Archive for category house
new garden fence
Now this weekend, whilst still recovering, I get quick bursts of DIY done.
Today the fence and sowing grass, as we decided to have no veggies this year.
Sunday Column (25)
Posted by Volker in house, personal, Sunday Column on August 16, 2009
Oh dear, this week was full of swine
2 if not 3 of my work colleagues went home and 2 came down with the flu. You already know how paranoid I am, so it didn’t help. Still feeling ok, however having a sore throat and itchy ears. The curry on Saturday night surely helped to get any viruses out of my body – I hope so anyway

Vodafone exchange my Blackberry Bold within 24 hours and the new one runs fine. Either Ubertwitter caused a crash on the system, which I doubt, or the first one was faulty. Not sure. Fingers crossed! The new one is working so well, I absolutely love it. Will write a review at some point. Need to insure that the Bold though, don’t want to pay for one, in case anything happens to this one. I am far from having installed a lot of programmes but just for my emails, Facebook and Twitter, it is great
I know, I will install more programmes, but currently I think a lot about complexity in life. But I write about that later this week on Thursday!
Then, I bought myself an ugly and awful alarm clock. Just because I am used to 2 alarms, I decided to buy the cheapest digital alarm clock there was on Amazon. I love their horrible alarm ring tones and its red colour
Hilarious! 
Other than that not much happened this week. Things have been busy but ok at work and we made progress with some clients. Things are picking up and I am getting more into a routine. Saying that, I don’t enjoy my Tai Chi as much as I have to and would prefer to do something more active. However, my left knee is hurting – for no apparent reason – and I am wondering if should go and see a doctor after all. Hmm, decisions decisions.
Our son has been growing massively. They say that they now put on 1 kilo a month. Wow, he will be really big soon! We went to Sidcup on Saturday and he pooed whilst we were in heavy traffic. It took us a while until we could change him and boy, it was a huge mess. But we managed. He managed to get through a few sets of cloths on Saturday but luckily slept well all night. So overall, I am really pleased with the way he grows up and we grow to coping with things. I try to take care of him most Sunday mornings just so that my wife can have a lay in. This time becomes really special for me, I enjoy feeding him, sitting in the living room and playing with Colin. Normally, whilst he naps, I manage to get a coffee and my blog posts done
In our garden I found tomatoes and what looks like melons growing. Surely they are courgettes that will change their shape later but sometimes I wonder. Never grew melons or tomatoes. Again, I need to update you on the garden. But with the weather being so poorly, I haven’t had much time but cutting the grass and tidying up a bit.
Next weekend we hope to finish the renovating in the living room. Would be good to actually have that done and then think how we might change things around and whether we get more furniture in or leave it less busy. Shall keep you posted on that one too.
To finish up a nice week, we had visitors on Sunday and a nice diner. Have a great week!
Sunday Column (24)
Posted by Volker in house, personal, Sunday Column on August 9, 2009
This week was dominated by my thoughts on customer service and me getting increasingly annoyed with Vodafone. However, it came to a good end on Friday when my new Blackberry Bold arrived.
I am very happy with the device, but had to completely reinstall the system on Saturday already just because some applications didn’t seem to run on it. Shame. And, the same happened again on Sunday. I am thinking of a certain application causing it and will try to eliminate that before I might have to send the device back
Hope not. However, at the time of writing I have tried to re-install the software twice unsuccessfully and will soon give up. I guess it is a device fault – shame but nothing I can change. I will call Vodafone tomorrow and get a replacement one, whilst I go back my beloved Nokia 6300 for another few days.
The Bold’s Wi-Fi function is great, surfing at home is just so much easier! Only drawback, and of course I knew that, is that you don’t get many applications for Blackberry. Particularly if you cannot download the “application loader” or “Blackberry Maps” because your device does not have the requirements needed. How can that happen if it is a brand new phone? As you see, I am still playing with it, and I keep you posted!
On Monday I met with my old work colleague for a few pints and had a proper catch up. Good to see that he is enjoying his new job and things are going well for him. On Wednesday I met a current work colleague and we went to have a nice whiskey and a catch up. So this week turned out to be quite social.
Thursday was a mad dash to Tai Chi after work and after visiting the BBC worldwide studies, trying myself as a TV presenter
Friday was a mad dash to a nice massage, realising that the muscles around my knee are so tight and hence I have the pain in my knee. Nevertheless I signed up for a 5 kilometer run with work in September. But after the DIY this weekend, I will have to cancel that.
The highlight of the week was my wife decorating the living room. Not only was it great to watch her doing it
– whilst I was babysitting – but more so we realised that we have nice floorboards underneath the carpet. That means I don’t have to put down laminate flooring, or we don’t have to get someone in to do it either. It saves us a few pennies and hassle. Means, if things work out, we can have a wooden floor in a few weeks already. We will publish pictures shortly.
I have a new theme on my blog too, not sure if you noticed it
I went back to a two column theme as this is much nicer and tidier and found. Let me know what you think.
That’s all for today. I believe it will be a busy week ahead, and one with me being connected on the go again….if the machine keeps running
Garden Update
Here are a few pictures taken last weekend of our garden. The sun unfortunately killed some plants but overall we are happy with it. We are getting somewhere. The cats still dig up stuff and we need to get the onions and tatties out of the soil, but already had lovely raspberries
- blackberry
- broccoli
- herbs and wine
- high grass for cats
- own raspberry
- Scottish Thistle
- veggies – potatoes onions corgettes beans
garden pictures
It has been a while since I updated you with pictures of the garden. So here we go, I made them much smaller than the originals, hopefully the quality is good enough.
We bought a few new plants and flowers to put in the garden, so here are the results. I am sure my wife will take more pictures.
I particularly like the hedgehog house and the picture with all the new plants, including the lovely blue flowering one, the roses and the eucalyptus. I hope they all survive and grow into an even more lovely garden. Also notice the veggies, which have come a long way since I first started.
- new flowers under our tree
- gnome Christian and his new flowers
- Hedgehog House
- Veggies
- lovely new plants
- finished – me tidying up
DIY Update
Here is a DIY update, the stairway from or to heaven
Update in pictures
I thought I relax your eyes from reading about my life with some lovely pictures
Now, let me explain all of them a bit:
1) That is the first dead mouse our lovely kittens brought home.
2) You remember we are renovating. We managed to paint half the stairs today, so fingers crossed we finish them tomorrow.
3) Our strawberries and real Scottish Thistle.
4) I was writing about my veggies a couple times before, they are growing like mad now.
5) Back last summer we planted wine. It is coming along fine now. Along with the dill next to it and I can spot a ginger tail
6) and 7) is a view over our “end of garden fence” to show you what it looks like. Allotments in Beckenham.
My wife Jenny…..in front of our wee house and with a wee man inside her
9) This is our dining room. We finally turned it 90 degrees and removed the old dirty Ikea carpet we got for our old flat.
garden and veggie update
As promised the garden and veggie update with a picture gallery:
- Garden gnome, tulips and lavender
- Scottish Thistle and English Wine
- Another Scottish Thistle and tulips
- berry field in front of veggie bed
- salad, onions, tatties….all growing
- who spots the cat (Hansel) in the tree?
Let me know what you think,
Volker
veggies continued….
Posted by Volker in family, food & drink, house, personal on March 14, 2009
It is so nice when you are on the road to get a text message from your wife about how well your veggies are doing.


































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