Rain Stops Play - Again

After a few days off I got back outside yesterday. Time to dig in the cow muck that I had liberally covered the veggie patch in last year. And then I decided that the layout of the beds was wrong. Two of them were too long and narrow, going from the wall down to the lawn to be. So now I have rearranged them all. Hopefully the beds are now large enough to be useful and small enough for me to be able to dig and plant them without having to stomp on them.

I tried to get Paul to saw up some more pallets to put in the pathways I had dug out but I am going to have to wait. He has taken the skin off his hand between thumb and forefinger when he did the lawn raking last week and decided this was a good excuse...

The one thing the sleet and rain has done is settle the soil in the fruit-tree-bed-to-be. This has shown that I was premature in my green highlighting. There is a definite slope down towards the wall so I need to add more to get it level. I made a start today. One barrow load done but the soil was too claggy. I decided just to get the weeds out of the remaining topsoil pile, but after half an hour it started to rain again :(

So we had a trip out to Homebase this afternoon - 20% off gardening section. And a mental list of all the things we need to make Geoff Hamilton cloches. We already have wood (left over from extension), water pipe (left over bits provided by Alan last year) to make the hoops, and the winter fleece I bought from Aldi's last year as the covering. So now we have angle brackets, screws, wood preserver, wood glue and dowel. Now I just need a handyman :)

I also bought two bundles of 7 ft bamboo canes, some bean/pea netting and some bedding plants. We had thought at first that 8 ft bamboo canes wouldn't fit into Paul's car but this was disproved when the 7 ft canes fitted in with room to spare. So we went back in...

And I also decided to buy two each of their aluminium troughs and deep planters, which had been already been reduced to half price before the extra 20% off, to replace my terracotta pots have not survived this winter.

To do list:

add more topsoil to fruit-tree-bed-to-be

plant potatoes

plant remaining summer flowering bulbs/bedding

start sowing veggie seeds (hopefully under my new home-made cloches)

Christmas Almost Wrapped Up

Shopping for Christmas is complete. With just the two of us the fridge is not bursting at the seams. 

I braved the crowds in Berwick yesterday. With free parking and the first nice weather for a while I had been fearing the worst. Actually it wasn't too bad. 

Then on to M&S with more vouchers. This was another story. Armed only with a basket in I went. Got a packet of apple, sultana and apricot stuffing. Then spent another 20 minutes or so fighting my way up and down the aisles. They no longer had the deals on from last week, switching from 'buy one get one half price' to '3 for 2' so I went into my 'I'm not paying that and I don't want 3' mode and made my way to the express checkout and freedom.

We collected the duck this morning - large as ducks go but we will not be eating it into and beyond the new year unlike the families who buy the biggest turkey that will fit (or not, as the case may be) into their oven. We succumbed to some onion marmalade. On to Jean's for coffee.

MIL obviously couldn't keep her end of the no presents deal - a box had just been delivered as we got home. A miniature rose bush, bottle of wine and box of chocolates in a little wicker basket. A very nice surprise - I've told Paul the rose is his :)

After lunch one final trip to Morrisons with a shopping list for the last few things we needed - or more truthfully wanted. And this time we pretty much stuck to it. It took us a while to track down salted peanuts, and they have obviously done a deal to only stock tins of Quality Street. But this just meant we bought a smaller box of Roses and fewer peanuts.

A few cards still to deliver and presents to wrap and it will soon all be over for another year...

Panasonic DMC-FZ18somethingorother

When I got my new laptop I discovered that Vista did not really support my camera software. I managed to sort of reinstal it and it sort of works when it feels like it. I need to 'run as administrator' and say 'yes' I really do want to run it! Then I get a load of error messages which I have to close down. Then sometimes it recognises that I have attached my camera and sometimes it doesn't. In the latter cases I have to shut down my laptop and start again. The latest pain is that when I get as far as 'photos on camera' window it doesn't actually show me the photos. I have to minimise and then reselect the window and the photos are displayed. It then doesn't highlight the ones I select to dowload unless I repeat the minimise/maximise routine...

The camera itself is fine. I bought it from work at about a third of the RRP in a staff sale and at the time it was top of the range - Canon PowerShot S30, 3.1 megapixels and 10x zoom. Now it is so last century. The time has come to upgrade. Watch out for it on FreeCycle in the near future - should be fine with older PCs/laptops...

So I spent last night surfing the net. I quickly decided on a panasonic. I got snared with an 18x optical zoom with 8.1 megapixels. Then I started looking at all the different sites promising me the best prices available anywhere. Then I got very confused.

Panasonic DMC-FZ18 black, silver, DMC-FZ18S, DMC-FM18K, DMC-FX18EBK... All at slightly different prices, with very similar but not quite the same descriptions. I noted a few of the sites and gave up for the night.

I dropped the bombshell on Paul when he got back from the bridge club. I didn't think it was a bombshell - I have been saying for ages that I want a new camera. He never picks up on hints for birthdays/Christmas either. He says I never tell him or drop hints!!!

So I resumed my investigation today. I decided to look on panasonic's own website. But it was down, being updated. Eventually it came back up. I think all those variations on the name actually boil down to one camera in a choice of silver or black.

Armed with this I went back to investigating prices. It was stunning the differences in price - Tesco Direct being the most expensive I found at a shocking £349.97 down to £194.00 at Bestpricedbrands including P&P. I placed an order. It should arrive next week...

Penny to the Rescue...Again

I had really been looking forward to my day out in Edinburgh, so was really deflated when James phoned on Sunday evening to say Anne had been suffering from a migraine all day and was cancelling on me.

I decided to see if Jean wanted to come. Sandy answered the phone. Jean was out climbing munros with her walking group but he would get her to phone me back when she got in, which she duly did. She was exhausted - four munros climbed sounded far too much like hard work to me (and to her)... Anyway, she was too busy this week to come.

I then tried Penny with little hope, as I know she is very busy trying to get her shop ready for opening. She was not sure - needed to sort out the painter the next day so I was to phone her back in the morning.

So, at just gone 9 a.m. I phoned. She still needed to phone the painter, so would phone me back... and the trip was on. I just needed to ensure I got her back in time for her bridge match this evening.

We drove over the Lammermuirs to the A1. The oranges, yellows and golds of the trees were shown at their best in the bright autumn sunshine we had today. Penny then directed me into Edinburgh city centre and to the car park at St. James Centre, where we arrived at around 11.30 a.m.

I had a sort of plan, time allowing. I knew there were three Whistles outlets in Edinburgh - one in Jenners, one in Harvey Nicholls and its own store on George Street, which was the first destination on my list. But as we were heading there I spotted HN, so we diverted in there. We found the Whistles section, and I saw a very nice dress that was a definite possibility but I decided to wait until we got to the true store. So we headed back towards George Street.

East had the magic sign in the window - Sale.
A few shops further on and Ronit Zilkha clearance/closing down sale - store was in administration.
Waterstones next - had some vouchers.
Then Whistles, and the dress I had previously seen - but if I got a store card I would get 20% off. That was worth spending 10 minutes filling in the form.

It was time for a break - coffee/cake in one of the ubiquitous Starbucks.

2.30 p.m., back to the car and on to destination number 2 - Meadowbank Retail Park for TK Maxx. I had never been to this store before, but when I told Penny I wanted jeans and a handbag this was her suggestion. It came up trumps.

3.25 p.m. back to the car. We still had enough time to go to Fort Kinnaird. I dropped Penny off at Borders Books and I headed for M&S, where she would catch me up. I had been given all of Paul's vouchers (£85) that he had won at various bridge tournaments...

East
Olive Green light cotton dress
Red patterned dress

Ronit Zilkha
Black/print chiffon dress - an absolute bargain at £300 under the RRP!

Whistles
Yellow/print silk dress

TK Maxx
Cream leather handbag - also a real bargain at £135 under the RRP
Four pairs of jeans - saved me having to make decisions :)

M&S
Black Coat

All in all an excellent day out and I judged my spending almost perfectly. On a budget of £400 I spent £403.47. Indeed, I could even argue that the M&S vouchers were not part of my budget, as I did not have free will on where I could spend them...