Good intentions

I had good intentions for the weekend it being a Bank Holiday. Saturday I went with H to Wales. We went to Conway and had a look round the castle. I have been to Conway dozens of times. When I used to sail the yacht we used was moored at Conway marina but I don't think I have every toured round one of Edward I's "Iron ring" of castles. Click HERE for a website. We also took a walk round the city walls and treated ourselves to an ice cream.

I had to do the trailer run on Sunday morning. I also said I would give Steve a hand wrangling some big paving stones from his trailer to his plot. Steve made a brew so we repaired to the bench on the plot and had a chat. We sat for ages just chewing the fat and watching the birds flitting about.

H has been going on about outdoor rooms. In a weak moment I agreed to build a "wall" for the room. H also has this thing about doors into gardens. I went off to B&Q and bought some posts, meta-posts and panels. I used four post to make a gateway of the decking into the garden. Between the pair of posts on either side of the "gate" I fixed a trellis. I dug in a scaffold board to form an edge to the lawn and the flower bed. I then planted four vertical posts along the scaffold boards and screwed them to it. To the posts I screwed more trellis. I made it all vertical, level and square. The edge of the trellis finishes a foot from the boundary fence. There is a really nice Rose that grows in the hedge. I wrestled the straggly Rose branches down to the trellis and tied it in. At the bottom the trellis I dug a trench, filled it with manure from the lottie and back filled it. I also added some mesh along the bottom of the trellis to help the Sweet Pea that H is to plant later in the week.

In the few minutes before Tea I knocked together a frame that was going to be part of the support for the new bee hives. I painted it with waterproofer and left it overnight. I loaded Degsy up with the tools for building the hive stand tomorrow. H made a smashing dinner of Steak accompanied by a nice bottle of wine from the shed.

Monday was a Bank Holiday. I had a lie in for a change. The first one for ages. I had to see the bees but the heavy showers made it hot and miss affair. In the end I just went even though it was raining. By the time I got to the apiary the shower had passed. It took a few minutes to decide where to put the new stand. Having made the decision I banged in four meta-post as legs. I was about to screw the deck to the legs when a shower blew. I sat in Degsy and read a few pages of my book. When the rain passed I screwed the deck to the legs, checked the level and tidied up. I judged that no showers would be on me anytime soon. I got dressed for bee fettling then set about opening hive. The ladies are taking in a good amount of honey. The brood chamber is getting full. That means the queen is working well. There is quite a bit of brace comb so the bees want to build wax comb. I took a spare brood chamber with me and decided to put it on the hive. I hope it might stop the hive swarming. As the bees are building comb and there will be lots of young bees soon and they to will want to build comb the brood box of foundation should give them something to do. I reassembled the hive and topped up the feeder. As I was leaving I bumped into the farmer in whose meadow the hives live. We had a chat for ten minutes or so until a shower had us running for cover. I trundled home and parked Degsy up for another week.

I did a few things this weekend but got nothing done at the lottie despite my good intentions.