Sunshine and sandals

 Friday, Saturday and Sunday I wore sandals they were sunny warm days, I'm back in socks and shoes now the cooler weather is back, I do love having my toes out, hopefully the warm days will return soon. It was so good for my soul to sit outside listen and watch the tiny birds, slowly relaxing for more than one day.

Saturday we had a BBQ, daughter came with her 3 children, daddy was working, 1st BBQ of the year is special, and we could all sit around our new bigger table. Hubby has a new spot to cook from as we use the new garden layout, still loads of room for the children to run about. We sat outside for ages, listening to the little ones laughter, Will checked out my wildlife ponds and agreed they looked good, still waiting for frogs. 

The tulips in my cider jar are looking good, the two red ones have been blooming for days, I can't wait for the others to bloom, these were a pack of mixed colour frilly ones, planted with some tall snowdrops. The tulips have done much better than the snowdrops, this photo is taken from the back of the garden, it sits behind the railings in my veg section, but can be clearly seen from the house and our seating area.

Molly randomly asked mummy if she could ride a horse, we don't know where she got the idea from, we don't have any interaction with horses. So she had a trial on a lovely Shetland pony, she patted and brushed the pony before riding. Quickly daughter could see Molly was not enjoying herself, and when Dinky did a poo whilst she was riding, Molly was very unhappy, she does not want another go.

I have finished importing all my post for 2022 into my book, it is a lot of work, I do enjoy the process, 183 pages, I did 168 post, so a few went over 2 pages, I have checked the placing of headers, titles and dates, to ensure they are all looking right, I have also checked the spelling. Now I need to read each page and have a final check of the layout and it will be ready for printing, which won't happen until they offer a great discount, normally in November on Black Friday.

Every day I do a bit outside in our garden and say that's it for now, and the following day I find more to do, Friday I did loads outside, we had lunch outside enjoying the sunshine, Saturday was a day off, family time, they went home just after 3pm, so relaxing time for hubby and I. Sunday I did not do much outside, a short time was spent in my greenhouse, the rest of the day was on here and knitting, I have finished one side of the jacket. Monday was another day at home, we did not pop into town, back to another wet blustery day and much cooler, I did some housework in the morning and I chatted with my sister in the afternoon, we often chat on a Monday.

I have an aching back again, a mixture of gardening and playing with George and Molly, and just for a change I have another cough, which is irritating me already, I hope I can shift it quickly. We are now half way through April, how quickly this month and year is going, days seam long and leisurely, but weeks, months fly by. 

Improvement

Taken late last summer, this was the last photo before the changes made in our garden, it does look lovely, until you try to use the space. The big decking is a perfect family space other than flies and smells coming from next door, the decking is higher, the paving path is another different height, the lawn had loads of odd angles and was lower.

Photo taken last week from the same place, everywhere is the same level, the flower bed at the back of the lawn is now clearly seen from the sitting room, the veg beds behind are seen but the railings put them in a different part of the garden. The lawn is smaller as we made the paving outside the patio doors wider and made it into a rectangle. 

We have a new table, hubby saw it online at a bargain price, it goes with our original chairs and bench and can be made bigger when family arrive. I now have less pots in this area, over winter some cracked and I've not replaced them, only herbs around here and near the back door and handy for use.

Here is the plan I drew up, we did change one spot, the path along the garage we decided to run it down to the house, making the lawn not so wide and removing the corner inset in the lawn. We also paved all the way to the garage. In this plan the lawn does look much bigger, the plan is not to any true scale. 

Having spend a lot of money on the refit, plus we did loads of hard work ourselves, we were chatting, did we get what we wanted, hoped for, value for money spent. This was all done for me, hubby wanted to remove the decking and nothing more, I knew our garden was huge, and we were not using it all, I hoped for veg beds, my growing space and plenty of family space so three little ones could run around and play outside. 

Our first thoughts are we are both happy with the finished design, and the standard of work done, our landscaper made suggestions, which we took on board, after all he is the expert, he digested my plan, understood what we wanted, and created it and all on one level. I have done work before in the garden and then later changed it, no chance of that here, sitting on the patio side of the garden last summer helped us to see how we can now use all of the area. My growing area, which we can close off when the children are here, is perfect, we made the veg beds as big as we could, ensuring the paths between were not to tight, reusing everything from the decking. I am excited to be growing vegetables, I have most everything I need. One sad note as I looked through my garden purchase list, so much of my seeds and bits came from Wilko's, I am missing their shop in town, Wilko seeds are sold at The Range, but the store is not local. 

I have had comments about how tidy the garden looks, I'm outside every time I can be, even on cold days, I don't pop out when it's raining, we have a cat and she use the flower beds, Grace is getting older, so I do need to go out and clear up after her regularly. We have lots of different beds, so it is easy to tidy a bed quickly, I am always picking up leaves and bits, I adore dead heading when needed, it always leads to more blooms. Our garden is my healing place and my work in retirement. 

Little things

George is much better and went to nursery on Monday and today, Molly has been very clingy to mummy and us, which is OK, she is still young, she acts much older until something upsets her, then we remember her age. They popped over to play in our garden, this space is made for children to play, my makeshift greenhouse door works well as a gate to keep them out of my end of the garden, it's real purpose was a clothes airer, which had brackets to hang on a wall.

 Grace has changed so much in the last month, she is now very vocal, every time she wakes up she wails, both hubby and I are ensuring we are home as much as we can be, so Grace has company, she follows me everywhere, wailing until I sit down so she can get on my lap. She is not eating much dried food, so we are feeding her wet food twice a day, she is a small cat and as always, skinny, I have started brushing her every couple of days, she is not cleaning herself so well, she dribbles when she is sleeping. We are now fearing the worse, each morning we check her basket for signs of life, she will be 20 next month, we have been at this point before and she came back stronger. 

Inside the greenhouse things are growing, from my own seeds, to smaller plants purchased in strips, now in bigger pots, as I call them geraniums and begonias coming back, I've cut my bougainvillea back in hope it regrows this summer. It's full in here, but it's my happy place, my chair is back here, I can hide in here for ages. It's the first place I check each morning, looking through the glass in hope all is well, I don't mind it messy in here as I fill the space with growing things. 

The weather is all over the place again, after a dry sunny weekend, where the warmth of the sun was so good, and the rain showers fewer, again the temperature has dropped and the wind is strong and loads of storms, it's so difficult to know what to wear each morning, loads of layers. The high tide and stormy weather on Monday night caused flooding on local roads, all nearer to the coast, we have not had local flooding for years, we are just 10 minutes walk from the water, far enough for us to be safe. The wind whilst strong has done no damage locally and our garden is OK, our Magnolia has lost most of the blooms. Yesterday was again cold wet and grey, I did walk to our village market, loads of lovely plants, but he has put his prices up and he's not great value anymore, even our pet shop had nothing new in.

On a wet afternoon I decided to sort my paperwork drawer, I have all my personal bits in one place, hubby sorted the household folder a while ago, mine was overdue, I disposed of MOT, and tax from 10 to 20 years old, and loads of receipts and booklets for things I no longer have, anything newer I refiled, I do feel much better to have it done. I working on my 2022 book, I'm importing my last month, then a couple of checks and it will be ready for any good publishing discounts, I will then start on 2023. 

I've finished the back on my knitting, but no other crafting, the garden is calling, even with everything sorted, I can find things to do, in the evenings Grace is sat on my lap, so I'm not doing much, not even reading, often I am tired after being outside all day. I did manage to get some house work done, I still need a spring clean throughout.

Green weekend

I have been working on my second veg bed, it's had covers on it since it was built last year, I weeded it added some mushroom compost and then planted a row of broccoli, I know these plants are close together, I'm hoping they stay small as it's only for hubby, either side I have seeds, parsnip's and beetroot, along the outside I will have runner beans and at this end a couple cucumber plants.  

I had been looking unsuccessfully for local courses to learn how to weave hazel or willow, I have always wanted a low fence around both veg beds, hubby searched online and found these, each is 1 meter long, our beds are 2 meters by 1 meter, so perfect. The hoops are from our old round garden table, hubby has broken it down and I nicked them, perfect for keeping the nets at a decent height, I do love a recycle. 

 I planted my 2 lupins which are now huge, and a white aster in the red rose bed, they should fill the back section with the foxglove and Alcea, all grow tall and full. The front of this bed will be bedding plants, if my seeds start to grow, I've not used old seeds and I'm using good compost, so why they don't shoot is beyond me, probably lack of sunshine. I have used the dreaded slug pellets in this bed, I've tried other natural products, but they did not work, and after the cost and effort to grow these, I don't want to lose them.

Saturday was the most perfect day, I had a lay in, I'm still catching up on my sleep, we walked to the village, I popped books back to the library. The local pet shop had their trays of bedding plants, at £1.40 for 4 to 7 or 8 plants, great value, I got 4 trays, these I will pot on, and plant out once they are much bigger. I only have a begonia corm left to plant, it's for my cider jar, but the tulips are about to bloom, so it can wait a few weeks. I worked in a T shirt all the time outside, the breeze as promised was warm, we had lunch outside with a well earnt cider shandy, we were in by mid-afternoon as the rain threatened, nice early shower and a treat of pizza for tea, followed by an early night. 

Sunday after stripping our bed and remaking it, the morning was lazy, laundry on the line, blowing itself dry, the sunshine coming through the window called me outside, I have potted up the strips of bedding plants I purchased, they will be ready to go outside in a few weeks, the runner beans are now growing, I was worried, now I'm happy, my greenhouse is full. I moved the red rose from the side bed to the back bed, it's just not thriving, moving another plant to the raised flower bed, I added some good compost in hope the rose grows in its new spot. I feel good, completely up to date outside, all I need to a good clean inside the house. Our Molly and George  visited in afternoon,  and played outside for ages, load of giggles and laughter, perfection.

I sorted my seeds, loads free with the subscription to a garden magazine and passed them to our friend and neighbour for her new raised beds, it was good to share them.