Project Hop Bower

We're on a roll now, oh yes we are! Having completed Cluckinghen Palace, the next stage of the garden make-over chez nous is to turn the garden swing bench into a relaxation area. We inherited the swing bench from a friend nearly two years ago and currently it is located in the border that is next to the play area of Cluckinghen Palace. It is balanced on four scraps of old paving slab to stop it sinking into the ground and it is starting to look a little weatherbeaten. I have planted the hops bines next to the swing in order to train them over the top of the swing when they get long enough. Already the bines are 9 inches tall which I think is very impressive growth for a month. Better than the British economy anyway.

And as we were sitting on the bench yesterday evening, watching the girls settle into their new abode, we decided that a bit of decorative paving was needed beneath the swing. In my head, I also decided that the swing needs rubbing down and repainting but I'm not going to tell Andy this until I've decided between tangerine and fuschia pink. (I need to gather my thoughts into a battle plan to win him round on this design decision. I suspect I may have to back down and go with something in green or blue). Inside we go to consult the Reader's Digest Book of Home DIY.

'I like that,' I say, pointing to a semi-circle patio, being effortlessly laid by a couple of cartoon drawing people.
'We'd have to check the radius doesn't clash with the projectile sweep of the gates of Cluckinghen Palace,' says Andy, getting all technical. 'Do we need to do anything to the ground before we put the slabs down?'
'It says,' I say, because I am the one in the house who reads instructions for things rather than trying to wing it, 'we need to put down some sort of sub-base.'
'Such as?'
'Sand. And/or hardcore,' I say. 'It depends on potential traffic, weight bearing and soil type.'
'What's the soil type?' asks Andy.
'Tending towards clay,' I say because I've dug a lot of the border and I bloomin' well know it.
'Right. So what's the least we can get away with?' says Andy, who, bless him, is starting to feel the effects of building a chicken palace in two days.
'Levelling the ground and some sand, I reckon,' I say, because all we are going to do is swing on the swing. There is unlikely to be any passing traffic.
'Good,' says Andy.

So we might get started on Project Hop Bower over the Easter break. Depends on the weather. Today, Andy is starting his new, temporary job as Acting Senior Vet. Today he shall be mostly acting it in the style of Richard III due to being unable to walk with a straight posture after his DIY exertions. He toyed with Macbeth and Hamlet but decided to leave those until either a) he needs to get despotic to keep the nurses in order and b) he needs to go gradually mad, a side-effect of fiddling with the rota. I said that if he was going to do rota fiddling he ought to act as the Emporer Nero but he said he didn't think his work colleagues would tolerate him lying around on velvet cushions demanding to be fed grapes.

I reckon after the last few months, being fed on grapes is the least he deserves.

Cat's away, the mouse might play...or garden...

Yesterday, to save my Mum having to keep raising her eyebrows and 'tutting' about the huge pile of garden debris that is STILL on the front drive after umpteen weeks, I spent the afternoon cutting up said garden debris and shoving it into the sacks the bark chippings came in, ready to transport to the tip. I sustained many scratches, five splinters and a large blister on the middle finger of my right hand. I managed to get all of the splinters out bar one which, this morning, was red and producing bubbles of pus. I hope this won't result in my hand eventually turning green and dropping off, for that would be very inconvenient indeed.

And whilst I was out in the front garden I scrabbled about on my hands and knees on the driveway with a trowel clearing weeds and moss from the spaces between the paving bricks, and then I thought, 'I don't like that rhodedendron' over there so I set about it with the secateurs and created another pile of garden debris for Mum to 'tut' over. However, the death of the rhodedendron left a nice space in the corner of the front garden. What can I put there, I thought. It looks about the right size for a...

...BEE-HIVE!

I stood back and looked at the front garden with new eyes. My enthusiasm for bee-keeping has waned recently, mostly I think because I keep e-mailing the Bee-Keepers Association asking for information about courses and meetings and impressing on them how keen I am to have a go at keeping bees, but they have so far ignored my interest. However, I have discovered the existence of a bee-farm on the Isle of Sheppey and, if the web-site is anything to go by, it will be well worth a visit and chat. And my interest might well be re-invigorated.

So, I was thinking, cordon off that area for bee hive using willow trellis (I am very keen on willow trellis at the moment), make circular beds across the lawn between the new willow and the magnolia. Fill circular beds with bee flowers (of which there are many in the greenhouse). Put new gravel in space under window and cover with large containers filled with more flowers, tall ones, that will disguise the presence of a bee-hive.

A picture of a re-vamped front garden materialised in my mind.

And Andy is going to be away from home for 4 days to attend the BSAVA Conference in Birmingham. Leaving me with the car. Alone. With bee garden fever.

Now I don't want to alarm Andy. And come tomorrow, it might be snowing and I'll have gone off the idea of playing at being Charlie Dimmock and hide indoors for 4 days writing novel number three and eating chocolate chip shortbread and liver. (Not together I hasten to add - but Andy won't eat liver and I love it, and there's a bag of it in the freezer just waiting for the opportunity when the only person I have to feed is myself.) In fact, the most that might happen could be a few strategically placed canes and bits of string to mark out my ideas and a trip to the Isle of Sheppey.

All I'm saying, Andy, is you should brace yourself for your return on Sunday. Just in case.

Random news items

Here is the news:

Cows -There seems to be a discrepancy in my family about whether to get a cow or not. When we move to Dorset/ Devon I am keen to have a cow. I like butter and I like cheese. I like the way cows look and I like the way they can lick inside their nostrils with their rubbery tongues. But according to Mum, Auntie Pollie says, don't get a cow. Because they need milking twice a day. Which means we'd be tied to our farm/small-holding/field and not have days out/ holidays etc. What makes Auntie P. think we'll be able to afford to have days out and holiday by the time we've purchased our farm/small-holding/ field, is what I want to know? Besides, with my developing agorophobia I'm unlikely to set foot outside the house let alone far enough away from the cow to be unable to reach it for milking. And given the choice between sitting on a sweltering foreign beach or sitting on a squishy sofa with a cheese sandwich made from homemade cheese, I'd prefer the second option any day. Discrepancy solved - we'll get a cow.

Knives - With our old set of knives having reached the point where they can reduce a wholemeal loaf to a pile of breadcrumbs rather than neat slices, and where you have to hack at your Sunday roast rather than glide through it with ease, I procured a new set of Sabatiere blades which, I have been assured, are the Rolls Royce of knives, or at least a nice top-of-the-range Toyota. They look lovely in their block next to the cooker, with their ergonomic handles and their very, very,very sharp and shiny blades. Only I'm too scared to use them because I've had a premonition that I'll lose the tops of my fingers if I do. This stems back to an 'incident' that happened in October 2004 when I thought, on the day we moved house, it would be a good idea to scrape the bottom of the oven with a knife in order to remove the accumulated crud of the previous few years. I scraped, I screamed, I bled all over the kitchen floor, the dining room , up the stairs and bathroom, I swore and bled some more as Andy drove me to the surgery to have stitches and for the doctor to inform me that I'd severed a nerve in my forefinger and I was bloomin' useless for the rest of the day as we moved house with my hand bandaged up like the Pilsbury doughboy wearing extra thick mittens. And to this day, I have a little bump and poor feeling down one side of my finger and it really hurts in cold weather, too. My own stupid fault. But next time, I just KNOW it'll be a whole finger. (My maternal grandfather severed his thumb on a saw bench. My finger is an hereditary accident just waiting to happen.)

Patios - there has been a saga unfolding during my early morning swimming sessions regarding a old bloke and his patio. He swims up and down regaling his lady friend of the latest installment and I earwig as I paddle past. Three weeks ago, the builders 'had been in and lain the base.' Last week they were 'off with the weather.' This morning, they were 'back with the slabs.' This, I gather, has been going on since before Christmas. What I want to know is why do people start these jobs in the middle of winter and then express amazement at the lack of progress? It's like Grand Designs on the telly. 'Neville and Claudia began work on renovating their 15th century monastery in mid-November. A week later, the builders had called off because of the hurricane,' says the dour Kevin McCloud. Well, there's a surprise. Bad weather in the winter? Who'd've thought it? My dad was a builder. He did 'indoor jobs' between October and February. Unless he could persuade one of us kids to go with him to a job where we would be sent into building foundations with a bucket and told to 'bail out.' That didn't happen very often, I can tell you. It's cold and muddy in building foundations. It was also unpaid child labour.

Muscles - I am v.unhappy to discover that since starting my swimming campaign I have gained a pound or three in weight. (No, Andy, it has nothing to do with the fact that Sainsbugs is selling huge bars of Dairy Milk for a quid. Absolutely nothing. So hush!) That wasn't the idea at all. The idea was that swimming would help me to shift the last stubborn twenty pounds I need to lose in order to become 'normal'. (I could always lop off my second head and third leg with the new Sabatiere's I suppose. That might do the trick. How much do a head and leg weigh?) I can only assume I am 'building muscle mass'. (I can now do 50 lengths in half an hour which is 10 more than when I first started so something must be happening.) But this isn't helping the weight loss cause so I'm back to weighing and writing down everything I eat in order to ensure I don't go over my recommended daily calorie intake - just in case it is the chocolate. We walked into town this morning after I'd done my 50 lengths. I NEARLY DIED, I was so hungry.

Ah well, out to dinner this evening with friends. And the weather is warming up. There are bluebells and daffs in the garden, buds on the magnolia and chits on the potatoes and this can only mean one thing - WEEDS AT THE ALLOTMENT! It's time to get digging again. Only a couple more weeks before we can get some seeds in under glass. It takes me half an hour to walk to the allotment. That's an extra hour's exercise, plus what I do when I'm there. And until I can work out how to grow chocolate, or smuggle a cow onto the plot for cheese and butter making purposes, I think I might be on to a weight loss winner!