"A Nice Cup Of Tea In The Morning".

 Rosie having a 'nice'cup of tea.

Rosie is the mother of Bronte my faithful Golden Retriever and walking repurposed railway lines pal.

I have been mad busy working this week and have not had much time to blog.  I hope the photo makes you smile?

I have never been much of a tea drinker.  I prefer 'real' coffee ☕️ in a cafetiere first thing in the morning.

When I lived in the north West of England we would go to Levenshulme in Manchester to a Irish grocers and bring home Barry's tea from Cork and red lemonade.

I remember my holidays here in Ireland and my dad and my my brother and me would try to pike hay on to the cart and chase rabbits and my grandma and my mother would come down the fields with currant cake and bottles of cold tea in a sock.  It was great for quenching your thirst.

I still prefer coffee than tea.

Homemade Plant Cuttings Storage Box Propagator.

I made or repurposed a plastic storage box to get my shrub cuttings to root and keep them in a moist and humid environment 

Propagator with lid on.

I took the lid off a week since planting the Hydrangea cuttings in sand.  They are still moist and don't need watering.

The box cost me nothing and it's now a cuttings greenhouse.

It holds ten small plant pots of cuttings.

August is a good month for taking shrub cuttings like Hydrangeas.

It's been a wonderful year for flowers in particular.  Why not take some cuttings of your favourite shrubs?

 

More Carboot Sale Treasure.

 We were not happy bunnies after our poor plant sales on Saturday. But we still decided to go car booting.  

One needs Womble retail therapy.

Here's some of the things we purchased.  I haven't photographed everything though:

Two Victorian brass candle sticks. I paid 7 Euros fifty for them.  I have eight of them now me thinks?  Did you need them Dave?  No but could I leave them and walk away?  No!

The book is full of fabulous sacred sites in 🇮🇪 Ireland.  I have visited some of them especially in Sligo.  It's also the personal spiritual journey of the author.

The photos are brilliant.  It's more of a browse flick through kind of book for somebody like me with little reading 📚 patience at the moment.  

I would rather read blogs or browse and surf the Internet.  I am sure I will read it proper in the long dark nights from mid August to April. 

A travel bag for personal documents like my Irish passport and money and note books...  I paid five Euros for it.  My old one is looking shabby and the zip sticks.

I bought the Phil Lynott book for 2 Euros.  I already have one book about him.  Thin Lizzy are one of my top two favourite Heavy Rock bands along with Kansas and I remember seeing Phil and the lads when I was just 17.  Lizzy were brilliant and I am always playing their records.

Lastly I bought a mountain bike for me to occasionally go for a cycle on the repurposed greenways that I often write about on here.  I paid 35 Euros for it.

That's the same amount I got for my plants the day before!  Hey my plants paid for my bike.

Serependipity or what?🤔

A Van Full Of Plants.

We loaded up our little van and we went carbooting over the Irish bank holiday weekend with my shrubs and perennials that I have lovingly propagated myself.

Not Van Morrison but a van full of some plants😀👍.

I have always believed everyone should be able to afford to buy plants and have a nice garden.  

Or even be like the old gardeners of old or myself.  

Gardening doesn't need to cost money just tlc and lots of your time!  I only sell my plants  cheap.  The average price was only 2.50.

We got up at 5.30 on Saturday morning, paid our ten Euros pitch and took only 45 Euros.  Which is only 35 Euros if you take off the ten Euros pitch fees.  Forgetting about diesel ⛽️ and our breakfasts.

We met some wonderful people and had some great chats and I gave a few of my veg and plant growing tips and talked about my repurposed raised beds and baths. J sat knitting and had lots of conversations about knitting and showed ladies her many photos of her knitting work.  She made a few contacts for knitting patterns and wool..

It was a enjoyable morning but disappointing plant sales yet again.  Perhaps next time I will have a mixed bag of car boot treasure and just a few crates of plants?

We didn't go plant selling on Sunday.  We did travel to two carboot sales.  I will post what we bought in another post.

Did you go carbooting selling or buying at the weekend?

After the lockdown it's good to go to a carboot sale and chat and sell some of my plants and help raise some funds for a good cause.

Repurposed Planters.

 I spotted these planters outside a supermarket the other day in Kerry:

Sheep or calf nuts troughs looking elegant and filled with seasonal bedding plants.

A wheelbarrow with a flat tyre.  The Ancient Chinese invented this physics defying gravity one wheel contraption.  It looks very nice full of bedding plants.

Note to author of this blog.  Must source new secondhand wheelbarrow.  Yours is on it's  last legs or wheel even.  Far too much carrying fym, concrete blocks and concrete and compost and top soil!

Don't plants brighten up the dullest of containers?

Old Worlde Tools At The Carboot Sale.

 

Farm and turf cutting tools from yester year.

I always look at what tools are for sale at the carboot sales.

I immediately recognised the potato 🥔 fork on the right.  It's got steel baubles on the bottom of the fork tines.  This prevents the potato digger from puncturing the new potatoes.  I often put my fork through them.

The man wanted 40 Euros for it.  I wanted the potato fork very much but I wasn't paying that for it.

Next to the potato 🥔 fork is a slain.  That was or can be used for digging peat or ' turf' they call it here in Ireland.

The slasher with the long handle was used for cutting brambles and briars.  

All very useful tools that require hard physical work.

Dropping Off Piglets And A Walk On A Beach.

 We headed over to Kerry to drop two piglets of ours off to the Maharees in between Brandon Bay and Tralee Bay.

Our piglets over look Bantry Bay and now they have gone to the seaside in County Kerry.

I have featured the Maharees on here before it's a sand dune peninsula scattered with houses and winding boreens, pubs and caravan parks.  

I have camped there a few years ago when we walked a lot of the Dingle Way.  One stretch of the beach from Cloghane to Camp was 12 miles long sand.

After settling in the piglets in their straw bed we set off back and stopped at a little beach on the Maharees.

Bronte went for a run and a swim.

All that seaweed strewn along the beach.  My veggies would love all that natural fertilizer for free.

Bronte having the time of her life.

Nasturtiums growing amongst the rocks protecting the road from the heavy tides in winter.

Straw bales waiting to be collected in the fields.  They looked like they had been there a while.

There are so many virtually empty beaches in Ireland.  Far away from the madding crowd.