Slocombe the cat's garden update

Dear blogging world,
Tappity tap, Slocombe the cat here. Someone took Thursday afternoon and Friday off from work as the weather was so nice, to have study days. I convinced her to take a few breaks to work in the garden though...I thought I'd catch you up on our rooftop garden activities.

Here I am ruling over my strawberry kingdom:


Here someone moved those little seedlings to their own pots and put them into these trays so they can go out on sunny days and come back inside when it's too cold. You're seeing bean and pea plants here:

Someone bought two catnip (or catmint in UK terminology!) plants. I ignore these plants regularly, unless someone breaks off a bit for me. When she moved them into larger pots, a little wore off onto her gloves:


Here I am guarding the little shovel while someone takes a coffee break. Sheesh, must I do everything around here?!?

Here is the final view as it now stands, prior to sweeping up the loose dirt. Looks good so far. We have strawberries, potatoes, garlic, catnip and my grass, and one chilli pepper outside, as well as the tomatoes, beans and peas in small pots awaiting bigger homes.

Easter in Essex

When I lived in Germany, there was a definite need to get away for the four day Easter weekend as the stores were chaos on Thursday and Saturday due to being closed the other days. Without family in Germany and with friends away, four days off wasn't such a great deal when everything including the museums was closed. I guess it's always nice to be able to sleep in and read books though.

Here in my corner of the UK, Thursday, Friday and Saturday were considered 'normal' days. Sunday everything was closed. On Monday, many stores were open.

I took yesterday and today as study days, I have a work certification exam coming up. However, I nipped out for some fresh air today. It was cold and windy, but the showers held off:

Beyond the green grass and some daffodils and impatients in town, I cannot see so many signs of spring, so I had to take a photo of the one I did see:

This fellow was crossing the path, so I tried out my 'close-up' mode:

It's still chilly here, though. I saw dogs out on their walk wearing coats and people in hats and scarves. (Tapping fingers) Can't wait to be able to jump into the full swing of gardening.

The answer to the quiz

Thanks to ian in hamburg and LuLu's Bay for playing along. The couple I met explained to me that they were Hungarians.

Hungarians with German as their primary language?

But of course! They explained--> Germans of Hungary

Seedlings

As you may remember, the seeds were started around St. Patty's day. Since then, all five containers have sprouted, so off came the cling film:

Here are the tomatoes enjoying a sunny day:

There is also oregano, basil, hot peppers and lettuce.

The living room window faces the same direction, so that one has been comandeered as well for seeds:

There are lots more tomatoes and peppers, and some seeds for New friend Ian's garden which is a shady and cool patch of land. So he gets eggplants, peas and brussel sprouts.

Unfortunately 'someone' is not so pleased that her window view has been displaced by all of these planting things. As I came home the other day she was sneezing upon arrival, so I knew she was up to something. Not sure if you can see the destruction of the furry wonder:

It appears that someone has taken to uprooting the seedlings. Or it's been raining all week so we haven't been outside for her to get enough greens. :-(

Today's quiz - guess the nationality

Whenever I'm in the US or the UK, whenver I hear someone speaking something other than English, I tend to inadvertently tune in. Then I end up purposely tuned in, trying to guess what they're speaking. Here in my corner of Essex I occasionally hear German speakers, actually more often than I hear American English speakers here.

In the late evenings I often stop by Tesco on my walks around. It's a great time to shop as the store is virtually empty and the late night markdowns are superb. I noticed a couple doing 'the circuit', which is a path through the store stopping at the various locations where marked down goods are located. I short circuited the path and worked backwards and we overlapped in the meat/cheese/dairy markdown corner.

I could hear them speaking softly next to me. He was reviewing the instructions on one of the packages with her, explaining the English text to her...in German.

My curiousity got the better of me so I had to ask in German where they were from, and we had a short conversation then. The husband asked, 'Oh are you from Germany?' But of course you'd think that, hearing my stellar accent. That, or he was playing the odds that Germany is the biggest exporter of German speakers. Could be either. ;-)

Today's quiz: Guess where the German speakers were from?

Possible clues:
1. I would estimate them to be around 60 years of age.
2. Everything in their basket was from a marked down section. They were buying ingredients so they obviously had full cooking facilities, so not tourists and on a budget.
3. It was around 20.30 in the evening. My corner of Essex has high flyers who commute daily to London for silly money as well as locals who work in trades in Essex, it's a big mixture who you'll see in Tesco at that hour.
4. Their spoken German wasn't terribly foreign to me.

Any questions? Or take a guess...

Slocombe the cat in the rooftop garden

Slocombe has her own special corner in the rooftop garden near the door, with two pots of grass at an appropriate cat height:

The grass had planted itself into a corner of a pot and she started to nibble on it, so I gave it a dedicated area and it has flourished. However, I have no idea how grass managed to plant itself, four flights up...but it makes SC happy, so ok, it is a productive member of the garden.

Not one to limit herself, she decided to investigate and give the 'volunteer' garlic greens a little taste as well:

The outside garden so far - strawberries!

The main reason I bought this flat in the UK is probably because of the roof terraces. When I lived in Cologne I had a beautiful ground floor flat with a fenced in back garden but being inside the courtyard it was too shaded and wet in rainy DE, nevermind the city rats which ate anything I managed to get growing.


In NRW the Balkon was great but I was maxed on space. Everything had to be planned and studied and even then there was only room for two people at one time due to my plant maximization. :-)


So here I am absolutely delighted at the amount of outside space I have. Even moreso, I've been surprised and pleased of the heat capture up here. Last year my top plants weren't the zucchini or cucumbers like in DE. Here, my top producer were the peppers, in particular the hot variety. I grew them on a whim and they thrived on the hot concrete stones next to the wall which absorbed the heat during the day. It may have well been Spain up here some days. ;-)


This year, I experimented with overwintering my strawberries from last year. In DE my Balkon was standalone and uncovered so the winter items took the brute of the cold and wet weather. The only thing which could withstand the winter was my lavender bush. Here, I took a chance on the strawberries which produced runners last year. I set them into any spare pots I could find and moved them into the sunniest sheltered corner.


Then I bit my nails when they got repeatedly covered in snow, that it would do in their fledgling roots in the tiny pots.


As I work from home, I make an effort to break away from the pc at least once during the day. Now that the weather has been warmer, i try to go out for 15 minutes around mid-day to take advantage of it. After a week I've been able to get the strawberries re-potted into their homes for this summer and to start some seeds under my makeshift mini-greenhouses (re-purposed plastic food containers).

I did lose a few small plants to the winter weather, but all of the strawberry plants here (excluding the ones in the red bag from last year) are my 'first years'. In total I have 10 baby strawberry plants and the three from last year who are already getting new leaves in this warmer weather. Don't they look simply divine?

Spring cometh

Now that I've lived in the UK for a year and experienced the weather and a summer of gardening, I'm a little wiser this year of what I should plant where and when.

I am very lucky being on the top floor with unblocked sunlight that I think I'm getting the full brunt of spring a little bit earlier than people with houses, they still have a bit of a wet frost on the ground in the mornings.

Also, as I'm taking a trip to the US next month and need to have the second in commands doing occasional watering, I need to have things in a position of being as self-sufficient as possible, rather than saddling them with the extra care of seedlings...

On Saturday I started my first seeds for the inside kitchen windowsill:

And today, here are the first to action:

I didn't mark the containers, that's part of the fun for me. I have five containers out:
1. oregano
2. basil
3. hot peppers
4. lettuce mix
5. tomatoes

I've now devised little cardboard stilts in this container to keep the leaves away from the clingfilm as it does get rather warm in the sun. In the meantime I'm getting the outside area ready so that once they're a little larger and it's a little warmer for certain, I'll be able to plant these outside.

Another visitor

Winter here has been trundling along. I was recently back on the continent (not DE) for a work trip, but otherwise I'm trying to hold on for spring seedling plantings.

A few months back I mentioned that I occasionally host visitors via hospitality club. My corner of Essex is convenient to Stansted and all of the cheap Ryanair and Airberlin flights for people looking for a short hop on the way into London or to explore Essex.

Tomorrow I have a Brazilian arriving from Poland, for one night before returning to Poland. He has spent a few weeks in Poland and got one of those ultra cheap flights so he's coming to the UK for one night. He has never been to the UK so he's looking forward to a massive front of English. (I didn't mention to him that I speak 'American' English and Ian speaks 'British' English. This should be enough to blow his mind.)

In additon, under interests he's listed WW2 books. A Brazilian with WW2 interests, this promises to be interesting. I offer a couch and a vegetarian meal and he enthusiastically accepted both and looks forward to his first trip to England; this should be good fun.

More on my frugal grandparents

I mentioned my frugal Polish grandparents before. Last night on the way home from class I stopped in Tesco at the 11th hour just before they shut; it's the best time to get the markdown bargains. While wandering around the store a long forgotten memory outed itself, so I thought I'd share it with you.

As the youngest, I only remember my grandparents as retired. They came of retirement age when Social Security solvency issues weren't on the horizon and companies still provided pensions. Still, they planned carefully and grew vegetables all summer and shopped at the supermarket on senior citizen day to maximize their purchasing power.

In addition, there was a large regular flea market located nearby which was open on Mondays. It was a super place, open year round, mainly outdoors with a small indoor building for the antiques dealers and some food stalls. You could buy anything at this flea market which was casually known around town as 'The Sale'. You could get a table as a regular trader and sell new or used items, or you could get a special table for a week or two if you had a big house clean-out. In addition, there were regular weekly auctions.

Pretty much everything was sold as The Sale. Furniture, books (my first Nancy Drew books came from there), vegetables and flowers from the local Amish communities, clothing, sports items, old postcards, whatever. It was a fun mix of anything and everything.

On public holidays we had to get up and out of the house at the crack of dawn to be there before 7 AM as the parking lot would fill up with all the 'non-regulars'. Winter was an interesting time as well, as there were few buyers we had to go for the bargains, all bundled up at the crack of dawn. We would walk around for an hour or so, and then I would have french fries around 8 AM, my reward for the foolishness of the activities.

During the rest of the year, The Sale was frequented by people who didn't work--people on disability or mothers with small children, or the core community: senior citizens, particularly males, my grandfather included. Usually they'd show up and have a wander around the outside tables and then meet up for a coffee and talk. Many of them showed up with a list of things for buy for the ladies, particularly the vegetable bargains like crates of tomatos or peaches which could be had for a song. I think it was more for the camaraderie than anything else, that they got out of the house with a mission and a chance to meet and mingle without the women-folk.

Many of them would attend the auctions which were an interesting affair. There were a few actions running simultaneously, usually each area had a theme. One was furniture, another was glassware, another was books, another was random things, and on and on. During the busiest periods there would be quite a few, during off periods, perhaps they'd be down to one or two. The auctions started at 07.00 sharp, although things would be existing on the tables in advance with lot numbers, that you could examine the goods before they were up for buying. These were really casually affairs which took place next to the building, under the vast awning but still outdoors.

Then, you could flit between them based on the lot number, or you could try your luck at the random one. As the day went on they heated up, but around lunchtime sellers would start to pack up and go home and people would too. That was when the best bargains would come up however, because they had orders to move all of the goods. So if something didn't move it would get thrown into a box. Then, boxes would start to get combined (usually by like areas) and would start at 50 cents and go up from there. Sometimes you had no idea of what was in the box exactly, except that it was a box of books, for example.

I still remember a very good school friend, his German born mother would go to the auctions. One day she bid on a box of 'carrying things'--a suitcase, a few backpacks, some purses, etc. She ended up paying 1.50 for the lot. Later, she found over 2 USD in the various pockets of the items, so she made a profit on her purchase. This was what The Sale was all about.

Now that you have the background setting, here comes the real story:
My cousin and I were at our grandparents house, with Grandmom. Grandad had gone early to The Sale. He came home with a gleam in his eyes.

Grandad: You'll never guess what I got today!?!

Grandmom: It had better be seeds like I asked you to get.

Grandad: Yes, yes, I got those, but guess what I got at the auction? (Noticeably pleased with himself.)

(Grandmom already steeling herself for the worst. While she was frugal, she did not put up with clutter in 'her' house. He could store as much as he wanted in his basement lair, however.)
Grandmom: Yes?

Grandad: (whipping out a pair of burgandy colored trousers from behind his back) Look!
(They were boys knee-length trousers like here, called knickerbockers)

Grandmom: Stanley! What is heaven's name is the point of this?

Grandad: Aren't they great!?!

Grandmom: Stanley!!! Our parents left Poland for a reason. What are you possibly going to do with those as they certainly won't fit You, and I doubt your grandson would want to be seen wearing those!

(My cousin looks up now from where we were playing)
My cousin: Boys don't wear pink!

Grandad: They're burgandy. Or maroon. AND THEY WERE FREE! (Grandad beside himself with glee.) And I got over 40 pairs. Can you believe they were throwing them out, that no one would buy them at the auctions?

Grandmom: Yes, actually, I can imagine that no one would want to buy a World War 1 era pair of pants. And what are you going to do with those, exactly?

Grandad: Well....I was thinking....Father Cranky-pants was mentioning that we need to give to the Catholic Charities clothing drive for East Europe. (This was before the fall of Communism in Poland in 89.)

Sidenote: We had three Catholic priests at the time in our church: Father Cranky-pants predicted doomsday destruction for everyone. 'The new priest' was a nice guy who I think was brought in to stem the tide of departing Catholics due to Cranky-pants. And Father Brown was the retired priest who still lived with the others. They would bring him out when the others would go on vacation. He would forget where he was in the service so we would either sit through a repeat of sections of the mass, or an alter boy would direct him forward and we'd then miss parts.

Grandmom: Stan-ley!! The children don't need to be picking up that name from you!

My cousin: That's ok Grandmom, we already know this name.

Grandmom: (under her breath) Heaven help me.

Grandad: (knowing he had her hooked, now just to reel her in.) Since it's for the church, I throught that would be ok. Besides, they had just set them by the garbage bin. They would have gone to the dump. This is good material.

Grandmom: (examining it closely now, she was a seamstress in her career.) yes, this is quality cloth, even if the color is objectionable for a boy.

Grandad: And you know Poland, good quality clothing would be nice to have. If the style is a little off, they can tailor it or make it into something else.

Grandmom: grrrrr. Ok, but they do not come into this house, these moth-bitten clothes. They stay in the trunk of the car. And you need to sneak them into the donation box, I do not want to be associated with these shenanigans.

What I learned from such experiences with my grandparents, was to be generous when you found a bargain, especially when it required little effort from you to make a bigger positive impact to someone else. And to go after bargains with an intent, when you knew they would benefit someone else. And the other main point which always came up with this generation--something usable should never be send to the garbage! Ultimately, I think this was what won over my grandmother...

Follow-up on British humor and frugal eggs - a female British perspective

As a second follow-up, after getting a male perspective on the frugal egg post, I wanted to get a female opinion as well. I have two colleagues who work in the front office at benevolent company J. As it's an international company, both have exposure to many people of other lands, and while both have visited other countres, neither has lived abroad. I wouldn't try to guess ages, but the one's oldest child is 30, while the other's oldest child is 20.

H: Hi ladies, I need a UK female perspective. (I regularly do this sort of thing to them--is this dress correct to wear to this UK occasion, is this the correct response to x here, etc.)
What do you think of this egg carton? (Bringing out the now famous one.)
C1: HA!
C2: Hold on, I need to get out my reading glasses...tsk! Naughty! (smirk)
C1: Is this from the US?
H: No, it's from here.
C1: No! How funny.
C2: They were clever.
C1: Fab!

H: So would you purposely buy or not buy these eggs?
C2: If the price was right, I'd buy them, it wouldn't sway me either way, it's just advertising. How much did you pay?
H: 61 p, marked down as they were at the 'best buy' date.
C1: good deal, 10 p an egg.
H: I know!

C2: (pondering) You know....this was created by a man.
C1: Oooooh, definitely.
H: How do you know?
C2: A female wouldn't come up with this way to market eggs.
C1: Don't you know it!
H: Really?
C2: (Now holding the box) Where are these from? Suffolk. Do they have a website H?
H: None that I could find.
C2: Hmmm.
H: So what would a female have said instead?
C2: Something more subtle, still with a double-meaning, but not so forward.
C1: Yes.
C2: Like 'we're fresh' or 'fresh today' or something like that.

Bad translation at the D'dorf airport

When I have to write something official in German (which thankfully is almost never now), I ask my native German speaking colleagues to proofread it for me, to make sure I'm saying 100% what I want to be saying. They then do the same in return, when they want to be sure that their English is in top form, I will review their text for them.


Apparently, at the D'dorf Airport, they don't have native English speaking colleagues or they think their English is super just the way it is:

(If you want to see this fine sign yourself, this photo was taken in the car rental parking structure, on the 4th floor next to the elevators.)

However, we failed to find the so named 'confidence tricksters'.

(Yes, I realize I'm in Germany so I should be grateful that I'm seeing a sign in English. And if I was at a non-profit institution with a shoestring budget or a government office where all activities were conducted in German, I'd be a little more forgiving. However, this English is amazingly poor for an international airport when you consider that other airports are able to produce correct signage in four or five languages.)

An update on the Orthokeratology adventure

A little while back, I mentioned that I was trying orthokeratology. Since a few asked for an update I thought I'd give one here as well as answer the comments people left on the first post. As of tomorrow, it will be three weeks since this experiment started.

From G in Berlin: Is it new, or Europe based, or perhaps my severe astigmatism and near-sightedness did not make it an option? Did you need to fall into a certain range to do it?
It's been around since the 1960's although my UK eye guy was saying that it has had recent increased popularity here in the UK due to some newer lenses on the UK market and as well it had received approval from the US FDA which increased its profile internationally in the eye world. There was a range one had to be within on both the vision and astigmatism, something like -6.00 and -1.50, but don't quote me on that.

And do the hard lenses hurt and is there any issue of oxygen starvation to the eye?
The eye guy mentioned that the older version of lenses did have some issues, but that the current ones on the market are much improved so that oxygen starvation is not an issue in his book.

When I first put them in, it was more irritation than hurt, and my eyes started to tear up, almost like I had a bit of dust or something in them. After the second night, however it wasn't so noticeable, and I figured out to go right to bed, where they were ok when I wasn't looking all around.

This morning, I had a minor moment of freaking out when I thought that I had forgotten to put them in, they are now that unnoticed.

From J: Aren't the hard lenses uncomfortable when you're sleeping?
I had done the overnight soft lenses before so maybe I'm biased based on already having that experience, but I would say no, they're not uncomfortable for sleeping. Not sure what I would say if I didn't go through that learning experience with the soft ones. if anything, it was a bigger deal for me to be able to get them in and out, it's such a different experience than soft lenses.

From Jen: Let us know how it works. I can recommend Lasik.
(cringe!) Just the very thought of that freaks me out, the idea that one must be awake for that. But everyone whom has done it has made a similar comment as yours. I realize it's a nice solution, but give me a few glasses of wine before you tell me how they did yours.

Overall, only three weeks into it and I've been pleasantly pleased. I had a few really short nights in DE last week, going to bed at 1 and getting up at 7, so I wasn't sure how that would work, if I would be under-corrected or if it wouldn't last as long or anything like that...I didn't notice any difference than when I am in the UK getting eight or more hours of sleep.

I've gotten half decent at taking the lenses in and out. It's under a minute in either direction, so that is ok. There was some 'star-bursting' or 'ghosting' as they call it, at night, in that lighting would not be sharp or crisp, this has gradually diminished to a less noticeable point.

If I had it to do over would I do it again? Yes, definitely. As long as it continues in this direction, I will continue to carry on with it.

Follow-up on British humor and frugal eggs - a 38 year old British male

Following up on British humor and frugal eggs, as a bit of cultural investigation, I took the opportunity to ask D his opinions on this topic as a British person. Granted, he's a little bit more international than the average Brit on the street as he worked in the US for two years, in Australia for two years and Germany for seven years. However, I was curious as to what a late 30's British male would say on this topic.

H: What do you think about the egg post and the comments on it?

D: I think you have a bunch of Americans reading and posting on your blog who never lived in the UK.

H: Well sure, some of them are Americans in America and others are Americans in Germany, and others are to/from elsewhere but my UK readers living in the UK are few and far between. Did you see any reason to be offended by this egg cartoon, as a Brit?

D: I think it's advertising or marketing. It's not intended to offend, it's meant to sell eggs in a way which is different from its competitors.

H: Yeah, you're a male, would a female British person perhaps be offended? Your sister or mother?

D: I can see if you are a mother with young children, that you wouldn't want to have to explain the slang of 'to get laid' to a five year old in the supermarket. But in that case you're using the basic explanation that the chickens laid the eggs recently, so what's the problem?

To explain further, the point you're missing H...'to be laid' isn't such a commonly used phrase over here like it is in the US. Sure, we know what it means, mainly from American movies or television, but I would never say, 'I got laid last night', nor would I hear that phrase from any of my friends. You would said 'I had sex last night' and that would be that. So it doesn't have as much force or such a negative connotation to me, because I never use the phrase.

So I would be curious, in particular of the people who were offended, as to who has ever lived in the UK? I would think none, because this type of humor is normal in the UK and wouldn't be cause for offence. Similar to how when I lived in Germany slapstick humor was quite popular there so one saw lots of this type of humor. I can see this egg box wouldn't have made it to the shelves in the US because the definition of humor is different and the culture is different.

H: So would this advertising impact whether or not you'd buy these eggs?

D: Nah. I do buy only free range eggs, which these are, so perhaps I'd buy them, perhaps not depending on the price and expiration date. Normally I buy happy eggs as that is what Asda carries in free range at a good price.

H: Thanks for the info.

So there we have an initial opinion. My population to survey is a little bit small in that anyone whom I interact with is usually a little more international than the average Brit (so working in international company J, for example). However, I will be surveying a female from there next to get another opinion on this topic.

Cosmic irony

In my early university years, I studied literature (English and Spanish). One of my favorite literary terms was 'cosmic irony', which according to Wikipedia is

'the notion that the gods (or the Fates) are amusing themselves by toying with the minds of mortals with deliberate ironic intent'

An example of cosmic irony:
Last year on February 14th, Heather was done packing and was celebrating the sweet feeling of freedom that was coming from knowing it was her last night as a resident in Germany and was so terribly looking forward to starting life in the UK.

this year on Febrary 14th, Heather is packing to catch a flight in four hours--from the UK to Germany for a week of working there.

My new nickname

From one of my law class colleagues, upon seeing me hand in the assigned work early:

You are such a boffin!

Out of curiousity I looked it up on Leo--> der Wissenschaftler. I get the translation, but I think something is sorta lost there...

Orthokeratology

I am now one week into my Orthokeratology adventure.

This adventure involves putting in hard contacts each night at bedtime and taking them out first thing in the morning. Then, the eye retains the shape from overnight, so I'm not wearing any sort of contacts or glasses during the day.

It's been a fascinating week.

First, I've never worn hard contacts, only soft, so that has been a learning experience, getting them in, taking them out, and just having them in at all.

Second, I started to wear glasses when I was around 16 and starting to drive. Over the years I've held steady with a low prescription, but I need them for generally walking around and driving, movies, classes, etc, anything that requires distance vision.

Later I switched to daily contacts and alternated with glasses, then weeklies, then in DE I changed to the 'keep them in 14 days/nights', but would swap back to glasses then for a few days.

So at this point I've amost had some type of eye correction for almost half of my life, every single day. This is the first time I've been able to walk/drive around without anything in/on my eyes and it's vaguely unnerving as I've forgotten what that's like.

In case you're curious about the details:
-I am nearsighted, albeit mildly so. I have moved slowly through glasses/contacts until my most recent prescription of -2.25.
-I have astigmatism

Costs:
-Not sure what this will run you in various countries. In the UK I got set up for 200 GBP from my eye guy for all eye photos, office visits and the initial set of contacts plus solution etc. In theory, assuming I do not manage to lose, mangle, etc. the contacts, they should last for about 10 years he suggests, before I might need reading glasses or some other change to the eye landscape requiring a new purchase.

I would normally pay around 200 GBP+/year on a new pair of glasses + disposable contacts. (Yeah, I'm not so frugal on this point.) So changing to this method should be a more frugal option in the long-run, assuming I do it for more than one year.

Pros:
My vision at the end of today (working for 8 hours in front of a pc, and then walking an hour to reach the eye office) was better than 20/20, 10 hours after taking out the hard contacts.

Cons:
The right eye (with the stronger astigmatism) is correcting a little more slowly than the left so at the end of the day it's a tiny bit weaker. This may correct out in another week or two, or it may require a different nightly contact to sort it out.

British humor and frugal eggs

Or should that be 'humour'? Can you imagine this cartoon egg making the same statement in an American supermarket?

I rarely buy full price eggs anymore. I had purchased these on Feb 2nd in the morning and they were down to half price. If one waits longer, they'll go to 75 or 90% off. My only requirement is that I only do free range eggs anymore. These have the added bonus of being produced in Suffolk, a neighboring area near to Essex.

When I get a great egg deal I usually fry and then freeze them on the day of purchase, although others put them raw in an ice cube tray and freeze. Then I carry on with my egg stock when the deals aren't coming.

Behold, the breakfast bar

After much research and hemming and hawing on the room layout and then losing auctions on ebay, we are finally here:

My flat has one living room, one kichen and one bedroom. The kitchen is too tiny for eating, so that left only the living room.

The clever idea was to get the seats above the window, so as to enjoy the downtown Essex view and the morning coffee with the sunshine. The difficult part was finding a table and seats which were tall enough.

The height of the window to the floor is 115 cm, which is pretty tall. Many breakfast bars are around 90 cm, too short. This one is 105 cm which works out pretty well.

This is a standard Ikea set. I couldn't bring myself to schlep over to Ikea (45 min away), and trundle through the big store. So I bought this one on ebay for a fraction of the cost, and closer.

Ikea sells the table for 99 GBP and the stools are on sale for 10.99 each. Instead, I got all three pieces for 35 GBP, the only bidder in the auction.

So far, so good. We'll see what the cat thinks when she comes home from visiting The House of Treats as this has been 'her' window.

Pre-spring gardening adventures

Over the weekend the air while cold was bright and fresh and gardening season is just around the corner, so I thought it would be a nice time to get cracking on some outside tasks in New Friend Ian's back garden.

One task I had on my 'to do' list was to go after a giant heap of a makeshift compost pile now that the council distributes free 'vegetation' wheelie bins and picks them up each week. In particular, this pile has been home to bramble cuttings and they are vicious in attempting to re-root themselves so out they go. My gift to Ian a few months back was a reduced price compost bin, subsidized by the council so that he would be able to compost properly, even more reason to get rid of this pile. In addition, I have my eye on the dirt beneath for a potato patch. ;-)

A few months back I was vigorously hacking at the pile to get out the dried branches so that we could burn some of them in the fall while they were dry. As I hacked at the pile, elements from within it started to scurry. We suspected rats. Ian warned me that he would be off like lightning if any rats emerged. As I was yielding the hoe I was holding my ground. We burned all the dry stuff in the burn barrel but couldn't get to the bottom of the scurrying activity.

Over the weekend the wheelie bin was brought to the back garden to get a helping of the never ending pile of branches and brambles. While down there, we finally got to the lower levels of the pile, which actually looked like nice mulch, perfect for preparing the other garden beds, to get some nutrients into the soil in advance. I hacked at the pile to break it down while Ian shoveled it along. Nothing moved within the pile, so my hacking away was really moving along at a good clip.

Until I hacked right next to a hedgehog who was in the middle of enjoying his winter sleep. I screamed because another inch or two over and I would have hacked into him. Ian took off running suspecting that I finally found the rats.

We gently covered up the hedgehog who seemed undisturbed by the whole affair in the middle of his winter hibernation.

After he wakes up in March or so we can resume our attack on the pile. In the meantime I'm researching 'hedgehog houses' for next year when the pile is gone, assuming Hoggy wants to stick around after all this ruckous, he'll need a nice place to stay. I'd love for him to stick around, our garden needs all the free pest control it can get. And don't tell, but I think I know what someone will be getting for Valentine's Day!