Billy Young's Blog - Posts Tagged "garden"

That’s me registered with the Jobcentre now. It was a rapid reclaim which made the whole process very quick and painless. Still I do hate it, signing on that is though I don’t actually sign on the dotted line till the 25th of this month. When checking for advertised jobs on the website I find little has changed from the last time I did so. As things go though I didn’t expect that much would be different after all it was only just over a month ago since I was last claiming unemployment benefit.
I’m hoping to get out this weekend and cut my grass. It seems to grow at an accelerated fashion this time of year; no sooner have you went over it with the mower, than you need to do it again. I was out working in the garden during the week, really just pottering about for something to do than actually doing anything in particular. My plants are coming on well though, the onions need thinning out and I’m still waiting on the tomato plants bursting into life. I’m sure that in the next week I should see the first of the pushing their way through the soil.
I’ve been working hard with my writing. Bublos is starting to shape up as the rewrite and editing of the middle of the book is starting to show fruit. There is still a bit to go as well as more of the old editing after I finish this reworking of it. It is still on track, fingers crossed, for a June release; which is what I am hoping for. Last night I redid chapter 15, which was 13 but with added content, it may need finishing tonight when I look at it; saying that it might not, I’ll just have to wait and see how my mind flows tonight.

Editing has continued all week though it has been slow at times. I am making headway, adding in the things that I need to get the story moving again. I still have another seven chapters to work through before I catch up to where I left to rework what I had. When I say rework I really mean is that I added in things to the story, bring some characters in earlier, that sort of thing and at the same time feeding the main plot. Even chapters that I thought I was happy with have seen the hand of the editor to try to make them better. After I do finish the story I will still need to go through it all again a few times to build on what I have, add more background here and there, as well as try to create more visual pictures in words to set the setting or scenes where everything happens.
Editing can be the hardest part for me, as it is with many writers as you can get too connected to what you have already put down on paper. Sometimes you have to move things about, while at other whole chapters get deleted to be replaced. I have already replaced one chapter, as you may know because it was taking the story off in the wrong direction. You have to be ruthless sometimes when creating a tale, just like a sculptor can’t make a beautiful statue without chipping away at a block of rock.
My tubs that I planted are coming on well. I am still waiting on the herbs I planted to start through the soil but all the other veg. have sprouted. The rain we had here helped, I’m sure, though I have been out every day when it was dry to water and check on the progress. I have more planting in the front garden this weekend. Of course this is for my wife. She wants her flowers planted, so I will be out front digging the flower bed. I’m not really a flower person but Magz likes them in the front ands I must admit when I see what others can do, it does make me think how lovely those gardens are.

It has been a really nice week. The sun has been shining and I finished the first draft of my next book. Well it will be if I can get the money to publish it but before that I have a lot of editing, proof reading and all the usual to get through. Mind there is no rush as it will be some time before I can go forward with publishing. That’s all down to have no job for so long. The big cloud in an otherwise good time. Adding to it all is the jobcentre because I have been unemployed for six months now. As if I didn’t know but where are the jobs, they can’t tell me. It’s not really their fault, yet you do get the sense that some of them actually blame you for not having a job. I saw this all back in the eighties as well but there wasn’t much they could do. Now they seem to have power of life or death, well money or empty pockets, same thing really.
It’s alright for them though, on £35000 a year, job secure and union watching their backs. And there is the rest of us on less than £5000 a year benefits for me and the wife. What can we do though but struggle on and hope that I get a job soon. That my former employer needs workers soon.
I’m best not thinking about it, think of the good week I had cutting the grass and hedges. Watching my veg growing slowly and learning for next year how best to get them started. That I finally got Banshee 2 complete or at least down on a memory card. No good thinking on things that aren’t in your power to change. :~)

It has been a bit of a stressful day at work. I was just in one of those bad moods, you know what I mean, when everything seems to lie on your shoulders and adds to the mood. At least it’s the weekend now so I can relax and get ready for next week.
I have a lot to do in the garden planting wise. My seedlings are ready to go out into the tubs. The weather isn’t to be too bad so I’ll get that started after I paint the hut. I did the garden fence last weekend with the help of my son. It’s looking as good as new now. I also fixed my side gate, they were a little worse for wear after the winter but a few screws and some small bracing bits of wood at the corners sorted it out. Of course I fixed it before painting it some the repairs aren’t noticeable.
My peas that I planted out the other week are doing well though I did lose two to birds strangely. They broke the stems maybe getting a bus or something that had crawled onto them early in the morning during the week. The rest are fine though and growing quickly but it will be a couple of months before I think about getting canes to tie them up. I haven’t grown peas since I was a kid, a long time ago.
I’m going to take time out of thinking about my next story and have a weekend playing Civ5. I think after today I need the de-stressing effect of conquering the world. Let my megalomaniac side loose for a night and make the world seem better. Sounds good.

The big new today of course is the royal wedding. I must admit though I didn’t watch it but I did see the dress. It was the one thing that Magz insisted keeping the TV tuned to the BBC for. I do wish them well, it’s just that I have never really been a royalist. I’m not against them, so the wedding isn’t really something that grabbed me other than getting an extra days holiday because of it. It was nice to hear that the weather held out for them though.
I got the lawnmower working again though I’m not sure what I did. I took the air filter off, cleaned the sparkplug but nothing more. When I put the filter back on and pulled the cord it sprang to life. So I took advantage of the opportunity to get my grass, front and back in order. Hopefully it will work when I need it again, I just have to wait till then to see.
My strawberries are in flower as are my two apple trees. My cherry trees though are now shedding their petals. The rest of my plants are coming on well. I’ve caned the peas so they can start climbing as they grow. With the aid of some garden twine they should do well. My replanted cauliflower is now sprouting though my carrots still haven’t shown any signs of life. I may have to get fresh seed as the ones I used were left from last year so my have caught a touch of frost over the winter. I’ll see if I have some more left and give them another go but if I still don’t get anything I’ll need to get some more.
I bought two tomato plants last weekend with some lettuce and a bell pepper plant. The lettuce has had me worried that it wouldn’t take but it is looking a little better today. The tomatoes are doing very well at the moment as is the pepper plant. With all of those I should hopefully get some good salads this summer. I just need to pray I get the weather for it.

Well there is a turn up for the books, the Scottish National Party have won a landslide in the Scottish elections for Holyrood. I had head the polls but didn’t think they could be right though I do support the SNP and did vote for them yesterday after work. Five years ago, even five weeks ago nobody would have thought it possible. Of course now the real work begins as they will have to prove that with the majority they can run the country well and guide us through these difficult financial years. It will also mean that as a nation we will for the first time in our history we will really be looking at our place within the United Kingdom.
Over the next five years we could see a lot of argument over independence. What that would mean, if we could stand, and if we would still be within the European Union. In the past that is one of the arguments that has been used to “bash the Nats” as the saying goes. Of course with this election victory Scots have proved that those scare tactics don’t work as well as they used to. The Labour party tried in vain to raise the fear of independence as they had in the past near to the end of campaigning, gladly nobody was listening. Or at least the majority weren’t.
Enough politics though. My garden is doing well. I gave my plants a feed last weekend and with the rain the past two days they should start to shoot up in no time. My carrots still haven’t show. I planted some more though it could be a bit before start to show. Hopefully sometime this week if the seeds are still viable, if not then I will need to think of something else, maybe another visit to the garden centre. I have to get another tub for some more of my herbs anyway so I can have a nose about and see about that at the same time. I might need more compost for that as well.
If it’s dry this weekend then I’ll get some weeding done around the strawberries. I have a problem with Japanese knot weed which keeps showing its ugly head. I dig it up as best as I can unfortunately when you have it you can’t really get rid of it. It‘s just a matter of keeping on top of it right through till winter. At the same time I have to be careful not to disturb the plants to much. Not really that easy when the knot weed’s roots go so deep, which is another reason you can’t get rid of it.

What a week of for bad weather we’ve had this week. Luckily not as bad as the US has had but bad enough that the wind stripped some of the fruit from my gooseberry bush before I could move it to safety. The strong winds also managed to destroy some of my lettuces leaving three though in general my plants survived well. I’m only glad that this week’s gales aren’t the norm for this time of year as it would make gardening very hard.
My lawnmower is acting up again, cutting out after ten minutes running and then when I restart it, it cuts out in thirty seconds. I thought maybe overheating but after leaving it for a bit it still cut out after a few seconds so I have some trouble shooting to do. Maybe it is the oil filter or maybe something else. Really I don’t know where to begin with it so I’ll start with getting a new filter and then take it from there.
Magz got me a new game this week to celebrate my getting older. She was good and gave it to me early so I started playing it last night as I’ve a long weekend this week. You just have to love the long weekends especially when you have a new game. The one I’m playing now is called The Witcher 2. So far I’m still learning the controls, not easy when you start a new RPG though still fun. Magz is regretting getting the game though as it does involve a lot of noise mouse work when fighting the enemies in game. I think that is as much due to me panicking a little as I try to find my way through the game. One thing I will need to do though to improve the game is get a better graphics card which I may be able to do in a few weeks with what I have managed to save over the past month or so even though I spent some of it last weekend. Well what is money for if not spending.

Today was different at work. Ian, who usually runs the lidding machines, was off so I was thrown into the deep end. Well not really the deep end as the job must be one of the most boring. You just have to keep the machine topped up with lids and keep an eye on the cans as they come out on the way to retort, big boilers where thy are cooked for a couple of hours. Easy really, but enough to be compared to counting sheep if you know what I mean. Still at least they day didn’t drag as you might have thought though I’m glad I don’t have to do that every day. To be fair to Ian though he has a lot more to do in paper work which I didn’t have to worry about as the supervisor did that and Ian also has to grease the machines in the morning. Again someone else had taken care of that process so I had little left other than watching cans drift past all day. Glad it’s Friday.
Still lost in my game though I am some how blundering through it. With the new graphics card it was very absorbing last Saturday. I started play about five in the evening and only just manage to pull myself away seven hours later. Magz was happily watching a horror film with my daughter so luckily didn’t seem to mind. I’ll need to try not to spend quite as ling tomorrow night as there are a few programmes that Magz taped during the week that I want to see as well as one that I should have watch last week that I didn’t find time to.
Picked some of the first of this year gooseberries for the wife this week. It brought back memories from when I at school as the thorns scratched at my hands. There was a bush in a lane near our secondary school that in late June, just before the summer holidays, that my friends and me used to descend upon to fill our bellies. The first one always drew your cheeks in. Not much has changed, at least for me. Magz said they were sweet though. Well there are plenty more still to pick maybe she might make them into a pie or something? I’ll just need to wait and see.

I’m on holiday from work for the next two week. As you can guess I’m planning to do some work on my next story which I have been lazily ignoring over the past few weeks to play The Witcher 2 game. I finished it last weekend but started a new game as I know that there are lots still undiscovered in the game as well as there being other paths that you can take in game. I don’t know if it will lead to a different ending or just another path to the same outcome. I’ll find out though in due course but first I need to start writing again.
Someone phoned my house today saying they were from Microsoft and that my computer had a virus. If you haven’t heard of this before it’s a scam. What they want is for you to go to a website and download a programme that gives them control of your machine. If you do you’ll soon find yourself part of a botnet and your system will have every kind of nasty you could imagine. Of course I challenged the woman on the phone at which point she became a little abusive. After a few moments of this she tried another tact of saying she knew me and how handsome I was. Though flattered I had to laugh at this. She even gave me an old address where she believed I still lived as proof of her statement, adding to the hilarity of it all. I shouldn’t laugh really as this is the sort of scam that can so easily catch out the less wary, so be warned.
I’ve been picking more gooseberries this week and almost have enough to make some wine with them. After the phone call Magz and I headed downtown so I could get wine yeast plus other things to be ready for when I have enough. That will be in the next few days as I’m only short by eight oz short, not much really. Magz has also been enjoying my strawberries that have ripened over the past week. I didn’t get loads though but the ones I have had so far have been large and very juicy, just the way Magz likes them. I also got some peas today, just three pods which my daughter ate half of them while I got the rest. Nothing like peas straight from the pod on a warm day such as today is there? That is another thing for this holiday, the garden. There’s a lot to do in the form of weeding and some work in front of my hut as in laying some slabs. It’s one of those jobs that I have been meaning to do since last year. I did get it started but never finished it so I’ll do a bit more and maybe it will get completed in a time for next century, hehehe.

I still haven’t started writing the new tale. I did manage to get the gooseberry wine started though. I also got my hedges done but only after I bought a new cheap pair of trimmers. My old ones decided that it was time to die or rather they weren’t working when I went to use them on Tuesday. Calum an I stripped them down to see if we could get them going, sadly it wasn’t to be. That in turn meant a trip into town to get a new pair and stretching the budget to do so. Believe it or not it was cheaper getting the electric ones than buying the old hand shears, remember them. Well I do, as a kid my aunt would have me using the old rusty pair that always left my hands in blisters. It would have helped if they’d been oiled but I think that was a foreign concept for my aunt. Anyways I got the hedges done and now the garden is sorted before I head back to work on Monday.
Talking of my garden it has been a good week for picking strawberries. I also got a lettuce, some herbs (oregano and chives), peas and onions, don’t worry there are plenty left. Unfortunately a bird got the only cherry just when I was thinking of picking it. I thought on Monday that maybe I’ll pick it tomorrow only to find it gone the next day. Serves me right for not putting the netting over the tree, which reminds me that I better get some over the blueberry bush this year. I didn’t last year and had no problems but if the cherry is anything to go by then the birds are learning where there is a free meal to be had. Not that I don’t mind sharing with nature, only I don’t think the local wildlife would leave much for me. Best to get the netting out then, which will be something to do this weekend.