What a difference six days make.

I wondered about calling this post, "don't take a-fence" as in "don't take offence" but it wasn't particularly funny so I decided against it (although of course I have just said it to you anyway.., sorry!).

Well, what a week!

We have both been off work in order to build a fence at the end of our garden. In six days Luke has made a fence completely from scratch whilst I've tidied up the rockery at the front of the house, replanted the tiny border by the front door with cut price sunny primroses and orange and purple pansies, re potted an unhealthy looking Box plant and the little ornamental wheelbarrow with cheery pink primulas, mowed both lawns, dug in six bags of sharp sand to my very tatty, compacted area under the Acer before repositioning the plants I'd taken out so I could cleanly dig without damaging them , cleaned up the deck, stacked the logs then had a go (a one off, I can assure you!) with the chainsaw.

I also visited the garden centre (what a joy!), ordered some gladioli online, received our wild flower seeds for the end of the garden (a new venture), shooed the hens away from my purple sprouting, dug over half the vegetable patch and tried to bury unearthed worms before the hens ate them, found one decaying lump of cat faeces (eeuugh) and seven sprouting potatoes that had hidden from our view last year when we dug the others up. I have taken down the bubble wrap from the greenhouse, put the three hens in the same hen house together which they are tolerating but not loving, moved bags of ballast from the decking to the back of the shed, raked and redistributing the wood chippings which have been nourished with plenty of chicken manure whilst providing a natural flooring for their run, This now makes a little walkway past the greenhouse and up to the hen house and shed. I've pulled up the very dead lavenders and sage then moved the Box plants from the corners of the vegetable patch (:Luke doesn't appreciate anything that can't be eaten taking up valuable space in the veg patch) . They now reside next to the step into the greenhouse. We had our first and probably last bonfire before I partly cleaned out the shed, helped remove one very dead tree from it's home right where the fence post needed to go. I've admired Luke's tenacity at getting the fence erected by started at 9am every morning and working till the sun goes down each evening. Once we've cooked and eaten we've both fallen asleep on the sofa and retired to bed by 9pm each evening.
The good weather has been a huge help in us getting things done; believe me, if it had been wet and cold I would have been huddled indoors instead of outside, working hard and in the process, getting a decent tan.
I'll post some photos after a good night's sleep and a kind word to Luke (who uploads the photos for me). You'll see how we went from a near waste ground one week ago to a fenced area that is almost ready for sprinkling with the wild flower seed to create, we hope, swathes of bold colour to attract the insects. Watch this space and I hope we won't be disappointed.