More Rain...
So more tasks to be completed indoors later today perhaps.
I may have a ride to a shopping centre and see if I can find some shrubs I saw in a pound store that sadly had been allowed to dry out. If I find some in good condition they may be good enough to put around my back garden in front of the fences after they've been painted. Some have green foliage, others bloom a couple of times throughout the year and they all only cost £1 each. I could do that trip today.
I also have the capability now to take cuttings and have the hormone rooting powder to help being them on. So I have a few ideas. Shrubs can and do shoot away amazingly quickly.
I did a machine wash yesterday and placed one of those colour catching sheets in the drum. It turned very blue. Even with that sheet I think I have had a colour run and a white checked shirt and a pair of white underpants are now blue. But its not a problem and they still look OK and as I purchased the shirt in a charity shop for 99p I don't really care. A white with blue patterning has also turned totally blue too. Well the pattern is darker than the blue that has now invaded the white areas.
My friend Andrea has given me an idea that using a laundry wash bag with it having a kind of net filter that can also stop colour runs happening. Its the first time for me. Not bad for three years of washing in a machine and its never before when I have washed clothes by hand.
Update:On the spur of the moment I travelled to a town that was often compared to my own and started around the same time called Peterlee. More for the ride as much as anything. I have never ever been there before. We're talking decades.
Overall my impression is that there are more green areas there than in my own town and it is spread over a greater area so it doesn't seem as crowded which I found to be a positive aspect. Then again the disadvanatge to that could be that unless there is a good bus service or you have a car, you are unable to move around easily, The retail area was compact but the shops that still remain are all available on my town or branches of the remaining stores can be found nearer to home. There were a lot of empty units. It looked forlorn and neglected. The number of shoppers seemed sparse and the retail area seemed all but deserted. My town's retail area has been invested in and upgraded, But the town seemed pleasing to the eye.
Having said that though my own town's retail centre looks better cosmetically, due to low footfall and high rents there are many retail units that are also empty here and some have been demolished. So we're struggling too.
What was interesting is that from the outskirts of Ferryhill which is 7 miles from here there is a view I often see from the bus to Durham. You can see wind turbines on a distant hill and I found on the way to Peterlee I was almost in touching distance of them. They are on the outskirts of a village called Haswell. You cannot travel there directly so gauging distance is difficult. The distance between Ferryhill and Durham is approx 7 miles and then its approx 9 miles from Durham to Haswell. But I suppose if I could go in a straight line from where the view is, we are talking approx 7-8miles away.
By car I could probably do the journey in 20 minutes from my town but on a bus you have to travel to Durham. And we've already added 7 miles from my town to Ferryhill. With all the stops along the way that journey becomes 90 minutes in total compared to 25 minutes by car, adding another hour and 8 miles from Durham to Haswell.
But I now know where the turbines are and what area I am looking towards. I told a bus driver coming home it was my first visit to Peterlee in my life and he joked "And you'll never go there again" Well, I may in that I will have to use the route to visit other nearby places. Its a long way to go for a few shops not even special.
And I'm not being overly critical as if I lived there I would feel much the same about it as I do where I live now and if I was driving a car or travelling by bus I would be going to places nearby. I'd be almost as close to Durham but nearer the coast. People often say that my town is dead too. I have said it myself. But as I travel I find that can be said of most places, most towns struggle to survive and attract people. Its not easy depending on buses. The journeys take longer, the services don't run as frequently and often finish too early.
During the day most buses only take you to retail areas and the amount of shoppers are down to what they used to be. I don't want to spend money for the sake of it and my income is limited anyhow. If I'm honest I only buy food on a regular bases. You can only eat so much after all. How often do you need to replace furniture or white goods? How many clothes can you wear? I don't even have that many people to buy birthday cards for.
I may have a ride to a shopping centre and see if I can find some shrubs I saw in a pound store that sadly had been allowed to dry out. If I find some in good condition they may be good enough to put around my back garden in front of the fences after they've been painted. Some have green foliage, others bloom a couple of times throughout the year and they all only cost £1 each. I could do that trip today.
I also have the capability now to take cuttings and have the hormone rooting powder to help being them on. So I have a few ideas. Shrubs can and do shoot away amazingly quickly.
I did a machine wash yesterday and placed one of those colour catching sheets in the drum. It turned very blue. Even with that sheet I think I have had a colour run and a white checked shirt and a pair of white underpants are now blue. But its not a problem and they still look OK and as I purchased the shirt in a charity shop for 99p I don't really care. A white with blue patterning has also turned totally blue too. Well the pattern is darker than the blue that has now invaded the white areas.
My friend Andrea has given me an idea that using a laundry wash bag with it having a kind of net filter that can also stop colour runs happening. Its the first time for me. Not bad for three years of washing in a machine and its never before when I have washed clothes by hand.
Update:On the spur of the moment I travelled to a town that was often compared to my own and started around the same time called Peterlee. More for the ride as much as anything. I have never ever been there before. We're talking decades.
Overall my impression is that there are more green areas there than in my own town and it is spread over a greater area so it doesn't seem as crowded which I found to be a positive aspect. Then again the disadvanatge to that could be that unless there is a good bus service or you have a car, you are unable to move around easily, The retail area was compact but the shops that still remain are all available on my town or branches of the remaining stores can be found nearer to home. There were a lot of empty units. It looked forlorn and neglected. The number of shoppers seemed sparse and the retail area seemed all but deserted. My town's retail area has been invested in and upgraded, But the town seemed pleasing to the eye.
Having said that though my own town's retail centre looks better cosmetically, due to low footfall and high rents there are many retail units that are also empty here and some have been demolished. So we're struggling too.
What was interesting is that from the outskirts of Ferryhill which is 7 miles from here there is a view I often see from the bus to Durham. You can see wind turbines on a distant hill and I found on the way to Peterlee I was almost in touching distance of them. They are on the outskirts of a village called Haswell. You cannot travel there directly so gauging distance is difficult. The distance between Ferryhill and Durham is approx 7 miles and then its approx 9 miles from Durham to Haswell. But I suppose if I could go in a straight line from where the view is, we are talking approx 7-8miles away.
By car I could probably do the journey in 20 minutes from my town but on a bus you have to travel to Durham. And we've already added 7 miles from my town to Ferryhill. With all the stops along the way that journey becomes 90 minutes in total compared to 25 minutes by car, adding another hour and 8 miles from Durham to Haswell.
But I now know where the turbines are and what area I am looking towards. I told a bus driver coming home it was my first visit to Peterlee in my life and he joked "And you'll never go there again" Well, I may in that I will have to use the route to visit other nearby places. Its a long way to go for a few shops not even special.
And I'm not being overly critical as if I lived there I would feel much the same about it as I do where I live now and if I was driving a car or travelling by bus I would be going to places nearby. I'd be almost as close to Durham but nearer the coast. People often say that my town is dead too. I have said it myself. But as I travel I find that can be said of most places, most towns struggle to survive and attract people. Its not easy depending on buses. The journeys take longer, the services don't run as frequently and often finish too early.
During the day most buses only take you to retail areas and the amount of shoppers are down to what they used to be. I don't want to spend money for the sake of it and my income is limited anyhow. If I'm honest I only buy food on a regular bases. You can only eat so much after all. How often do you need to replace furniture or white goods? How many clothes can you wear? I don't even have that many people to buy birthday cards for.
posted by The Great Gildersleeve | 1:32 am
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