Wednesday 5th June 2024 - Warmest on Record, In the Night Garden, Seasonal Packing, Meeting at the Garden Centre and Yarn Art

According to the media, this May was the warmest on record.  Really?  At times, the media may spout out a lot of twaddle and tosh but in this case, they were correct.  When calculating the averages, night time temperatures are included and during May apparently these were relatively high, pushing up the overall average.  I can’t vouch for May but on Monday night I was out in the garden at three in the morning, in my nightdress, and it was not cold.  In case you are wondering whether my enthusiasm for slug hunting has extended into the early hours of the morning, then I can assure you, the answer is no.  I have not gone completely round the bend……yet!  We were woken by the sound of a cat fight and concerned our Sid may be being assaulted, I decided to investigate.  As it was the yowling was coming from farther afield, nothing I could intervene on, so I returned to bed and hoped Sid would not come home bloodied and scratched; which thankfully he didn’t.

Other years, by now, I would have taken out some of my summery clothes from the storage boxes they were packed away in last year.  Not so this year; it hasn’t felt warm enough (I do feel the cold) and they have remained stowed away, that was until Monday when I retrieved them.  All my summer wear is now in drawers and on hangers and with the washing and drying of my thicker fleeces and jumpers completed, they have replaced them in the storage boxes. This is definitely a step in the right direction, towards warmer weather when I can wear shorts and summer dresses again.  As they say ‘bring it on’.

The Overstrand Gardening Club met at the Garden Centre yesterday afternoon for a behind the scenes insight as to how the centre operates.  General manager, Gary, led the tour during which he told us; most of the plants were UK sourced (a lot from Lincolnshire), the area which generated the highest sales (just inside the entrance), the taking over of running the café and extending the seating area, seasonal changes (they won’t be having any more deliveries of summer bedding plants this year), the reason for no longer growing plants from seeds (profit margins too low), the centre’s highest overheads (staff wages with ten full-time and two part-time, including those in the café) and the need to double up watering stock plants (because nearly all potting composts are peat free).  We finished up at the shop after which tea and cake was available in the café.  There was such a good turnout of members, I doubted we would all get seated so I opted out of the refreshements.  Instead, I walked back into the centre and by the time I got to the cashout, nine plants managed to jump into my basket – now how did that happen!

Walking home I stopped to take a couple of photos of members of the Yarn Art Group, yarn bombing the gates of the Sports Field.  I won’t say too much about this now as I plan to go back and take a closer look and maybe do a bit of filming for my next vlog.  In the meantime, here are a couple of photos with members fixing the yarn to the gate’s scrolls.