Come and tell me your dull and unexciting news 21: Calmly through the day

[MissConductUS]

I've started a new one. Please join us and share the boring and mundane things happening in your world. It will be calming for all.

Here is the link to the prior thread:

Come and tell me your dull and unexciting news 20: Calmly through the day

It’s beautiful Love keep going! My paternal grandmother is a fantastic artist and we have several of her landscapes on the wall. Her son, nor any of her grandchildren inherited her talent!

It’s lovely @LoveFall I find painting therapeutic but am terrible at it.

That’s beautiful, Love!

I looked out of our front window this morning because there were some partridges flapping about, looked up to the field opposite and saw a herd of 17 red deer making their way along the far hedge line. They were beautiful. I wish I had a proper camera to have taken a picture!

Well done Love. You're very lucky to have such spectacular sunsets. Great inspiration. I never got on with watercolours - I'm a soft pastels fan.

Spudlet that is an impressive amount of wildlife right on your doorstep. I occasionally come across families of wild boars on my run. On one occasion an encounter with them shaved two minutes off my per kilometre pace!

In mundane news the tumble dryer has finished its run so I'll empty it. Hopefully I'll be able to start drying the laundry outside in the coming days.

Love, that's beautiful, well done. Skies are really hard to paint. I did watercolors for a while in uni but never kept at it.

Spudlet, the wildlife is lovely as long as it stays in the yard. In the winter we get mice and snakes coming into the basement to stay warm.

There's snow in the forecast today so I'm probably going to work from home.

We get mice periodically, but snakes are definitely outside of my comfort zone! We did see the most magnificent grass snake sunbathing in the woods this time last year - she was massive (apparently the females are larger so I’m sure this one must have been a she). It was lucky all round as just before we walked up the path, a horse and rider had gone that way - presumably the snake had been hidden away as nobody ended up squashed flat / in orbit / wrapped around a tree…!

It is snowing, but it's slightly above freezing so it's not sticking much.

We see the odd snake skin that has been shed in the basement. We had one HVAC bloke who didn't want to work on our furnace after he saw one.

These are grass snakes too, so quite shy and not dangerous.

Thanks for your kind comments about my painting. Yes, skies are hard. Mine looks a bit heavy like I overdid the paint. But it was enjoyable anyway. Trying to channel my Mum, who I really miss.

It is a sunny spring like morning here. Dog and I have been out walking. He looks very white and fluffy after a bath yesterday.

We have been sharing custody of the dog with our former daughter in law, who works full time and has a busy social life. We work together to care for him, as he was always close to DH and I before DS and DIL split. We have the dog most of the time. Yesterday she told me she has received a complaint about him whining at her place, threatening a fine.

She said he will need to stay here for a good while. I love him and am happy to have him but he does get upset when left alone so it ties me down a bit. So mixed feelings. We do leave him at our son's sometimes but that is not a permanent solution as he has a big dog himself.

I guess I have inherited a full custody dog, at least temporarily. Thankfully he is a sweet dog who is little trouble.

Does anyone else's dog get zoomies? Mine was racing around like a complete lunatic after his bath. DH commented that he was going to have a heart attack (the dog is elderly). Cute though.

The gardening people are out in full force in our neighbourhood. Weed wackers, chain saws, machines to make holes in the grass, fertilizer spreaders, tree surgeons. You name it. Quite the racket I must say.

The robins are very busy looking for worms on the grass. The big fat American Robins, not the lovely cute little ones in England. They are starting to sit and sing in the trees.

All this spring means we have very, very high pollen levels which are trouble for me. My asthma flares up quite badly, which is a bit of an issue really. I woke this morning with my lungs whistling a tune (wheezing). Of course the pollen is tree pollen like cedar and alder which I am allergic to. Sigh.

Silkie, I watched episode 3 of Below Deck Sailing Yacht last night before I went to sleep. The usual antics! Heaven knows where they find the crew.

I will stop nattering on now.

Love, our cats get the zoomies, especially after they've been fed. One nice thing about cats is that they don't tend to get separation anxiety, just annoyed at the missing staff.

We're at least 4-6 weeks away from any serious garden activity. You really do seem to get spring earlier in the UK.

I get the big, pushy American robins on my feeder, but it's to be expected here. I also get terrible spring allergies, but I have some time before the pollen kicks up here.

Spudpup gets the zoomies in the garden - fortunately not in the house as the house is small and the pup is big. His turning circle is simply not small enough for indoor zoomies. However, outdoors the grass has all sorts of claw marks from when he skids around the corners

DS is currently playing an imaginative game. Sadly, he is imagining throwing bombs around. We have kept the news from him, but I guess perhaps the kids at school have been processing things they’ve heard about in the playground.

Another one who gets spring allergies. I'm allergic to birch pollen. No idea why I moved to Maine, which is full of birch trees...

Zoomies - another fun word for my list . Though Mr. Morose and his wife do not go in for zoomies, but they have thrown some sticks onto the ledge under the gutter.
Perhaps you remember DH's hair clippers? I came home to the clippers loading - next to the outlet, in a metal cooking pot. To prevent damage in case the accu explodes. The thing is still working.

I am in Vancouver where spring always comes early. They don't call it "Lotus Land" for nothing. The Pacific Ocean moderates our weather but also sends us a lot of rain.

As a child I lived in the BC interior where it is much colder. We would visit our grandparents at the Coast. I remember Easter visits where I was amazed at the green grass and blooming flowers.

Just started snowing here.

Lovely painting, Love - what a wonderful view you have!

I did some gardening today because I realised that DH had hacked my spring flowering clematis in order to get to something in the garden. The clematis will have very few flowers this Spring 😥. I managed to get most of the plant as DH had simply cut the stems that were in his way and left them hanging to die and look unsightly. I am not happy.

Today has been another mad work day and I’m left not quite able to string a sentence together - tomorrow doesn’t look good either but at least it’s Friday.

Can’t decide whether to get chip shop chips to go with the slow cooker gammon for DC tea.

Guinea pigs get the zoomies, it's very cute. Mostly it happens when you give them fresh hay, they are very easy to please.

Out for dinner with some friends tonight. It's my third meal out this week - my social life is usually nowhere near this busy.

@Nydj nooo how frustrating!

Nydj The poor clematis!

DH seems to consist of "green thumps" (do you say this in English?) - usually it is 10-14 days for riccola to show. His are four days old and already 4 cm high, strong and green.

Nydj oh the poor clematis

Prok we say green fingers in English but how impressive!

You are very talented Love , I have zero artistic talent

Thank you for the sympathy for the clematis. DH’s response to my annoyance was to point out that unfortunately, the clematis will not die - it will grow back. He is right in that it is remarkably resilient but still, I was looking forward to a nice display of lightly scented pink flowers this spring before the rose which it is intertwined with bloomed.

I went to the dentist to have an old silver filling taken out and the decay on the other side cleaned out (how did it get decayed there?) and a new white filling put in.

Nydj, can you get a replacement from a nursery/garden center?

Sliver fillings errode over time, allowing bacteria to get into the tooth structure.

Most of the snow has melted off the reservoir and we have a least one duck couple visiting.

DS is supposed to drive home from uni on Saturday but the weather forecast isn't great (rain changing to snow) so we're going to call him tonight to talk about options. He has to be out of his dorm on Saturday so it might mean a hotel room for the night and then doing the drive on Sunday.

Miss a replacement clematis wouldn’t really flower well this year and by that time, our hackedclematis will have recovered enough to put on a similar show.

I hope the weather improves for your son’s drive home this weekend.

Nydj I feel your pain - my husband (who doesn't have green fingers) once hacked my clematis almost to the ground. I was incandescent, but the following year it flowered better than ever. I live how gardening teaches us patience

Some years ago I had a most unfortunate conversation involving a clematis and the frightfully proper church warden. Even now I get a hot, burning feeling of shame when I think about it, and till the day we moved out referred to the clematis as "the climbing plant"

In other news, we have pulled out of our house purchase. I am sad, but the relief is enormous. I'm already in bed and feel completely ready to sleep for about 18 hours