Sunday 29th January 2023 - Recording, Increase in Temperature and Battery Recycling

I made the recording for my website, Clifftop Publishing, mentioned in my blog for 21st January. This is now posted on ‘The Author Reads’ page. I chose to read an excerpt from Betrayal, one of the short stories in my book, Truths and Lies. In the past, I recorded part of one of my other books, On the Verge, for an online broadcast. I tend to get tongue tied in places, but then I am not a professional broadcaster. Hopefully, as I complete more recordings, I will get over this.

At last, the frosts have gone. It was getting to be a bit tiresome waking every day to a white out. Yes, we did enjoy some glorious sunshine but with an increase in temperature, I have been able to get out in the garden and also sow some seeds. I have trimmed the honeysuckle, a job I put off earlier in the month, and prepared an area for some new plants, ordered from a specialist grower in Lincolnshire. Normally, by this time of the year, at least one of our camelias would have produced a flower but currently there are no signs of any buds breaking. The snowdrops in our garden are later too. Some are out on the verge at the top of Carr Lane and there are a few in flower on what we term as, the snowdrop walk. The area where the winter heliotrope usually flowers in profusion, on the cliff, are fighting back after large amounts of garden rubbish as well as turves where disposed of on top of them. I had to search this morning to find a decent spike of blooms to photograph and include in my blog. Although no longer resident in the village a water diviner told us, winter heliotrope thrives where there is an underground water course and this is certainly the case where the Overstrand Hotel once stood, now favoured as a tip for garden refuse!

Batteries are always a bit of pain to dispose of, especially as we rarely shop in supermarkets where there are receptacles for old batteries. Therefore, we were pleased to read we can now put spent batteries in a clear plastic bag, tie this up and leave on top of either our grey or green bins and Serco will collect and recycle them. There are certain restrictions as to what will be collected with full details on NNDC’s website.