Cactus in Recovery

I “inherited” a number of plants from the Foxe pack when they made their move to USA.

@foxeinsocks despaired of this one, it seems to have had an attack of leprosy.

But, after a week or so on the cactus windowsill, taking in the sun, a new, green sprout has appeared.

Just taking a look around

		Garden in August VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Almost as soon as the Foxe pack left, the good weather returned and the garden has begun to forgive me for the neglect it suffered last month.

The montbretia was being thrown out by a neighbour in favour of a cobblelock driveway, about three years ago. Now thriving in the Baskerville Manor parklands.

The summer lilac is a blow-in.  The fuchsia was in the bargain bucket in Tesco with about one leaf. 5 years later, also thriving at Baskerville Manor.

Love seat

So what do you buy in the middle of the wettest July since, well, the last wet July?  A garden seat of course.

Here we are enjoying a spot of evening monsoon on the new loveseat, which is covered with a car blanket (or whatever you call those things fussy people throw over their beloved vehicles) to keep the rain from rolling down our backs

Just taking a look around

It’s been a really soggy summer and the garden has not had the best attention. Baskerville Manor did get some shrub donations from the Foxe family garden and we are hoping they will take.  Fingers crossed.

One advantage of having an undisturbed garden and garden shed is that a robin family has taken up residence – here’s mum (or dad?) on the roof,and one of the juniors perched on the sun lounger that has not as yet been used for any other purpose this year.

Alien spores? Triffids?

These wierd looking things are the first shoots from the clump of red lilies I split last year. Unfortunately some of the other pieces planted elsewhere fell victim to canine excavation procedures. Good reason for keeping the favourite plants in containers, out of reach of the hounds :)

The garden survived the winter

Finally have a little time to check out the back garden plants. I'm really pleased to see the winter survivors coming back into action.

The piano that needs a good home

We have a Hemme & Long upright. Inside, the only number I can find is 87. It is never used, and is really too big for my small house, so we are hoping to find somebody who would be interested in taking it away and taking good care of it.

The pictures attached should give you an idea of its outward condition – not bad, needs attention from a good French polisher – there are some small pieces of trim that have come off, but I’ve still got them. The keys and pedals are all in working order and the only fault I can find with it is that the music stand tends to catch in the lid when it is down. It has not been used for several years and will certainly need to be tuned.

Hemme & Long is a San Francisco based piano manufacturer that stopped trading sometime in the 1890’s so this piano is at least 100 years old. If it could speak it could tell stories to us about how it got from San Francisco to Dublin, how many owners it has had, the songs sung around it, the musical styles interpreted on it, the various skills of its owners. I can’t help thinking of the person who first bought it, their excitement when they opened the lid and played it for the first time.. and what they might make of it turning up in a digital photograph, posted on the internet.

Do you know anybody who would be interested in taking it? We would be happy with a donation to this charity : http://www.mycharity.ie/event/jennyclimbskili/ - the lady intending to climb Kilimanjaro is the owner of the piano. We thought it might be too much to ask her to drag the piano behind her.

I’ve already posted about this on Adverts.ie but the grinches in charge removed the post. 

Here are some things you will need to consider:

The location is Dublin North Side. This is a full-size upright piano, so it’s about 4.5 feet high, 2.5 feet deep and 5.5. feet wide. Moving it will require at least 3 strong men, a van and some kind of board or ramp to get it down the front step and up into the van. 

If you are interested, please email me at itsdd2@live.ie