This week was half term. The major difference from the umpteen weeks that preceded it? No school work arrived, so there was no tension about it not getting appropriate attention… and with our glorious new routine it meant that I got a lot done. So much more than I’d expected to, but my new “Done is better than Perfect” mantra has been in full flow!
On Monday, I reweeded and re-levelled the patio area. Imperfectly. Then I laid the anti-weed mesh. Hurray for Dad buying everything last year, because whilst the entire project would have been infinitely better with him here and me doing what he told me to, at least I had all the materials (once I’d done enough squats and sit ups to be able to lift the sodding slabs!)
Then on Tuesday I carted 73 slabs individually – they’re 60×60 and heavy! – from the front of the house around to the back. I laid a patio. It’s very imperfect, but it’s done.
On Wednesday I brushed sand into all the wobbly bits and then we put up the gazebo – the instructions recommended 4 people to put it up. I laugh in the face of such pessimism! I put Oliver’s old kitchen table back together and finally got the chairs out of the shed that I bought from Nina probably 3 years ago? We have been eating our lunch and dinner outside ever since.
As an added bonus, I also got to do some of my Tribe work out in the garden. I definitely still have “gardener’s tan” where it’s focused on the tops of my shoulders, but there’s hope for the rest of my back. We may not have been able to go to Portugal this year, but a bit of a tan is not completely out of the question 🙂
There are bits of patio and path still to lay, but Tilly started going on about painting, so I did the shed this weekend.
When I first moved in five and a half years ago, I had a vision of a cutesy shed with windows framed in cream… the reality was that I got cream paint all over the plastic windows and it just always looked a bit crap lol …roll forward to this weekend and I found I had a full tin of purple Cuprinol. Oh the joy in my heart! So the shed is now a deep purple, and Tilly painted the ancient bench. PS if she ever invites you to sit on it, it’s a death trap if you weigh more than 5 stone 😉
Speaking of weight – crikey oh blimey, but suddenly I’ve put on about half a stone! All of our dog walking is losing its impact, so I will need to turn some attention to my waistline soon. We may need to extend our route… or maybe I just need to stop snacking?! lol
Speaking of dog walking, our discoveries this week include a new pretty flower tangled up in a hedgerow….
… a solitary white fox glove… seriously, the only one I’ve seen on the route, whilst there are hundreds of the purple ones…
…we’ve made a new friend – not that we know his/her name yet 😉 but this beauty is sometimes accompanied by a pair of other horses and sometimes left alone. On the morning of this photo we’d chatted at the bottom end of the field and by the time we’d walked up and around to the road, our friend had followed us to the top…. Note to self, must remember carrots tomorrow, must remember carrots tomorrow…
…and way smaller but no less exciting was this furry little dude I spotted just in time before potentially standing on him this morning. I think he’s probably going to be a garden tiger moth eventually? The RSPB website says their caterpillars are sometimes called woolly bears.
Last night, we stood out on the patio after 10pm in order to see the Space X rocket. If you look really closely at my terrible photo, you may be able to see a bright light, and a smaller one to the right of it?
I thought we were looking at the rocket when we spotted the bright moving light. On reading the comments my friends were sharing on facebook, it appears that I may have been premature in my “oh look, there it is!” because the space station apparently went over us a few minutes before the rocket. So we may have seen the space station again… mostly I was just delighted nothing exploded, because I wasn’t that much different in age to Tilly when the Challenger disaster put me off ever wanting to go into space 🙁
Life is buzzing all through our garden. For someone who has been regarded as a black thumb for years, I’m chuffed to bits with what we’ve got growing and blooming at the moment.
This is one of our many bumble bees on the lavender. I rescued a bumble bee from a very big spider this evening. I felt a bit bad for the spider, but I couldn’t hear all that terrified buzzing as the bee was trapped in the web and not do something. Hopefully the spider isn’t too pissed off, because I will be needing to enter the shed again tomorrow. Oops!
Then there are these two.
The yellow one is on the shrub behind the gazebo and the variegated red one is something mum gave us.
And not that they’re super pretty yet but Tilly’s sunflowers and nasturtiums are going great guns and the potato patch looks impressive. No spuds though, Tilly checked and there was something about the size of a lentil on the plant she pulled out!
I wanted to show her this little stowaway in my rose, but a photo is probably safer for the bug lol I think it’s one of the ones that I have previously fished out of the paddling pool, but beyond that no clue what it is or what it likes. Hopefully it’s not spawning thousands of rose eating little mites out there!
Tilly asked to do more painting today. I don’t have enough outdoor furniture paint for her to do much on large scale, but she was up for painting some rocks with my acrylics. I’m enjoying the random Pooh Bear rock art, but not entirely sure about this portrait of me?!?! Honestly, I thought it was Bindi, but the golden outline is supposed to be my hair?!
Apparently, this is me all ready for a big work event. I have ABBA style eye shadow, blue earrings, and huge plumped up lips outlined with black??
All in, it’s been another great week here. For us, I’m glad it’s not her turn to go back to school yet. Half term has been fun as well as wickedly productive!
She drives me crazy sometimes, but I love her more than words.
Back to our “summer term” in the morning…
How’s your week been? Xx
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