It's not a potting bench 😡

 We have a patio area in the corner of the garden, with a small table, 4 chairs and a small 2-seater bench, it's a real sun trap.  Unfortunately, husband uses it as a work area - almost every day he shoves the chairs out of the way, mixes up compost in his wheelbarrow there, dropping it all over the patio (and rarely sweeps it up, unless I specifically ask him to).  He uses the table to sow seeds and pot on veg plants, covering the table with compost, which annoys me - I've told him numerous times lately that the table is for food and drink, it's not a potting bench!!  I've also asked him to put the chairs back where he found them, and pick up and put away all the tools he leaves scattered all over them....in short, not to use it as a working area!  There's a perfectly good concreted space behind his tool shed that he could use instead - the reason he doesn't is that it doesn't get as much sun and he is a sun lover.  Well hard luck, I've put my foot down now and told him firmly I'm not having him working on and mucking up my patio area anymore, it's for sitting, relaxing and eating.  No doubt I'll have to remind him again in due course.  I think the only way he'll take notice of me is if I write a sign in great big letters:  "KEEP OFF!!".  When I'm potting up plants I've just bought, I do it on top of his plastic tool store, it's the right height and right beside the water butt and outside tap.  And the plastic store is easy to clean off afterwards.  As I often think to myself, if I had a £ for every time I have to repeat something to him, I'd be a millionaire in no time.

I bought and potted up some more flowering plants yesterday, I did say I wasn't going to buy any annuals or bedding plants this year, but can't resist the urge to have pots filled with flowers.  Things like petunias and pelargoniums bloom all summer long, as long as they're deadheaded and watered regularly.  Our neighbour puts her pelargoniums (she's got lots of red ones at the front) in the car port over winter and they all survive, some even flowering still, no doubt because of our mild weather down here.  So maybe I'll do the same with the pelargoniums I've bought, I doubt the petunias will survive the winter.  It's obviously going to be a good year for poppies, they're springing up everywhere, including in the gravel at the front of the house, and I spotted several in husband's shallots raised bed, he claimed he hadn't noticed them (he obviously wasn't looking!).

That's another thing I've noticed with husband lately - he's oblivious to a lot of things, things that are right under his nose.  He only sees what he's specifically looking for, it's like everything else is invisible.

Going to do a freezer top up shop today, the frozen veg drawer is almost empty and I need more fish.  I also like to have a good stock of things like meat and veggie burgers, fish fingers, rolls, pizzas and puff pastry in the freezer for quick and easy meals when I don't feel like cooking.