What are you all up to

Glad folks have been able to get out and about great photos Nth and Flyte as well some folk are amazing with these wooden sculptures I saw a lot done with a chainsaw at the RHS Malvern show.

Hope your family manage to get all the silage done Goldie146 there has been some done over here but been held up by awful storms.

Wish I could get in the garden as everything has grown so lush whilst we were away and shrubs need trimming back but weather looks better next week so hope we can get grass cut (could do with your tractor Goldie as it is so tall), your garden sounds good DEBSC and being able to eat outside just to wet here and very dark clouds about at the moment not our usual May weather.

OH hoping to get the car washed today as it got a bit dirty whilst away and white shows all the dirt.

It is Pentecost here today so yet another holiday and with all the days off this month and bridging them with the weekends they have had 10 days off not all folks though our local Carrefour is open until 1pm today and have noticed supermarkets are staying open on the holiday dates more this year and last year they need the revenue, so not allowed to use any noisy garden tools ie. lawnmowers, strimmers, ride on mowers, DIY with noisy tools etc because of the holiday a bit different to UK.

We have had a cracking weekend, assisted by some lovely weather. Our new Sun terrace is coming on, new linear bed along fence has been planted, water butt moved and re set up, bit of mortaring around joints finished, sink pond emptied, scrubbed and ready for refilling.
Saturday night we went to a huge rock event at Sheffield Arena, Bryan Adams was in town! Love his music, first saw him in the mid 1990’s, and he’s just as good now. Haven’t been anywhere this packed since pre COVID, and you forget what huge events like this can be like. Fabulous concert. 
Up again Sunday, and off to another Classic Car show, this time at a Garden Centre. Plenty of lovely cars, mainly Mini’s, MGs of all types and Morris Minors, but some good examples of other marques as well. Came home via a good water gardens nursery and stockist, got a new solar pump for sink pond. Couple of hours more in garden, putting bark chippings down, splitting water plants, then catching up with Giro D’Italia on TV. Fabulous race so far.

Hope those not so good are on the mend, others enjoying being out and about at home and away. Fields around us are a bit less water logged, greening up. Not seen and silaging yet though, although there were a few tractors flinging around on the roads.

Thanks for sharing the lovely photos.

Good to read folks news, wishing those under the weather better.

Still got workman in on refit of bathroom and cloakroom. The guys are great and very hard working and clean. Apart from fine dust...... We chose the same large oblong tiles for both rooms, they're going on the walls diagonally in the bathroom and straight in the cloakroom. So far we're on the 5th day of 'man hours' on tiling and no it's not a huge bathroom. Literally bath length and wide enough for whb and loo. We do have boxed in internal sewage pipes so not just straight walls.. Today it's fitting round the window.  It's obviously added to the cost 😱😱,and it wouldn't have occurred to me to have them done this way if it wasn't demonstrated in the showroom..... However we both love the effect. And as I've told himself, often, there's no pockets in a shroud......

The cloakroom has been fully stripped out except from the toilet and currently all pipes are being channelled into the walls. They managed to get the bathroom pipes under the floor. No idea why they weren't in the first place! So it will be a very neat tidy finish.

As milliehull has said we've had more miserable wet days but had a decent weekend weatherwise and again today. We gardened for a couple of hours this morning, but have adjourned to the sun loungers after lunch. In fact we've got out the sunshade up 🌞. 

I hope everyone is enjoying decent weather. Nelliethehooker we had a few weeks travelling where you are now at this time of the year and had wonderful weather. So much to see there,I'd love to get up there again.

We've had a great day today. It's now 19 months since my stroke and, whilst I had a 10 minute spin around the village at Christmas, this is the first time we've managed to have a bike ride.

Decided not to attempt to overdo it so chose a local route which started in Wales but ended up on the Wirral, conveniently at a cyclists cafe. I have lost a lot of my previous energy so decided to play safe and engage the electric from the start, albeit on minimum and things worked out great. It was lovely listening to the birdsong as we spent all of the ride near nature. Spring flowers out including Orchids.

In the meantime MiL behaved herself at home and did some exercises of her own. Tesco shopping when we got home whilst the ladies went for a village walk.

Had guests over the weekend as my brother and niece dropped in on their way to a funeral. So I was mostly confined to the kitchen and garden yesterday. Good to see people have been making the most of the glorious weather over the weekend. 

Thanks goldie, I realised that your post was tongue in cheek. However, today is World Bee Day and many don’t realise the crisis that may be just around the corner for all including our farmers if folk don’t understand or pay no attention. I saw a lady today wearing a T-shirt which read ‘No, pollinators, No food, No future’. That message needs to be highlighted me thinks.

Thanks for the link.👍🐝

Pleased to hear that you both got out for a bike ride WN, and the MIL behaved herself while you were out!

You certainly have had lots of work done B2, will you ever get to the end of it I wonder? We too have usually had decent weather when visiting this region at this time of the year. Maybe you will make it back up here again, fingers crossed.

Grand photos from the concert, tda, it looks like a super occasion, glad you enjoyed yourselves there and at the Classic Car Show.

Hope the weather improves for you RK, and you can get your garden sorted out next week.

Good to read that you have managed to get some work done in your garden, Debs  and that the weather has picked up for you.

We had a run out today to a number of ancient sites; Cuish Earth House, (a Souterrain); Craigivar Castle; Peel Bog of Lumphanan (a minature Maidens Castle); and Tomnaverie Stone Circle. It has been fine and sunny all day, good enough to get the washing dried outside.

You certainly have had lots of work done B2, will you ever get to the end of it I wonder? We too have usually had decent weather when visiting this region at this time of the year. Maybe you will make it back up here again, fingers crossed.

nelliethehooker you're not wrong there! The joys of moving house. All looked and surveyed OK, but not had so much in the way of tlc, which was hidden and only discovered as you go along. I think we've condensed everything we did it 36 years into the last 2. Hopefully, foot off the gas now 🤞and we can enjoy everything life has to offer knowing that the major jobs are DONE!

Fingers crossed that no more major problems rear their ugly heads, B2, and you can go on some of those trips you no doubt have discussed. 

Last night the site was the quietest do far, with only 3 units on, one German caravan, a Dutch M/H, and our ourselves. Tonight there are at least double that number. Today has been rather mixed weather wise,  with clear skies first thing before it clouded up, and we even had a very light shower of rain at lunchtime at Aboyne, just as we were finishing  our picnic on the Highland Games field, and then bright sunshine in the afternoon before clouding in again. We had a walk around the estate grounds of Aboyne Castle, see below, in the morning  and a second one through the woods back at Tarland. 

Rained quite heavily during the night but has reduced in ferocity and is now, in the words of my MiL, "The type of rain that makes you wet". Takes a good one to get passed her.🤣 Actually it's the type that gardeners who want some rain would like, steady not heavy.

Indoors today as we finally managed to get a painter and decorator in. First couple who promised dates cried off after leaving us waiting for months. This one fitting us in on odd days which we have no problem with as long as he keeps to it. Has many a local as clients so am assuming he'll not want to spoil any reputation he has. Wish we could do it ourselves but sometimes you just have to accept what you can and can't do. Can't believe prices though. Shows what happens when you turn your back doesn't it?

The ladies are off to view paint for bedrooms in a minute or two.

Your trip really going well Nellie.

I think we have your rain WN😕 Bucketing down here, but, as you say, good for the garden. We were out while 9pm last night pottering around in the garden. Have set up my new solar fountain, but I doubt it will charge up today. 
OH off for a routine (for him) blood test, pooch will need his 200 metre amble, I look like being on enforced inside tasks today, unless I can whisk through the downpour into greenhouse.