Busy day in the sunshine

Two years ago (I know, I know) rats ate into my HotBin.  Tony the inventor very kindly sent me a sample of the material it is made from, and suggestions as to how to repair it. 

 Last year, I got COVID-19, and that, and the effects of Long covid, means a lot of non essential stuff just didn't get done around Compost Mansions. 

But now the weather is nice, and my torn bicep is not so painful, and I've recovered from the after effects of my first covid vaccination, I'm finally getting on with stuff.

(We've also got several raised beds infested with bindweed and couch grass, and nothing beats watching them shrivel up and die in a well run HotBin!)

So, we removed all the old compost from the HotBin, dismantled it completely, I cleaned all the fine compost from the base plate and Compostman did the repair to the rat hole.

Blast it.

 I dropped one of the heated propagator lids today.

Onto a tiled floor.

 Blast it.

Compostman is going to try to fix it for me.

St Patrick Day and a seedy Sunday update

Happy St Patrick's Day to you all! I am a quarter Irish, half Welsh and the other quarter is a mixture of English, Irish, Scottish and a tiny bit of Spainish ( a long way back but still a bit interesting)

As the English bit is from Cornwall, mostly,  I think I count as mainly Celtic? I look like a Celt, anyway and I always think of myself as Welsh/Irish

Anyway it gives me a reason to celebrate both St David and St Patrick's days :-)


My seeds are growing well - these are the tomato seedlings which I planted a few weeks ago, there are more, smaller ones in the heated propagators which were planted last week.

This is the Halloon I planted at the end of Febuary - it is like a spicy version of cress. Very tasty with Egg mayo on wholemeal bread!

 I stayed inside most of today and kept warm as my face is still very painful from the Sinusitis, but Compostman spent  a lot of time outside working to fix the Allen Scythe. He wants to use it to cut down some of the brush and overgrowth around where the pool used to be. As it has not been used for a couple of years it needed a bit of tlc.

The hens enjoyed hanging around near him, "just in case" anything he did produced some food. They like to stay near us and love being inside the barn/lean to.

Compostgirl is at a Guides Camp weekend near Cirencester - I hope she is having a good time! The weather yesterday (Sat) was pretty dreadful in the afternoon, apparently.

Mending the duvet

This is the much loved duvet which Compostgirl begged me to "fix" it had a hole worn through, a number of unravelled seams and some of the buttons missing.

The buttons and the seams were easily fixed with new buttons and some sewing machine work BUT the hole was a bit harder to fix.

I got out an embroidery hoop and darned the thin, holed ares until it was much stronger. I could have used my sewing machine but small jobs like this are better done by hand I feel :-)

I was left with an area of darned fabric which needed covering, so little fingers did not "worry" at it again :-)

So I went to my stash of fabric and found an old pair of much loved cords of Compostgirls,from when she was 6 or so, which had some lovely fabric flowers on them - I was thinking about making some but remembered I had these in my stash box.

I cut off a flower and sewed it over the darn

And lo - a duvet restored to use and back in action on Compostgirls bed :-) she was very pleased with this :-)

What have you repaired, lately?