The International Steam Pages


Crisis, what Crisis? The Mitcheldean Garden 2023

This is the 2023 index of the pages describing our very dull life in the UK since arriving in 2011. Having negotiated the maze of regulations designed to frustrate those wanting to bring a non-EU spouse into the UK, Yuehong has been the proud owner of a UK passport since late 2014 which means we can have a near perfect balance of the best 8 months of the year in the UK and the best 4 months of the year in Penang. Well that was both theory and practice until the Chinese gifted the Big C to the world and we had a long wait before we were able to return to Penang in late 2022. We now hire a car in Penang, while in the UK public transport and weekend car hires having just sufficed for 7 years, we put our own 4 wheels on the driveway in 2018 which allows us more flexibility to explore our surrounding countryside and better enjoy our visits to steam fairs, only in 2020 there were none in and in 2021 very few... However, we had a very full set of visits in 2022 and this meant that the garden and my 'blog' were somewhat neglected. The chill economic winds facing the average UK pensioner mean that we did not travel as often and as far in 2023 

Click here for the main 'Life in the UK' index page.


For most people in the UK the prospect of taking on a property built up 33 steps on a 30 degree slope would be a nightmare. For us, it's proved both a challenge and a delight. This is our fourteenth summer (2023) and it was again completely different from those that went before. I would like to think that the garden achieved a degree of maturity in 2017, acknowledged by our being invited to be part of the Open Gardens weekend in June, an event which shows no signs of being repeated (don't ask me why...). 2018 saw me celebrating a big birthday and while 2019 saw the addition of the wall, my own physical efforts were all about 'maintenance' which I think we have now organised as being appropriate to our mature ages. I guess in 2020 we were happy to be alive and solving all sorts of new 'supply' problems which mercifully were not repeated in 2021 and then in 2022 we could go as we pleased only prices were all 10% higher and are still rising. In April 2022, I finally grasped the nettle that was my life expired camera and bought myself a Canon EOS 4000D DSLR. The results exceeded all expectations, the pictures are sharper, there is more detail and the colours are almost perfectly 'true to life'. The old camera has been 'recycled'.

Crisis, what crisis?

Early Spring 
(24th April 2023)
Late Spring 
(24th April 2023)
Later Spring 
(4th May 2023)
The Gasmen Cometh 
(1st June 2023)
Lundy
(5th June 2023)
Living on the wild side 
(7th July 2023)
Endless Summer 
(7th July 2023)
Rose Garden RIP ? 
(7th July 2023)
Dazzling Dahlias 
(25th September 2023)
The Last Roses of Summer 
(25th September 2023)
Sic Transit Gloria
(1st November 2023)

Our garden history 2011-24

Over the Rainbow

Summer 2024

Old Normal, New Normal

Summer 2022

Fingers Crossed

Summer 2021

Beating the Big C

Summer 2020

Tua Pek Kong Rules

Summer 2019

Welcome Tua Pek Kong.

Summer 2018

Oh, to be in England

Summer 2017

Our Cup Runneth Over

Summer 2016

The Best Garden in Mitcheldean?

Summer 2015

The Best Garden in Mitcheldean?

Summer 2014

How does Your Garden Grow?

Summer 2013

Holding back the deluge

Summer 2012

Getting started:

Summer 2011


Rob and Yuehong Dickinson

Email: webmaster@internationalsteam.co.uk