A Simple Life of Luxury | Weblog

Borage 0

Garden Flowers

It’s another gorgeous day here, clear blue skies, a light breeze and currently 19ºC. Yesterday it reached 24.5ºC, which although it felt hot wasn’t the hottest day of the year so far as we hit 25.3ºC in June 3rd. It’s a shame we have to work on a day like this, but I have just...

Family Gathering 0

Family Gathering

We’ve just got back from a weekend away in Gloucestershire. We drove down in the pouring rain on Friday evening to my parents house, had dinner there and chilled for the evening. Saturday was a cool grey day, so I went for a run whilst Anna and Morgan lazed around for a bit, then we...

Day Lily 0

Day Lily

The first of our Day Lillies came out on Thursday – Nice to see a splash of brightness on a grey day.

Bees in the Hive 4

A New Queen has Risen

Some good news on the bee front at last. The first of our colonies to swarm was the one from the hive we have called Leri. We lost the swarm so the queen from this hive disappeared over the horizon along with half the colony, leaving us with depleted numbers in the hive, no queen...

Early Morning Bees 0

So, what are our bees doing now?

We had hoped that after catching and re-housing a swarm from one of our hives that things in the apiary would settle down. The colony in the strongest hive had now been split into three: A colony in the original hive with a queen cell An ‘artificially swarmed’ colony with queen cells in a nuc...

Hill Reps 1

Hill Reps

A part of my training my ‘coach’ has prescribed some hill reps to spice up my running and help build some strength. I was quite looking forward to them really as it all helps add some variety to the training sessions and gives me a bit of a challenge. They were supposed to be 75...

Triple Nuc Box 2

Swarm Housed in a Triple Nuc Box

Another day and yet more beekeeping. Hopefully that’s all the intervention they’ll need for today though. After catching the swarm from Clettwr yesterday it was housed in a temporary plastic nuc box overnight. We have run out of suitable equipment to accommodate any more colonies so borrowed a triple nuc box contraption from Ann. Essentially...

The bees they are a swarming! 1

The bees they are a swarming!

Clettwr, the hive that I performed an artificial swarm on last week in an attempt to prevent them from swarming has – you’ve guessed it – swarmed today. So much for the artificial swarm, I obviously didn’t do it right. Our neighbours phoned me just after 10am to say the bees were out and about...

A Happy Camper 2

Vango Icarus 600 Tent Review

Our new Vango Icarus 600 6 man tent arrived on Friday. So, as is customary, we had to set it up in the garden over the weekend and sleep in it. We did so on Saturday which, also in customary style, turned out to be a wet and very windy night – Perfect tent testing...

Fresh from the garden 0

Strawberries from the garden

We’ve managed to beat the birds to some of the soft fruit from the garden at last! Anna bought a single strawberry plant a couple of years ago and it has gradually been spreading around a small area of the garden. We have had strawberries on them before but had only managed to eat one...