Thursday

Another busy day at work. Matt has been having a go at French plumbing but it seems that they don’t make these things easy. If one is just slightly out of line then you can’t get the next one in. Surely it would be easier if they just spaced them out a bit further. He seems to be doing well though so all credit to him.

Decided to work on the front porch in the afternoon to make the most of the nice weather and it seems that I have a new colleague.

• 

• 

Quick trip down to the garage to see what’s happening with the car. Seems he’s ordered something in which should arrive on Tuesday so hopefully once they have whatever that is then it will be a quick (and hopefully cheap) job to fix it.

Back at the house and figured that it was time for a break and to plant up a couple of pots. Purple gladioli, a bunch of hollyhock seeds and a few sunflowers to add some height. Hopefully these should help to frame the entrance nicely.

• 

• 

• 

Trying to get some work finished but Meow had other ideas. She does pull some silly faces!

• 

• 

• 

• 

[1 April 2021]

Good Friday

Great to have a 4 day weekend. Good haul from the post office today. Mum’s sent us some easter eggs and some gladioli bulbs.

First job of the day was to mow some walking paths into the garden. In very short order we realised that the back tyre was screwed so had to push it back to the house to change it. Thank heavens Matt has the knack of doing it as we’d have been there all day if it was left to me. Once it was ready we were off again and I’m very happy with them, lots of little decision points and cross overs.

• 

• 

• 

Time to plant up another set of pots using the bulbs that mum sent. Talking to Lee about his sister and since she loved pink decided to plant these ones up in her honour so have some pink gladioli and marguerites. Now in pride of place at the top in the middle. The idea (once they are fully grown) is to have a really beautiful floral frame to the front of the house. This is of course going to take some time though!

• 

• 

• 

• 

Meanwhile Matt was doing some more work on the plumbing.

The wander round the garden had reminded me that I still hadn’t finished clearing all the old dead grasses and stems. It took ages but glad that job is finally finished.

• 

• 

• 

• 

Feeling rather tired but Matt has worked out how we can get Gardener’s World so time to settle in, cuddle up with a bit of Monty Don and some nice cheese.

• 

• 

• 

[2 April 21]

Easter Saturday

As predicted, the weather today is a bit rubbish. This is good news for Matt however, as it means that I’ll stop disappearing off to play in the garden. So, as promised, the focus for today is to make some serious progress on the kitchen metalwork.

• 

• 

• 

Before we can do the front wall, we’re going to first need to fix the bunged joists. That means pulling up a couple of boards so we can check what we are working with. A couple of them are pretty darned rotten so are going to need to be replaced. We’re also going to need to do some work on the hearth as these are being held up by magic. In the short-term we’ve put a couple of acros in so it doesn’t fall into the basement while we replace the rotten bits.

• 

• 

• 

It might not look like a great deal but it’s been a busy day and Matt is exhausted and ready to rest. Mum is up visiting Tonia so managed to get a two for one call today.

Since we’d got some more railings in, I figured I’d go get some uprights ready for Matt in the morning. Hopefully we can get the rest of the frames up tomorrow.

[3 April 2021]