All Posts in "Expecting Rain"

Don’t you just love it when your car breaks down?  It’s happened so often in the last few days that I’m ready to get a new one.  Only one problem.  We can’t afford to.  It our only car and if we don’t have it, we can’t get anywhere.  The problem with living in remote areas of the villages, you need a car.[ad#ad-1]

My husband thinks he’s diagnosed the problem.  We have a crack in the pipe between the coolant and the engine.  At least, that the glaringly obvious diagnosis.  Whatever else is wrong remains to be resolved after this issue is.  Unfortunately, we can’t get the part for him to fix it himself.  However, our local mechanic thinks he’ll get it in by tomorrow.  Thank God for trustworthy local mechanics.

In the meantime, the mechanic has wrapped the crack in duct tape.  We Americans fix everything with duct tape, so we couldn’t laugh at his methods.  We’re also carrying extra gallons of water in the car.  It’d be so easy if we didn’t have to drive everywhere.  I guess I should be glad we’re expecting rain.

Yank by — May 13, 2009 in My Journey 4

It’s nearing the middle of May, yet we’re still experiencing some chilly days.  So unlike this time last year.  I can make that comparison because we were here on holiday this time last year.  We’re expecting rain for the next couple of days, but the forecast has been amended several times in the last three days, so I really don’t know what to expect.

The early spring flowers have wilted, the lambs have grown so big (though one still managed to squeeze in between the wire fencing the other day to nibble on our grass), the trees have all blossomed.  Father Christmas brought our older daughter a flower-growing kit and she started that very early in spring.  So far, we’ve had a lot of growth, but no flowers yet.  One is going to be a giant sunflower, so I can expect that to take a very long time to produce a flower.  The other three are small flowering plants, so I’m hoping to see something soon out of the marigolds.  I’ve only tried planting marigolds from seeds once.  Unfortunately, that was around the time we sold our house, so I never got to find out if it bloomed.

I don’t have much of a green thumb, so I’ve left the managing of the plants to the kids and my husband.  Though I’ve helped transfer the plantings to progressively larger containers.  The plants have been kept outdoors for the last month and a half, and surprisingly, the birds did not bother with the seeds.  Or, at least, we don’t think they have.

We have a blossoming tree that flows into our yard but I have not yet identified it.  Besides the buttercups and dandelions, we have no other blooming plants at this time. The daffodils are gone and the bluebells are about to.  The roses have not come out and I wonder if they will.  They look like they could use some pruning.  I’ll have to try those shears.  You can see why I’m anxious to have some flowers growing. It just would not be an English cottage without some flowers.  Driving around the countryside, I am very envious of those beautiful cottage gardens.

Yank by — May 12, 2009 in British Culture 0