Keeping On

Sharon - I'm just taking a day at a time. I'll share any ideas I have.

Bless - That temperature is crazy! It looks like autumn has come early here, which is a little unsettling.

Cherie - I believe that blackberries benefit from a good pruning, but you are the expert.

Talking of blackberries, I may have shared the story before, but it's one of my abiding memories. When grandfather inherited his house, the large garden was full of brambles and nettles. My grandmother couldn't bear things going to waste so made jar after jar of blackberry jam (grandfather would eat all the jam she could make). I was around 8 or 9 at the time, but family legend says that she made over 100 pounds of jam that year. 

Eventually the garden got into some sort of shape and we just had one swathe of blackberries which were proper cultivars, though they ran riot. The garden flooded regularly from the river at the bottom during winter, and the blackberries thrived on it. 

As kids, we used to go up most Saturdays. Grandfather loved us, but could only take so much before he went out on his bike. Every autumn he was very clear - we couldn't cut the blackberries back too much or it would damage them. Every autumn, mother, uncle and grandmother would wait until the coast was clear and he was out on his bike and follow the instructions in the gardening manual to cut blackberries back to around 10-12 inches. We cut back huge amounts, mounds of the spiky stuff. Then, as uncle put it, we threw it in the river to see if it would float. Surprisingly, it did! Every year grandfather would come back from his bike ride and look suspiciously at the stumps where brambles taller than him used to be rioting. Mother, uncle and grandmother would look innocent and say that they hadn't cut that much off - look, the pile of cuttings isn't that big. Every year the damn stuff grew around eight to ten feet tall and we got pounds and pounds of blackberries. I loved picking them but I was never that keen on eating them. 

I went out to stretch my wheels today and pick up some bits. As I parked up, I noticed that the shop across the way had Christmas stuff in the window.

I don't know if it's left from last year or early for this year or whether it's a permanent fixture, but I thought it was nice and cheerful.

And the roofer turned up unexpectedly. I'm glad that it's done. I'm not sure that he will come back though as I think he found it a little higher than he thought. But that's one thing off the list. 

I've been looking at the calendar I've made and I'm starting to add things in and work out in which order things should happen. 

Hugs and good health to all.