[FLYING BANANA]

.................................... certainly lifted my spirits in these troubled times. A doctors receptionist walks by every day to and from the surgery. Well yesterday she stopped and said that she loves walking past my house just to look at the flowers. Often looks over the gate to the back garden. She wants me to go and tend her garden, to get the colours back into her garden. Hopefully she was joking. My gardens are hard enough for me to keep in order.

I opened the back gate and let her walk in. She asked if it was ok to take a few photos to show her work colleagues and her husband. Ok with me. She then thanked me and continued onto work.
There is an elderly couple who often walk past, the lady is in the early stages of Dementia. Her husband walks her to the Spar shop and home everyday just to jog her memory. They often stop and look into the garden. I have invited them in but they have declined the invitation. But the lady always says hello to me.

My neighbour Gerry, across the road, is a caretaker at a school here in Saltash and at the height of the lockdown was kindly taking my garden rubbish to tip on the schools compost heap. Last weekend him and his school team set about trimming the 32 oak trees in the schools ground. They had chainsaws and a chipper. So with a friend who has a tipper, the Ford Transit type, brought home a load of wood clippings to put on the garden. What was left over was mine to have and use. So armed with a bucket I shovelled it up and there was enough to cover my two front gardens.

My other neighbour, who lives next door, and I have stopped parking our cars under the tree which overlooks our parking spaces. The perishing tree is dropping seeds and leaves along with sap and making the cars grubby.
Bill parks his car, a Peugeot, around the back by the garages. And I have slotted the Bear into behind Banana. I’m trying to contact the council about the tree to get it cut back, but no joy at the moment. T’other neighbour, Jane, had contacted the council awhile back and was waiting on someone to come and look. Well, we are still waiting. And now we have a horrendous storm and that is causing the tree to bend.
The winds reached 70mph on Tuesday. It is currently gusting up to 40mph.

Chris65 tell Pam I’m still using my duvet pegs. I often think about the meals we used to have in the Millstone/Windmill in Hinckley. Maybe one day we can have a reunion there. Will need to get Steve to put something together.

My friends who are coming down in September have had to change the dates, still hoping to come down next week on September 1st but even that’s on hold as Terry’s mum is “at end of life” in hospital in Romford Essex. So Terry and Sue are staying at his mum and dad’s house in North Woolwich, East London. Will have to wait and see if they are going to be up to visiting. I’ve had to put another friend off from visiting till October. Hoping they will be able to come down then.

Roger has gone back to meet up with his family at there holiday home in the West Indies. He went with very short notice, so our second meet up has not happened. Although I’m still hoping to meet up with Elizabeth and family next month. Roger has friends in high places and managed to get a seat on a private jet that was flying out from Gatwick. He phoned me the night before he went. He said he felt like a big kid going on his first flight. Not seen his family since February. I wished him well and hoped we can meet up again. He said he was hoping to bring the family over for Elizabeth’s wedding next year.

Roger’s businesses have been closed up, hotels and a chain of bars, since the pandemic started. Brazil has the biggest death toll from COVID-19. He kept his most loyal staff on to maintain the various properties. But even now he has had to let them go. He said he felt very sad about the decision but with no money coming in, the wage bill was biting into his funds. As, and when, the country gets back on its feet he will re-employ those that want to come back.

I’m waiting on the weather to calm down as I want to take down the eyesore or better known as the green house. It is a wasted space. It was built by the previous owner and sits long the end of the garage’s. It’s well constructed, it’s not moved even with this current storm going on. I intend to fill the holes in with soil then get a lawn laid on top. Might plant a few climbers on some trellises.
My Clematis, “Star of India”, has started to flower. Happy with that. The gladioli have suffered in these high winds. Most of the stems have snapped off.
My Canna Lily only had one flower last year, but this year we have 5 flowering stems.

The Poppys have flowers but the wind has taken the petals off. But I have planted out more Poppies in the front gardens, 1200 seeds in fact. So a few flowers should come up.
Now in the house my downstairs is all open plan. The only doors are the front and patio doors. I kept thinking that it looked too open. So I have had a change round. Moved the two leather armchairs forward so they are halfway between the wall and telly.
Then I stripped down the two large upright display units that were in the dining room, it is a separate part that is built onto the side of the house.

And manoeuvred them into the lounge, hard work on my own. But I managed it. With both units empty, they house my Rolls-Royce and Bentley model collection. I then set about giving them a clean, first clean they have had in 4 years. Sides, back and door are all glass along with the shelves. Used a glass cleaner called “Astonish” along with kitchen towel. Quite surprised how well it worked. Going to put some lighting in at some point.

The dining room has two dining room chairs along with a drop leaf table in there. My two printers are on the table, still using it has my office for club orders.
Now the drop leaf table was bought by my Dad from a, then unknown, furniture shop called “Courts”. They went on to be a massive chain till one recession bit too hard and they went out of business. The table has been taken apart a couple of times. Once to put it up in the loft back in Barkingside, and taken apart to move it to Cornwall. Absolutely nothing wrong with it. When it gets a polish it still looks like new.
Now Dad retired in 1972 and he bought the table before he left Post Office Telephones or BT as it is known now. So it has to be at least 50 years old.

Both cars are behaving themselves. Still using Banana on shortish trips but she did trip over onto 210,000 miles last week. Bear is still running ok and gets to into England from time to time.
Got two trips planned before the year is out. One trip is up to Birmingham and t’other trip is to Kent. The annual trip to the IOW has been postponed for this year. Not worth going as November through to March is when COVID-19 will rear it’s ugly head.

So we have been here for 14 months and 13 days.

Definitely No Going Back Ever.

Thanks for reading and the kind comments.

Will post up some photos at some point.