Wednesday 16 April - Garden

I have a couple of days off work and it's sunny - so obviously I spent the entire day in the garden :)

I bought loads of new plants with my birthday money and did some clearance and stuff...  here are pics:

Beautiful planter from my parents with rocket, lettuce seeds and parsley:

Planter and lavender:

Herb pots on the ugly manhole cover:

Herbs: chives, rosemary, sage, thyme, more sage, and lavender.

Garlic from Mum:

Lupin:

Agapanthus:

Scabious (horrible name for a lovely plant):

Penstemon:

One of four potato planters (my camera couldn't quite cope with the dark/bright aspects here so apologies for blurry photo):

I seem to spread out quite a bit when gardening...!

Veg beds:

It was 35 degrees in the sun today - bliss!

Hot water cylinder

Graham managed to remove the old hot water cylinder and fit the new one in one day.  Hurrah!  I wasn't looking forward to not having heating OR hot water, so this was a relief.

Pics:

Before:

Delivery:

Ian gets roped in :)

I watch :)

After:

The eagle eyed amongst you will notice the new one is taller than the old one and that means no shelf for bedlinen and towels etc.  I don't think I'm overly fussed about this, but it might be possible to build some shelving around the front and left of the cylinder.  Not sure.

Will report back after tomorrow's shower but the pressure seems brilliant!  Exciting!

God bless my in-laws... and my husband!

Today I went to work.  Whilst I was at work, my in-laws and husband cleared plants, lopped hedges, pruned honeysuckle, built a raised bed, barrowed 2.5ish tonnes of soil, and mowed the lawn.  Amazing.

Just a reminder of how it was looking...  a large amount of space cleared...

...one bed built but not positioned...

...and 3 tonnes of soil delivered.

So that was where everything was when I left the house this morning.

I got the following photos around 2pm by email, thank you Jane!  It was looking very exciting!

I got home to this beautiful sight!

The boys seemed incapable of stopping.  This was about 6pm but they just wouldn't give up for the night!

I sat on the bench and luxuriated in their work and the beautiful flowers appearing...

And then this little chap popped up to say hello!  Apparently he was around a lot today, but I've not seen him before.  He's very tame :) I guess he was hoping for worms, but the beautiful topsoil doesn't contain many!

I finally convinced them all to stop and we went out for dinner, but not before I took a team photo... THANK YOU, you wonderful people xxxxxxxx

The point of no return...

The old warm air central heating system is no more!

As a reminder, it was a beige floor-to-ceiling metal unit that filled a corner of the kitchen:

That corner now looks like this:

The ceiling:

The floor:

New piping under the bath

New boiler in the loft (er, and a defunct TV aerial.  We have three aerials...)

Cold water tank in the loft, soon to be gone:

Ducting in the loft:

And finally, Graham and Ben got our ancient gas fire working, it needed a new thermocouple apparently!  I don't like the fire, it's scary and it smells, but it's a nice bit of heat in a now-unheated house.  We have an oil-filled electric radiator in our bedroom and a fan heater which can go wherever, so we shouldn't be cold.

The next task is to remove the hot water tank and immersion heater and replace it.  This obviously means we will be without hot water.  Graham hopes to do it in one day which will be amazing if he manages it.  Ian can shower at work and I have discovered a building at my work that has a shower so if worst comes to worst....!

Oh and just as a PS, the topsoil for the veg beds was delivered today, here's two of three tonnes (the other one is in the garage):

Not sure that gives a full sense of size!

Saturday 29 March

Back out in the garden today, soaking up the Vitamin D - actually does one soak it up or do we create it when in sunshine?  Anyway, never mind, it felt brilliant.  Classic FM on the radio and hands in dirt, how to make Claire happy :)

Ian got home from ringing a peal around 3pm I guess and joined me for some more clearance.

Here are some photos:

Memories of the "Ladybird Hotels" I used to set up as a child for all my pet ladybirds:

My new clematis (Clematis armandii 'Little White Charm') to climb up this very bare structure:

Pear tree leaves and blossom just about coming out...

I never thought strawberries could be a weed, but they really are here... still, I'll keep enough!

No idea what this is, big waxy leaves and very close to the ground.

Bluebells coming into bud:

I adore my hellebores:

Clearing the veg patch some more (cleared the plants that covered the back of the greenhouse.  Lost a pane of glass in the process (from the apex):

(Just as a reminder, this was how this view looked beforehand:)

And the resulting mess:

Usual view from Bedroom 4: