TO PRUNE OR NOT TO PRUNE.......

Woke up late this morning, C got J ready for school and took him - bliss. I made myself a cuppa and prepared for the day ahead.  I knew I had a lot of pruning to do around the garden, but this cough is dragging me down and I was not sure if I'd have the energy to do much!

C came back and we started work in the sunshine.  I began with the quince shrubby/bush thing in the turkey pen, which was all over the place and obviously hadn't been attended to for years!

I pruned it to within an inch of it's life, I hope it comes back.  There was dead wood on it also, I have pruned according to RHS Wisley guidelines.  I don't currently have a photo of the final stub!



















Once done, I left the pen and went for a mug of tea! Aah, lovely, needed that.  Then I went out again to attempt to tackle the bougainvillea!! What a mammoth task that is going to be.  The plant is quite old I think, but again, it hasn't been pruned back for a good few years.  I need to cut it  back hard so it can bush up again with fresh growth.  I began on one side of the fence, some of the branches actually grow through the fence and they are ones I don't want to cut back!  Then I got fed up with getting spiked by the massive thorns, so I went around the other side.  The tangled mess was awful! it's going to take me a few days at least to tackle this.

The tangled web of bougainvillea.

I have made a small dent in it all, but it's a start at least.  More to do tomorrow.

Samuel Sprat (right) in the bougainvillea.

After trying to tackle this I felt completely worn out, so it was cuppa time again!  I can't wait to shift this cough, perhaps I will have more energy in a few days.  

whilst drinking my tea and nibbling on a biscuit I suddenly realised that we hadn't done the darn olives AGAIN..!! They'll have to wait till tomorrow. Groan..

Later this afternoon the chickens were let out of the run to peck around the veggie plot, whilst C lopped down the apple tree, which was, unfortunately, rotten.  It hadn't produced any decent fruit since we moved here, and it looked like it was suffering from about 3 different diseases!  So the landlord said get rid of it.  We are hoping to replace it with two new fruit trees - species to be decided!

Once C had cut it right down, we could see that the rot went right through the tree.  It had damage on the trunk and the leaves have always been in a sorry state, the apples it produced were small and always plagued with insects etc, so bye bye tree, you will be good for fire wood.

A sad moment, we found our hedgehog dead today! it looked like he'd been poisoned, the local farmers put all sorts of nasties on their fields around here.  Shame.  C said we should keep the next one we find so it doesn't get poisoned! We'll end up with a hedgehog farm next!!!!!! 

WALK ON THE BEACH

Today is a lovely sunny day and the temperature outside is about 13.5 degrees, the sun feels lovely and warm on your face.  We decided that we would go for a walk on the beach, and take Ruffa (our boxer), to see if we can find pine cones and bits of wood.

The beach was fantastic, no chilly wind, warm sunshine (although still only about 13 degrees as mentioned before).  There were loads of empty shells to pick up but no drift wood today.  I think we need a big storm so we can go collecting again.

We decided to walk back under the pine trees (along the beach) to collect some cones and twigs, we gathered a bag full but most of the cones are still on the trees, another week perhaps?!!

Ruffa had a lovely walk and was quite well behaved for a change.  I am trying to get him used to water but he is scared of the sea and its little waves, when I manage to get him to stand at the waters edge he freezes and won't move! So I didn't push it today.  I wish you could have dogs on the beach in the summer (or a specific beach for dogs only would be better) then he could learn to like it more and have a bit of fun.

This week coming is the time we are going to get rid of Spock!! so I can prepare him for Christmas.  It will be a difficult week for us all I think.  

On our return to the house our old cat (old abuela) was taking a drink out of the dogs water trough!