No I am too tight to pay the extra £20.00 the Vale are charging to take the garden waste. It now means an occasional run to the tip, which I don't mind doing.
Away from football and away from farming. Made a last minute decision yesterday evening to head for Scotland for a couple days. Up at 4.15 this morning and having breakfast north of Dumphries by 8. Stood in the river nith chasing salmon by 8.30. While usually a futile pursuit, at lunch time, I was duly rewarded with a small but perfectly formed hen salmon. Safely returned to produce the next generation.
So you're up close to the Solway Firth. I forget that there's quite a bit of Scotland south of Edinburgh and Glasgow on the eastern side. Glad you had a bit of success.
Carlisle, turn left. Past Gretna Green. Quite a few salmon rivers on the Soloway firth, from Annan to Newton Stewart with smaller rivers further up the west coast. Sadly, the numbers of salmon present are a fraction of what they were.
Sorry remote - not farming nor fishing, but at least it's away from football....... MOT time of the year for our vehicles. Take them to the same place every year and trust the guy implicitly - known him for ages and in fact worked with him 30 years ago on a project. Mine sailed through first, the wife's sister's Yaris sailed through with just a couple of tyres needed on the rear - then it was the wife's car turn. It's a C Class, 10 years old now but still only 40K on the clock. Leased it for 3 years from new and then bought it off the leasing company (bargain!) rather than returning it. Don't drive it myself very often but when I did it seemed fine to me. Checked her tyres were OK and expected the usual couple of hundred quid for an oil service and MOT cert. Then came the phone call. The front brakes on the rolling road were perfect but the rears weren't ******ing the rollers at all. The calipers were seized and the discs were rusted and knackered. In fact the parking brake cable (foot actuated) was totally seized and only putting the car auto box in "park" would have locked the thing and stopped it from rolling away. The expected "couple of hundred" more than doubled - but that's not the end of it. When he dropped the undertrays to remove the calipers, the brake pipes had rotted. Quite common around here when the salt in the sea air collects around the retaining clips and accelerates the corrosion. OK, I told him to go ahead and change them and let me know the damage - but that's not the end of it. When complete, he re-filled the brake fluid back into the system with his state of the art pressure filler. The brake pedal went practically down to floor before engaging though it it did pass the rolling road braking test comfortably. He said you can have the car back because it's passed but I'm not happy about the brake pedal travel and the master cylinder should be changed. Now here's the option - take it away or get it back to where it should be. Sod it. I said go for it and get it sorted - then he threw me a curved ball. Do you want an OEM or aftermarket master cylinder? Apparently you can pick up an aftermarket replacement for less than a hundred quid but the Merc OEM one was £290. Bearing in mind the cost of the replacement labour would be the same whichever I chose, I plumped for the OEM. All done now and I'm nearly 1500 quid lighter - thinking about putting 500 quid on City on Sunday to get my money back.....
The aircon doesn't work, there's a gap where the radio goes and the back tyres are about 750 a side (which is cheap compared to some of the modern things).
As the weather changed several weeks ago, the weeds in my veggie plot went mad. My permanent bed for rhubarb, berries and the like got took over. Where I'd lifted the onions, buried, as was where I hadn't finished lifting tatties, and the the 4th rotating bed only ever has runner beans, so mainly fallow except for the stingy nettles. Solved the problem yesterday. I put a few sheep in there. Sorted. Even better, the only thing left in the ground were leeks. Aparently, sheep don't like leeks so they are still there. Half a tonne of manure and a bit of digging and I'll be ready for next spring. Who'd have thought?
Me too blue. The small ones sautéed as an accompaniment, bigger ones roasted and a winter staple, leek and tatty soup.
After the trials and tribulations of baling hay, with the weather, it was all baled a week back. Finally got round to getting it out of the field and stacking it on Monday night. A late night with all the work lights on two tractors lighting the place up. Looks decent enough in the cold light of day.
Having glazing units fitted to my windows today. Never ceases to amaze me when they start thumping things into place with rubber hammers. Quite a high level of skill involved in fairness.
