A gradener i will be , no i won't

As i prepare to go back to Liverpool for how long i do not know when i shall get back to my place in the sun.

Today i picked the last five oranges from one of my orange trees. I will be taking them back with me to Liverpool One for my Mum One for me and the rest for my Daughter and granddaughters.

My black Cardomom has lots of new growth and soon it will be moved into where it will get full sun everyday.
Last year i grew one pear and i came to life inside of a square bottle and now the pear live in very very old Hine cognac. Of all my trees the pear has buds opening ready for the growing season so lets see this year how many pears i get. I will be again putting all the pears as they grow into more square bottles.

Time to get some painting done.

In Liverpool my home city like everybody else imy house was no different to most other houses. Here in Portugal it's like the Model A Ford any colour so long as it's well here it's white.

I should have painted the background first buy i wanted to add not just colour but shape as well . It worked well in my spare bedroom but the shade of Red was more Pink than the shade i wanted. The background will be a light shade of Gray with one main wall a darker Gray.







Paint here in Portugal is very expensive so i buy 20lt when it's on offer and colour my own. The pale lilac only used about a cup full and less than a quarter of s tea spoon on Lilac that an artist would use. A litre of paint already coloured would cost about12 to 15€. Now all i need to do is mask up and paint all the white light Gray. OK it's not conventional but who cares I like it.

Getting ready to leave

I had on my veranda in pots two Orange trees, one 1 Lemon tree, one Lime tree, one Walnut tree  and one Pear tree. Going back to Liverpool for an extended period i had to plan for my trees to be watered. I had a piece of land below my veranda that once cleaned up i was able to move three trees a Walnut, Pear and Lime. The two Orange and my Lemon are moved to the side nearest the lane to make watering that bit easy.

So i never have to do any more digging after planting the trees i covered round the trees with stone chippings. As the picture shows i still have a few more chippings to put down to finish the bit of land that makes up my estate.

I am lucky i have a neighbour who will water my orchard. Outside of my front door i have a Blackcurrant, one Orange and my pride and joy two Black cardamom trees grown from seed.

Here we can see Wally the Walnut tree. Lemmy the Lime tree and lastly A fine pair my Pear tree.

This is when i was part finished and taken from my veranda.

The dream goes on hold for a while

For a long time now I have been traveling back to Liverpool to see my Mum who sadly is not in the best of health. It hurts getting back in my seat on the plane taking me home to Portugal after hearing my Mum say during my visit " Why won't they let me go ". Mums quality of life could not now get any worse and it is so sad to see.

I was traveling to Liverpool soon for my birthday and had hoped to have a meal out with my daughter, sons and grandchildren. Now this has been spoilt as one of my sons works abroad and will be away at the time of my birthday. Not having the best of luck at the time but that's life I have just got to make the best I can under the circumstances.

Although I love my life here in Portugal I have to think about my Mum who has 4 carers who come in during the day to help her. During the night is the time Mum needs someone with her at night time as that's now the problem time for her. Now when I go over to Liverpool for my birthday I am staying indefinitely to be there when Mum needs someone's help.

Because of the amount of Spice stock I am holding and because of dates I will be going back for a market I go to each month. I will fly in on a Friday and fly back to Liverpool on the following Monday  so I will be able to check on my house to see it's ok during my absence.  Who knows how long this will go on for who knows but Mum needs me right now.

I've been driving a long time

I've been driving now for over fifty years wow yes a long time. During that time i have seen numbers on my dash like the day in my new Zafira when i had done 12,001 miles not 12,000 i missed that by a mile. That happened many times with many of the cars and vans i have had.

Until now, i went to go out in my van the other day when i saw the numbers on my mileometer was showing 340,000 kilometers. This was about the first time i had not missed a number by even a mile.

My Zafira now is at 197,000 or there abouts so i will be watching that when the time comes.