Summerhouse or Greenhouse?

Well, my order for a small summerhouse from Gardenbuildingsdirect arrived on Monday as requested. Not the best of weather with blustery snow showers and a wind chill down to -10C. Mine was the final load on the lorry and all was eventually stacked on the drive. Then I lugged each piece into the back of the garage to protect it from the weather. While I was doing this I thought there were a lot of sections.

Over the past couple of days I have been checking through trying to match the pieces with the shipping list. There were some large sections which didn't look correct and didn't match anything on the photo on their site:

Photo from Gardenbuildingsdirect site:


So - what are these large items?


Three tall items each with two tall windows. Nope - nothing like that on their illustration.
Ah, what are these I found?



Packing list, hardware and instructions for a greenhouse.
Now it was slowly dawning on my remaining grey cell that I had several pieces of someone elses order for a greenhouse. By the time I had finished a few sessions of checking I found three wide and two narrow sections, two doors, four gable end pieces - all belonging to the greenhouse. I guess there is another Gardenbuildingsdirect customer who is just as annoyed as I was feeling.

Needless to say I have been in touch with Gardenbuildingsdirect and am waiting for them to sort things out. Apart from checking the glazing for my summerhouse the rest seem to be present and correct though the experience so far has been very aggravating to say the least. Especially as all the parts which have nothing to do with my order are now cluttering up my shed.



I will be expecting adequate compensation for my time and trouble sorting out someone elses incompetence in not being able to deliver the right items to the correct address. So far the idea of installing a small summer house cannot be said to have been a pleasant experience. It will all depend on the final outcome. I will keep you informed.

Macro on Monday - Guess What

Congratulations and virtual gold stars to Adrian. TexWisGirl and Wilma who correctly identified last week's Guess What as a piece of rock salt. There has been plenty of that scattered on our roads during this long period of low temperatures.


 

 


This week's macro is part of a rather crunchy but tasty treat from Morocco.
Guess What:

 

No prizes, just for fun.


I don't seem to have picked a very good day for my little summer house to be delivered. The temperature is below freezing and the weather is a mixture of alternating sunny, blue sky and blustery, heavy snow showers.

Birdy Bistro Mk2

The old wooden home made frame for holding the bird feeders is being dismantled. It has to go as it is in the way of a small summer house I hope to erect next week - if it doesn't snow. I wanted to replace it with something which wasn't so spread out so on the way back from my annual check up at the hospital I called in the local Wyevale Garden Centre. I didn't expect to find anything so was pleasantly surprised not only to find something ideal, but also at a reasonable price.



There are hooks for hanging up to 12 feeders. The feeders were not included. It hadn't been put in place for very long before a Blue Tit was brave enough to investigate. A Robin thought about it but bottled out. Of course it didn't take long for a few Starlings to try out every feeder.



To me it looks a tad overcrowded but the birds don't mind and it is for them.

The hospital check up went well again this year so it will be another 12 months before I start fretting again.

Email Account Hacked

It looks as though my Yahoo account has been got at and some spurious messages have been sent today. Please ignore and delete them. My apologies for any inconvenience. I am in the process of trying to secure the account and stop any other messages going out.

John

Wings on Wednesday - Robin

So much for the BBC weather forecast saying that yesterday promised to be the warmest day so far this year. Got out of bed to -2.5C and it eventually reached +6C for a short while. What kept the temperature down was sea fret which kept drifting in from the North Sea. The sea temperature is a couple of degrees below normal for this time of year, somewhere around 4C, so any weather coming from that direction is chilly to say the least.

There seems to be a pair of Robins visiting the garden. Seeing two in close proximity without scrapping is almost certain to be a mating pair. I hope to catch some video of the mating ritual where the male feeds the female but for now I'll make do with this solo shot I took in the morning:

Macro on Monday - Guess What

First the answer to the last Guess What. Guesses of hail and sleet were close. Actually it was snow - that fine powdery stuff we get from time to time. The air temperature was high enough for it to start melting as soon as it landed.





On to this week's Guess What:

iPhone4 fitted with miniature microscope lens

Ignore the bright circle. That was the LED lights illuminating the clear plastic of the microscope.

Clue: Actual size about 5mm. Only seen in parts of the village when the temperature is around freezing, or lower, but it won't melt when the temperature rises.

No prizes. Just for fun.

Heavenly Photo Opportunities

For those in the Southern Hemisphere Comet Pan-STARRS (C/2011-L4) is bright enough to be visible to the naked eye. By 12th and 13th March it will have passed its closest point to the Sun and reappear in the Sunset sky to be visible in the Northern Hemisphere not far from the crescent Moon.

Information from Spaceweather dot com.

I hope we can get a few cloudless times for photographs as the comet should be pretty bright by then.