A spot of gardening

Today dawned bright and sunny, so I decided to tackle the untidy front garden and ask Keith if we could go to the tip with all the cuttings that Mike had pruned before Christmas.  

Keith came out to help me with the front garden, and we swept up a ton of leaves that were covering the grass verge and the soil. We managed to get them into the garden wheelie bin, and we also managed to fill another box.

With the first load, we headed for the tip while Sophie prepared tonight's meal of Thai yellow curry. The smells in the kitchen were divine! The tip wasn't as busy as we thought it would be, and with the first load deposited, we headed home. This time we ventured into the back garden and gathered up all the cuttings, which were mostly ivy. I was careful, as the last time I'd handled a lot of ivy cuttings, I'd developed a nasty rash on my arm.

We filled the wheelie bin and the box again and headed off on our second trip. This is the first time we've had to empty the bin since the charges were raised to £55 in March, so it really would have been a waste of money if we'd subscribed to the garden service. We can put some of the cuttings on our compost heap as well.

Back home, Sophie had finished all the prep for dinner and I asked if she would come with me to recycle the Tassimo pods and get the car washed. We drove to Broughton to post off the pods, and then into Northampton to use the carwash at the Shell garage on the Harborough road. It did an excellent job on my filthy car!

In the M&S shop, Sophie bought a pack of chocolate hot cross buns which we toasted when we got home and enjoyed with a mug of tea. Bliss! I'd been eyeing the delicious chocolate biscuits we'd bought home from Normandy for Isla today, but we caught our neighbours before we went to the tip and delivered them to their rightful owner!

We had a bit of a shock this evening when Sophie found out that Vikesh wasn't well after the trip to London yesterday, and was having trouble breathing. His parents had called an ambulance and he went to the hospital where he was hooked up to oxygen. In the photos, he looked very similar to how Mike was, back in December 2019.

Sophie cooked the dinner, but she was naturally worried about Vikesh. It looked like his chest infection hadn't gone away but we said he was in the best place to be looked after!