Man At Work

I never fail to be amazed at how hard Bertie works and what DIY talents he has. He is also following closely in the footsteps of his mother and has become a dab hand at recycling all the junk he finds lying around to create something much more useful. Now he is working full time and the sun sets so early, he is not seeing much of his garden (ahh!) but he got plenty done over the past few months, digging and clearing and chopping and weeding and building. Some highlights...

Growing lettuce in October? This is not Guadeloupe you know!It's all about motivation - even reluctant gardeners will help their daddy if the reward is some tasty raspberries next summer!
This used be a greenhouse but who needs two?! So Bertie removed some concrete, laid some pebbles (mostly dug up all around the garden - where do they come from?), put down the random bit of tarpulin found in one of the sheds and then finallylaid 60 kilos of sand! And it barely even covers the bottom! The kids have enjoyed playing in it but it is covered for winter now. When it reopens I think we will have to triple the amount of sand, especially as they have great difficulty keeping it in the pit! (NB Any guesses as to why that wooden pane is there??) This is one of our four compost heaps, mostly left over from the previous tenants, which Bertie has been working on. We think this one may contain a fox or two.

I had my heart set on a bird table so Bertie kindly nailed this together for me. We have had the fun of watching our friendly robin and some bluetits come regularly but our most frequent visitor is of course the darned squirrel. Even JoJo runs to the door and shouts "OI!" in imitation of his frustrated mum when he sees it coming now!

The begins of our leaf mould container, which Bertie hammered together from crates from the local vegetable sellers. It is now totally enclosed and full to the brim after all the blustery weather, and we are looking forward to seeing how it looks in a year's time.

Welcome To Our New Home!

I thought I would go into a bit more detail about the topics I briefly raised in my previous post before I get going on the meaty issues of the universe, so here is a quick peek into our new rented place.

Our friends arranged for us to move here, mainly because they know Bertie likes gardening and it has a BIG garden. Both front and back. I couldn't get the whole thing into one shot so here is an idea.

This is the lovely big fir (?) tree that greets you when you come up to our gate. Can you see our bungalow peeking out in the background? Thought not. It is a very long walk down that path for a)the postman b)me on a dark night and c)me when JoJo is at the gate and I have to hurry to get him before he tries getting out onto the street!

This is our lovely poplar also at our front gate. We have one at the back of the garden too and they make a beautiful rustling noise in the wind. Well, not any more as they have just lost all their leaves.
I would also add that it is jolly hard to reverse the car in through the gate. You will not be surprised that I leave such matters to my dear husband!Ah, all that walking has finally got you somewhere! Here is our cute little bungalow. You can't see here but it has beautiful stained glass patterns on the window. I love the big bay window in the living room and the one on the left is the kids' room. My first act was to tuck up all the awful net curtains to let the sun in - one day I may actually get round to taking them down!Now we are out the back. This is a wee bit of our garden, let's say about a quarter of it! This is where all that lovely vegetable and berry growing will hopefully happen next spring! The rest of the garden is grass and trees and greenhouse and......our own little summerhouse! Isn't it cool? Or hot rather! The previous tenants seemed to have had electricity, phone line, the works. We have lost ownership of this building to the smaller members of our family, much to their delight!