Sunday 6th August - sowing seeds - hope over experience?

 In the sunny gaps between the showers I have been sowing seeds again. The chard and kohl rabi seeds are in module trays in the mini plastic greenhouse (Huw Richards says to put them on a sunny windowsill, but in the past a huge number of little black flies appeared). The lettuce seeds are 3 to a 1 litre pots, which is what the RHS Wisley did when they were testing slug repellents, and are in the ancient perforated-mesh-because-the-plastic-disappeared 'greenhouse'. We shall see.

The RHS experiment tested copper tape and rings, grit, eggshell, wool pellets and bark, and none of it was any better than no protection! That's cheerful news (not).

We had some merriment and fun in the after-church chatty zoom, discussing slug pubs, coffee grounds (thank you for the suggestion in the comments yesterday, ElizabethD ) and even one idea from RHS or somewhere to have a 'slugs are welcome' zone to encourage hedgehogs. The last time I saw a hedgehog around here was about ten years ago.

How would the slugs know where 'their' lettuce patch was? It would save them the hassle of climbing up the sides of my pots if they knew where to go. I wondered about making a beery path for them to follow.   

Enough of the slugs!

While I was out there I saw a Red Admirable (for that is the original name for them)

wikipedia states that they are a 'calm' butterfly; this one was rested on the tangle of rampant rose and jasmine against a fence for about twenty minutes before moving on.

I have been walking Hadrian's Wall, all 90 miles of it, no cheating with buses or taxis. Oh, I missed a word out of that statement. I have been virtually walking Hadrian's Wall. It is a computer - app? website, anyway, that you sign up to, and purchase a route. Then it's up to you. If you are travelling on foot you just enter your step count or distance, if you are exercising in some other way like working out, dance, exercise class, you can convert your activity to a step count. Best Beloved and the offspring only enter distances if they go out for a walk - I put in my daily total step count.

When you make an entry, your little marker moves along the map, and you can see what the view is like. I wasn't sure what to expect in the way of scenery. In the event it was mostly bleak moorland, with the occasional house or farm

(You can see someone else's marker up ahead)

Finally I reached the end on the Western Coast;

As you can see, the tide was a long way out (when the google maps van drove past!)

I received my completion medal yesterday;

 

  I've gathered a bit of a collection since 2020. I am still aiming for a step count of 2500 per day while I make up my mind where to go next... swim the channel? climb Everest? Yosemite? who knows...