Lawn Care

I’m back at Filey today and staying for seven days rather than my normal four.  On past visits on my own I’ve found four to be the optimum period, balancing the freedom I feel on holiday on my own with the homesickness.  I’m only here for seven days due to a booking mistake, but I’m also interested to see whether I can find a way to reduce the homesickness, it’s going to be an interesting experiment, because if I ever decide to do any long distance hikes I might need to be away from home for at least this long.

Breaking the routine of last weeks Beach Terrace Cafe mornings, I went back to Caffe Nero today and it was nice to see the regulars again, I find Caffe Nero more friendly than the Beach Terrace Cafe, but it doesn’t have the views or the range of foods, a mix of the two is probably best.  I popped into St Annes Timber on the way home and arranged for a re-delivery of the wood that they missed from last weeks order, that’s coming on Tuesday.  I was back at home by 10am because I’d arranged to meet the agent from Tom Thumb lawn treatments, he arrived a bit late, but he was a really nice guy and gave the lawn a good inspection, took some cores from different areas of the lawn and talked me through the issues.  Basically the lawn is in very poor condition, the soil is very compacted and it’s holding any moisture at all, he says that water probably runs off it, rather than soaking into it and we’ve certainly seen that happening.  Every core he took from even slightly raised areas of the lawn was bone dry, even though it’s recently rained.  His prescription was a mix of soapy water, aeration, scarifying, weed and feed.  The soapy water is key, apparently this reduces the surface tension and over time water will start to penetrate the lawn.  He also said to raise the mower blades to about at inch, which from the research that I’ve done probably means that we are better off with a rotary mower, rather than the lovely little push cylinder mower that we have, although a rechargeable rotary mower would probably be as convenient.  I will ask at the local mower shop for advice.

Leaving home a bit later made for a very relaxed morning and I also got to see Jennie and Anna again, which was nice, Anna is moving around reasonably well today although she still has a few days of pain to work through.  I left at just past twelve and had an incredibly smooth drive across country, stocked up at Morrison’s in Bridlington and was settled in an unpacked by five.  I’m staying in the same apartment as usual, always comfortable, but today there was one BIG difference, a strong mobile phone signal!!!  I’ve got my laptop and iPad tethered to the phone and both are working great, what a difference!  I can even make phone calls from within the apartment, just this one small change is going to make me less homesick.

It was close to high tide when I arrived so I just had time for an hours walk along the beach before it became impassable, but it was wonderful, Filey beach never gets boring, especially today as there were so many crabs, starfish and other interesting debris at the tide line, fascinating stuff.

I’ve watched the first episode of Fringe today (third time)  but I’ve only watched most of the episodes once before, already I know it’s a great decision as there’s so much going on in every show that I’m already revelling in all the little details I’ve previously missed.  I’d like to watch another episode, but the beach is drawing me down again and it’s, dark, I love the beach in the dark.  I’m going to be chatting to Debbie on the phone too, which is a special treat.

Update:

I’m back from my walk and what a stunning walk it was, I got to see the streetlights of Flamborough reflected off the low clouds, saw the lightning out to sea, watched a storm front rolling in, got a little drenched and watched a toad by phone light.  Just after I got back ‘home’ and put my wet gear on the radiators to dry, I got to watch through the open patio doors a superb torrential rainfall and I got to chat to Debbie too – what a great night, which is going to finish off with another episode of Fringe.

The photo on today’s post is the view of Scarborough that I see as I’m walking in from my favourite free parking spot, I’m going there tomorrow – can’t wait!!