Wild Irish rose

Today was bright and sunny so, after chatting to mum & dad, I was back in the garden.

Today I was clearing around the base of the climbing rose. Mostly it was dead forget-me-nots but there were also a few dandelions to poison (in the nicest possible way), couch grass to extract and a couple of stray strands of bind weed to destroy without compassion or woe.

It looks a lot better now and, with the addition of some fertiliser, the roses should bloom even better. That’s a bit hard to believe because they are already blooming lovely.

I took a short video, showing our roses.

I also put some more wire up for the clematis on the hedge bed fence, to follow. While we were away, it all went a bit mad, twisting itself around itself, because it couldn’t find anything else. It was also starting to grow over the fence, giving, as Mirinda said, Dave and Gail all the benefit of any floral delight. Well, we couldn’t have that!

The hardest part was very carefully untwisting a few strands in order to thread them around the new wire. I managed it with no damage and, hopefully, it will now grow as we intended.

Of course, being a Tuesday, Nicktor turned up at 5:30pm. Having blipped me, he suggested we try the Six Bells for dinner. I laughed, thinking this was obviously a joke. I remember a few years ago. We tried the pub and the food was good, the beer garden pleasant in the sun. Just as we started to get used to it, the chef, firstly, came down with a bug and couldn’t cook then, the following week, they stopped cooking food on a Tuesday (completely disregarding the sign that announced they cooked every day).

Nicktor held up his hand in an attempt to stop my scornful laughter. Apparently they have a new sign up which states they have a new chef and he cooks every day. What the hell, we thought, let’s give it a try. What could we lose? It’s five minutes down the lane, the beer is always good and, just maybe, we could get some food to go with it.

And it was a very good choice (though the Colony Chinese restaurant is probably wondering what happened to us). Ham, eggs and chips for two and a couple of pints of Greene King Bohemian, was perfect. We ate, drank and swapped anecdotes as the sun did its thing. Very pleasant indeed.

Back at the house, we watched Intermission, a film that I thoroughly enjoyed but that Nicktor wasn’t that keen on (9/10 from me and 7/10 from Nicktor). About halfway through I thought he wasn’t enjoying it. He was, just not as much as me. Too wordy and too much concentration needed.

Apart from the acting (which was excellent) I wouldn’t recommend the film to anyone who doesn’t like swearing and violence and gritty Irish realism…though, I have to say, if the Irish were all like the characters in this film, I’d never go back.

We followed this excessive film with a second bite of the Piglet Files cherry. We weren’t that keen on the first episode but it did get slightly better for number two. But, as Nicktor says “It’s no Sorry!”