to take lots of pictures.....

 

The finished article!!

About time

Really the first spell of proper dry weather we've had this spring, and it's really showing in the garden. The ground is still completely waterlogged so it's tough to get out and do much.

Garlic...

This weekend however, I've finally managed to get some turnip and spinach seeds in one of the house beds, but in the process have trashed the soggy grass all around the bed (just shows how wet it is). The garlic is coming along nicely so has been transplanted into one of the new veg garden beds. Finally, the new potatoes and peas are starting to peak through the soil, and fortunately nothing can deter the onions from doing their thing!

Onions without weeds (won't last long...)

Disappointingly I have a small rodent problem in the cold frames so have lost most of the tomato seedlings that I potted on last weekend... The mouse traps have been deployed and are being emptied on a daily basis. The sprout and pumpkin seedlings haven't been attacked, or any flowers so I guess it's the smell of the tomato plants they go for.



Mal has been going great guns with the polytunnel excavation. The retaining walls and gravel drainage is now complete, we just need to remove a bit more soil from what will be the inside of the tunnel so it'll be easier Ti build the beds.