Wivenhoe Open Gardens

Last year we created a display on the boat for the 2019 Wivenhoe Open gardens amidst the Brexit talks. It coincided with my invitation to a French delegation from Montolieu as part of my plan to create a 'Town Friendship'.

Everyone had a jolly good time, and I vowed then to do another Open Garden in 2020.

Alas, the hot topic of Brexit is now paled into insignificance by the Pandemic of our century. Bring back Brexit - it was so much easier to cope with than Covid-19.

But anyway, whatever. There was no reason we shouldn't create a little colour on the top of my Boat For My Potplants, was there?

So, early this Saturday morning, 'Erindoors and I went about producing a small garden, utilising the various bits and pieces donated for said cause by the good folks of Wivenhoe.

Hopefully the tweeting bird, as well as the other objects, have given a few reasons to be cheerful (Part 3) during these strange and surreal times.

I Don't Believe It...

I don't believe that I've had my Boat For My Potplants for something like 10 years now, and it's only just occurred to me that I don't have to sit on the relatively uncomfortable rear-deck seats.

So, at long last and not a moment too soon, I have put in some planks across the seats to make a handy sun-bathing deck.

All I need now is a selection of cushions - or better still, a steamer chair.

Hey Ho, hey ho,
It's off to eBay I go.

Let's see what I can find.

Back to Basics

Well, it looks like I will finally be going back to my roots, and using my Boat For My Potplants for exactly that purpose - to put plants on. Or at least flowers. And artificial ones at that.

I will look back at these times in years to come with credulity. Usually in May, Wivenhoe has its Open Gardens, and on two occasions my boat has had a nice display (see main banner pic of this blog).

This year, because of the Covid-19 pandemic, Open Gardens has been cancelled, as has pretty much everything else. I wonder whether, in years to come, I'll look back and remember what the pandemic was all about, or whether it will have left an indelible mark, and the world will never be the same again. Who knows?

Anyway, I digress. For folks to see my boat, all they have to do is walk past it. And so I thought why not add a bit of cheer and create a little display?

So I put out an appeal on Facebook for donations of plastic flowers to be left on the boat, so that I can use them to make a display.

Amazingly, donations have been flooding in, thick and fast. Well, I've had three so far. But it's a start.

One of the donations, for some strange reason, wasn't actually a plant or flower - it was a vase. Very pretty too. Oh, and a chicken. A rubber chicken that squeaks.

Never mind. I'll carry on, regardless.

NO STOPPING NOW (TALKING HIFI)

There's no stopping me now. Spurred on by the success of having an amplifier and semi-good speakers (although there's always room for speaker upgrading in any hifi system), I've been playing around with getting the TV hooked up to a cheap and cheerful DVD player.

Remarkably, it worked. The picture was great, but the sound, going through the TV was absolute sh*te, putting it mildly. And when I played my laptop through the TV to watch music videos on Youtube, it sounded even worse.

So, the answer to this enormous problem was to connect the TV to the hifi amp. Luckily, because the amp is an ancient Grundig, with more inputs than I could throw a stick at (phono, plus 4 others), I'm able to connect 1) iPod, 2) BlueTooth receiver for iPhone connection, 3) TV, and 4) record player. And I still have one left!

Anyway, all I needed was an HDMI cable to connect the DVD player to the TV, and an Optical cable to connect the TV to the Grundig amp, and I'd be laughing.

(Some might say that with all this talk of cables and connectors, that I've got too much time on my hands. They might have a point.)

Well, the cables came, and now I'm well and truly laughing - because it all sounds FANTASTIC!