30 March 2019

The new Climbing Roses .... Six on Saturday

Following on from building the pergolas and summerhouse late last year (see posts passim), over the winter and early spring we've sourced and planted the new climbing roses.

And since there just happens to be six of them, I thought I'd use the opportunity to join in with the Six on Saturday brigade for the first time, a theme hosted every week by The Propagator and which is one of the gardening blogs I read regularly. The SoS links are the source of much inspiration around the garden.

However, since I'm not a particularly prolific blogger, I'll likely only be a very occasional contributor to this community.

But, on with the chosen roses.

At the base of both trellis panels on the pergola at the rear of the house, we've used 2x Climbing Icebergs to provide an all-white display over this structure, which frames the view from the kitchen window.  These are pot-grown specimens which were planted in the early autumn of last year, so they're the most established of all the new roses.






23 March 2019

Cost of Car Ownership over 9 years ...

We've just replaced our 15-year old car, which we've owned for the last 9 years.   It was just about on its last legs, was going to cost a fortune to keep on the road for another year, and it effectively had zero residual value when we got rid of it.  

Still, it's been a good workhorse for us, had carried tonnes of stuff and taken us many times on very long journeys both in the UK and across mainland Europe.

Anyway, I thought I'd take a look at what this car had actually cost us during the time we owned it, and so here's the summary spreadsheet (click on it for a larger image) :-