New Year, New Blog!

A burst of sunlight on winter trees

Firstly, I would like to say a very Happy New Year to all my loyal readers! I’d intended to write another blog in December, but you know what they say about good intentions! When asked if I make New Year Resolutions, my inevitable reply is that I have ‘intentions’, not resolutions, as it doesn’t seem such a heinous crime when I, very quickly, fail to keep them!  

The long-anticipated fence erection is due to go ahead within the next week, which will help me massively in the planning of my garden. I finally fought my way down the other fence line to the bottom of the garden and discovered the filled-in remains of an old pond and associated water course, which is going to cause me a few issues as the ground level drops away at that point. I’m now wondering whether to try and construct some form of bank/terrace to separate the ‘utility’ area of the garden from the ‘pleasure’ area. The utility area, with no-dig raised beds, really needs to be the next thing under construction, as I have pots of sea kale and rhubarb from one of my gardening clients, that need to be planted out; a pot of rescued raspberry canes; a potted gooseberry bush; yacon tubers and four fruit trees, and that’s just for starters! Once the fence is completed everything to and from the garden will have to come through the house, so I am hoping to get at least the four fruit trees brought over from my old address before that happens.

Before pruning

After pruning

Last week Jeni and her partner came over and pruned the large Bramley apple tree that takes up a lot of space at the bottom of the garden. It was heavily festooned with brambles, as well as having been left unpruned for several years, I would guess, so it looks a lot more open now. More pruning, to reduce the height, will be required next year to bring it back to a good shape and size and, hopefully, I will be able to control the brambles so that it doesn’t get choked again.

At the beginning of December, I also acquired a small shed, through Facebook Marketplace, and am hoping to find a suitable place to put it once the new fence is finished. It was delivered, disassembled, and Jeni and I managed to woman-handle it into the garden, via my next door neighbour’s side gate, where it is now lying on top of the large pile of uprooted sedge grass that I’ve created. All of the components for the fence were also delivered in December and left in my front garden, so I had to carry all of those around to the back in the same way – 7 x 2m fence posts, 130 x 1.5m feather-edge boards, 18 x 3m lengths of rails and the capping pieces! I was exhausted at the end of that mission! I’m just very glad that the fencer is bringing the Postcrete to set the posts in the ground!

3D felted vessels

The full display of vessels

Also, at the beginning of December, I tried to kick start my creative mojo, which has been dormant for far too long, by going on a day’s felting course with Jeni. I’d been to a couple of courses with the tutor before and am really lucky that she holds them at the community hall just up the road from me, so we could walk there. We were making 3-D decorative vessels and could choose between small ‘pods’ or a Christmas stocking – needless to say, I chose a pod shape, as did most of the attendees. She only has 8 people on each course, so that she can give individual attention, and this works really well. We had great fun and were completely absorbed in what we were doing and are hoping to replicate the day at my house sometime soon – after all, I have got most of the materials required!

I felt very old on December 17th when my 'baby' turned 40! I felt the occasion should be marked in some way, so made the first birthday cake that I've done for about 30 years! It was a triple-layer chocolate sponge with chocolate butter icing, a mascarpone cream filling and a dark chocolate ganache with piped decorations - that got the seal of approval! Dave and I had clubbed together and bought Jeni a second-hand ceramics kiln so that she can get creative again with her pottery, and we had a lovely weekend celebrating.

Work on the interior of the house has slowed to a virtual stop although, after complaints from Dave, I have now put up a couple of mirrors in the bathroom, so that he can see to shave when he comes to stay – gotta keep the boy happy! He has been to stay with me a couple of times which is lovely, after so many years of living in a one-bedroom home and unable to accommodate him comfortably. I cooked a roast dinner for us the other day and we then realised that it is probably upwards of ten years since I last did that! It feels so wonderful to have the potential for family (and friends) to come and stay.

Bathroom mirror #1

Bathroom #2

As a family, we had planned to spend Christmas at my sister’s house in Sheffield. I was to travel to Cheltenham on the Tuesday, stay overnight and then travel onwards the next day, with Mum, so that she could have a couple of days to rest after the journey and prepare herself for the onslaught of the rest of the family; Jeni was going to travel up by train on Christmas Eve and Dave was going to drive up early on Christmas Day as he had to work on Christmas Eve. However, things nearly got completely scuppered, and not by Covid: I’d noticed increased ‘road noise’ from my car over the last few months and had asked for the wheel bearings to be checked when the car was MOT’d back at the end of September, but nothing was found, so I put it down to a change in my hearing and turned up the radio (like you do!), but then I gave Dave a lift to Shepton and, out of the blue, he said, ‘You might want to get your wheel bearings checked, Mum’. Of course, this was on the Friday evening before I was due to travel on the Tuesday, so I had a bit of a meltdown and spent the weekend stressing about how I could still make Christmas in Sheffield happen. First thing Monday morning I rang my local garage and explained the problem, but they couldn’t even look at it until the next morning. However, on Tuesday they looked at the car, took it for a test drive, diagnosed a wheel bearing problem and agreed to try and fix it that afternoon, even though I could see that they were insanely busy. By the end of the day I had a supremely quiet car and the confidence to drive it to Sheffield and back. My brother-in-law drove down to Cheltenham and collected Mum and Jeni cancelled her train ticket so that the two of us could drive up together on Christmas Eve. It was more than a five hour journey but made so much better by having company and when we weren’t chatting away we were singing carols along with the radio.

Max!

Christmas was lovely – I got to see my great-nephew, Leo, and finally meet his little brother, Max, who was born back in April and, even though I’m not that keen on small children (give me a lamb, calf or piglet any day!) I had to admit that they were both real sweeties – I even had a cuddle with Max, but no-one got photographic evidence. All too soon we were dividing up the Christmas leftovers, packing our presents into the car and heading South. Jeni and I took Mum home and stayed overnight in Cheltenham before returning to Somerset, where I got to see the New Year in with both of my offspring, for the first time in many years.

Dave (revisiting his childhood) and Leo

I am now embarking on my winter stay in Cheltenham, although it will be slightly different this year as I will be travelling home more frequently than in previous years, so that I can do some more jobs, supervise the fencers and have some ‘me time’ with friends and family.

Until next time, stay safe, stay healthy and look after yourselves x

A Catch-up Blog

The Brecon Fox by Carly Quinton

I know you've all been missing my regular blog posts so, as it was August when I last wrote, I thought I'd better write a new one!

I really don’t know where the time goes, and I know that quite a few people I’ve spoken to about it, admit that time seems to have acquired an elastic quality since the Covid-19 pandemic overturned all our previous experiences – some things seem to have happened only a short while ago, whilst others appear to be much further back in time. I do wonder whether life will ever return to pre-pandemic days, as I find myself making excuses to myself for not going out and about: “Oh, there’ll be lots of people in the supermarket/walking that route/going to that gathering – I’ll go another day, when there are less folk about!”

August was quite busy with gardening jobs, another two farm sits for the alpacas and a three-day dog sit for one of my gardening clients, too. The dog sit coincided with my birthday and also a visit from Dave as he was on his two-week factory shut down, so I got to spend time with both him and Jeni and on the Friday evening we went out for a meal at a local restaurant, which was superb. I’d asked for practical things for my birthday presents – a log basket and a companion set, so was quite surprised to be given a very lightweight parcel from Jeni and Dave that looked nothing like either of those two things! Imagine my delight when I unwrapped a beautiful picture, painted by one of Jeni’s friends, entitled ‘The Brecon Fox’. The colours are so vibrant, and it will look stunning above my fireplace in the sitting room! I also treated myself to a mantelshelf, which is made from a recycled scaffold board by a place in Frome, appropriately called The Scaff Shop. I feel very ‘on trend’ as it is flame finished and then oiled, otherwise known as shou sugi ban and is very popular at the moment – I just like the way it shows up the grain of the wood!

My painting and my new mantel shelf

My time at the alpaca farm was quite tiring, but still great fun, as it is such a lovely setting next to the River Chew in a small hamlet. The reason that it was more tiring than previously was because they had decided to keep not one, but two, pups from the litter that Bonnie, the Labrador, had had back at the end of last year. They were absolutely adorable, but full of energy and mischief, and had to be walked at least twice a day. Before, when I had gone to stay, I’d incorporated Bonnie’s walks with checking and feeding the stock, leaving her tied up next to the field shelters whilst I fed and topped up water and poo-picked the two groups of alpacas and checked on the sheep. However, I couldn’t safely do this with three dogs (especially as the pups had chewed through their leads the previous week, when Chris had done just that!) so I was taking them out for a romp in the fields at both ends of the day, as well as doing the circuit to see to the stock! I also think I was already tired when I got there from all of the gardening jobs I was doing and the continued painting and decorating of the house. There is still quite a bit to do in the house, but it all slowed down considerably once I’d had the new carpet fitted, as that effectively got rid of my ‘workshop’ and each job had to be thought out carefully.

Would you believe that this is Dougal, the alpaca I bottle fed with him sitting on my lap!

The 'pups' in a rare, quiet moment!

I have lived in Somerset for more than 35 years now and, until recently, I had only climbed Glastonbury Tor once. However, when my brother and his family were staying in the area at the beginning of the summer, we spent a day together and ended up climbing the Tor from the town side, which is slightly less steep, but still quite a climb. The view from the top was spectacular and I felt that I should do this more often. Roll forward a few weeks and I was in the middle of doing a spot of decorating, when I realised that I was short of milk for a cuppa. I decided to walk along to my local shop and buy some but then, realising what a beautiful day it was, I just carried on going and ended up walking along a lane and climbing the Tor from the other side! Goodness knows what people thought, as I was dressed in an ancient hoodie and paint-spattered work trousers, but then you see all sorts of clothes in Glastonbury so, probably, no-one even noticed!

The Tor from a distance

Looking back at St Michael's Tower

The end of September saw me back at Dundry, looking after the poultry and other assorted livestock, whilst Geoff and Sally made their second visit of the year to Tresco. Sally had felt that her collection of cats was dwindling (down from 6 to 4, with two of them being very elderly) so had acquired a kitten! She has one of those wooden plaques in her kitchen which says, ‘One cat short of crazy!’ – I beg to differ!! He is just a farm moggy, but very affectionate, with an enormous purr and a very quiet miaow. He wasn’t allowed outside as he hadn’t had his second injection and some of the other cats had been quite poorly earlier on in the summer with cat flu that they had picked up from somewhere. This added another dimension to the task of looking after the cats, which is getting quite complex with dietary and medicinal requirements being factored in. He is also a one-kitten destruction team, as he leaps onto any surface scattering everything in his wake – I ended up gathering all of the photos in the family room and putting them away as he was knocking them over like a domino run, in his efforts to catch flies! Whilst I was there, I managed to bring a bit of order to the loganberries and blackberries in the fruit cage, but the gooseberries and red and black currants will have to wait for a later date, as I couldn’t see what needed pruning with the huge growth that they had put on this year. I have noticed that a lot of shrubs have put on amazing growth this year and my Mum’s Magnolia Stellata, which has been quite a small tree for about 30 years, suddenly had a huge growth spurt.

Teo, the new kitten

The weeds in my garden have continued to flourish, but I am gradually working my way through to the bottom of the plot. The most challenging thing has been the sedge grass, which makes huge root clumps and is quite difficult to dig out and is everywhere! At the beginning of October the Leylandii hedge was removed, and all the stumps ground out, and the new fence will be going up shortly which will give me a better idea of the space I have to play with. The team did an amazing job cutting down the hedge, untangling it from an old wire fence, dragging it through my neighbour’s side entrance and then chipping it all. I was pleased to know that all of the chippings go to a local farm for animal bedding and will eventually rot down on the dung heap and be returned to the soil.

Now you see it,

now you don't!

In the middle of October I saw that Fairport Convention were going to be in concert in Wells Cathedral and asked Jeni if she’d like to go with me. She wasn’t very keen, as it’s not her sort of music at all, so I gave myself a stern talking to, and went by myself. It felt very odd to be at a venue after all this time, especially as all of the seating was socially distanced, and I found myself sitting behind one of the enormous stone pillars (I should have booked earlier and bought a more expensive ticket!), so I couldn’t see the band at all, but I could hear them very well. The whole event was made more magical by the fact that it coincided with a huge sculpture of the moon being displayed in the chancel, and this glowed ethereally throughout the concert, as it was lit from within.

The moon in Wells Cathedral

My view of Fairport Convention!

Well, I think that more or less brings me up-to-date on my goings on in the last few months. As the nights draw in and my log burner gets lit every evening, I feel myself hunkering down for winter. The deer, that I have spotted in the field below my garden, are becoming more regular in their appearances, grazing on the grass and browsing the hedgerows, and I have seen a pair of jays eating the apples still clinging to the old trees, and a fox moving boldly across from a possible den at the base of one tree to the far hedgerow, where he slipped through a gap and disappeared. The leaves are turning golden and gently fluttering to the ground and soon there will just be bare branches reaching to the sky. I feel very privileged to be able to watch the seasons changing from the comfort of my bedroom and dining room windows! Most mornings I wake before dawn and prop myself up in bed so that I can watch the sky lighten and colour gradually return to the landscape – a very special and magical way to start the day!

The view from the top of the Tor

Summer Shenanigans

A lovely house-warming gift!

I hadn’t realised that it was such a long time since I last posted a blog – doesn’t time fly when you’re enjoying yourself!

At Pitsford Water

At the end of June, Jeni and I finally managed to visit Dave in Northampton for a weekend. It was nice to have company on the drive as it is quite a long way and, occasionally, The Navigator had to re-emerge and guide me across country avoiding places like Swindon and Oxford! We had a lovely couple of days, culminating in quite a long walk around Pitsford Water, a man-made lake supplying water to Northampton. We saw lots of interesting flora and fauna, including Cormorants and a Little Tern on the water and lots of dragonflies, damsel flies and bees along the shoreline. It was a really hot day and we were all struggling with the last mile or so, but rewarded ourselves with a two-scoop ice cream each when we got back to the car park!

I officially moved into my new home on 12^th July – at least that’s when Dragonfly Removals (I had to book them with a name like that, didn’t I?) turned up and took my bed away, and the freezer, chest-of-drawers and large dining table. In fact, there is still quite a lot of my stuff still at my old home as the carpet couldn’t be delivered until 4^th August and they wanted as little furniture in the room as possible. Consequently, I do feel a bit as if I have been camping in a building site!

I had only slept in my new bedroom for 4 nights before I went off to do a 9 day farm sit at Dundry, so that added to the general feeling of impermanence. The farm sit took place during that incredibly hot weather, and I was really relieved that the majority of the work took place first thing in the morning and last thing in the evening – the rest of the time I spent indoors trying to keep cool. I even allowed the dogs to be indoors for most of the day, as they were struggling with the heat, too. I saw a post on Facebook from the local vets saying that guinea pigs and rabbits suffer badly from heatstroke and, as Sally has two guinea pigs, I was a bit concerned until I remembered that I had a big multi-coloured umbrella in the car which I managed to fix to the side of their run, so that they had shade for most of the day. Luckily, none of the animals succumbed to the ridiculous temperatures, although I was filling up the chickens’ water on a daily basis.

Before ...

... and after!

I couldn’t avoid the siren call of the garden/jungle for ever, so have made a start on trying to ‘find’ the garden. It’s a bit like a mini Lost Gardens of Heligan, as I clear back the blanketing cover of grass and bindweed to reveal the hard structure of the garden. So far I have discovered a gravel path, edged on one side by brick which, I think, edges a lawn. There seems to be an awful lot of gravel and not much in the way of flower beds, but time will tell. I am also going to have the Leylandii hedge professionally removed as it is not a thing of beauty or utility and therefore has to go! Luckily, the neighbours are really keen to see the back of it and have offered the use of their rear access to save everything having to go through the house (across the new carpet!!) or over the flat roof. Because of the restricted access it is going to be a 2-day, 3-man job so is not coming in cheap. However, I would have to pay someone several hundred pounds each year to keep it under control so the initial outlay will soon pay for itself. It will make a huge difference to the garden as I reckon I will gain an extra three feet in width all the way down the garden!

One of the slow-worms

There is a tiny pond in an area just below the decking which, I am led to believe, was part of a much larger water feature a few years ago. It obviously has a hole in the liner as, even with the amount of rain that we have had recently, it does not fill up. With a lovely house-warming gift from my aunty, which will go towards a new liner, and utilising bits of the old carpet from the sitting room, and a heap of sandy soil from the front garden (left by a lazy builder, at some point) I am going to create a larger wildlife pond to attract more beasties to my garden. I have already discovered at least two slow-worms – one was sunning itself on a flat stone and the other was lurking in the long grass.

There is still quite a bit of decorating to do, but upstairs is virtually finished now. My friends, Karen and Ade, offered huge dustsheets that virtually cover a room in one go, which made life a lot easier, and then Ade offered to come and paint the sitting and dining room ceilings for me with his long-pile roller to get into all the swirly bits of the Artex. I was so grateful as my wrists were not looking forward to doing that amount of work, and he made a great job of it in only a few hours – it would have taken me at least a couple of days to do. Before the carpet was delivered I managed to paint all the skirting boards and the walls in the sitting room, but the dining area still needs to have wallpaper put on the chimney breast and then the walls painted, so I will have to be very careful to avoid spilling stuff on the new carpet!

The dining room before ...

... and after

The sitting room before...

... and after

Somewhere in amongst all this activity, I have managed to take my stall to two village fetes! Jeni came to help me, as I had to use my old gazebo which is much more easily erected by two people than one. Unfortunately, both days turned out to be wet ones, but it was still lovely to see people out and about again, enjoying themselves, even if they were wearing waterproofs and wellies! The second outing was to the Draycott Strawberry Fayre where we were allowed to set up in the big marquee, which was a relief as, after the Middlezoy fete, I had to dry a lot of my stock and the gazebo cover. It felt strange to get out all my stock again after such a long break, and I was surprised how much I had! I felt that my sock-knitting efforts during the winter were rewarded as, at both venues, they were the woollen items that sold. At Draycott we also had the added bonus of seeing old friends and acquaintances that we hadn’t seen for several years.

All set up at Draycott

Well, what else do you do at a Strawberry Fayre?

Work continues on my new home

One of my hidden roses

I have to keep reminding myself that I have only owned my new home for just over a month, and that Rome wasn’t built in a day, but it seems to be taking a long time to get things done. Admittedly, I have picked up several new gardening clients recently so am working far more hours in a week than I was doing, and it is all physical work, so I get tired quite quickly.

Before ...

... and after

The front, or guest bedroom, is virtually finished having taken three coats of magnolia emulsion to cover the bright blue walls. I’ve also painted the ceiling and all of the woodwork (at least twice) and finally shampooed the carpet, which came up much better than I expected. During work on the room I had to make a new piece of skirting board, as there was a length missing, and do some repair work on the bedroom door which is one of those stupid hollow affairs with hardly any wood for fixings. Whoever had put the door in originally had made a right pig’s ear of installing the handle mechanism so that there was no wood to screw the handles into and only one screw on the catch plate was attached to anything. I spent a good couple of hours manufacturing bespoke bits of wood to create a new internal structure into which the various screws could be fixed!

My bedroom, at the back of the house with glorious views, is pretty much finished now, too. I wanted to paint the walls a misty green (they were pale lilac) but, when I put the paint on the wall it is more of a misty blue colour. However, I do quite like it – it’s very restful, so it will stay for the time being. Again, I have painted the ceiling, the walls three times and all of the woodwork twice and today I have shampooed the carpet. Let’s hope it comes up as well as the front bedroom!

From this ...

... to this

Meanwhile, Dave the stove man duly turned up to look at the job. He assured me that he would remove all of the necessary brickwork, install a lintel, line the chimney, board around the inside of the fireplace and supply the stove. He also said that he would completely replaster the chimney breast and alcove to give me a smooth surface to paint – all of this for an extremely reasonable price. He proposed using mock flagstones for the hearth, but I had other ideas! Some months ago, whilst out for a morning walk to the lake, about half a mile away, I discovered that someone had gone to huge lengths to fly tip a load of building materials right next to the lake. How they got it all there is a mystery as they could not get through the padlocked gate from one direction, and the other direction meant driving across a field in full view of a farmhouse! Amongst the general detritus were several biggish pieces of thick slate, such as would have been used as flooring in an expensive kitchen. My friend, Mary, and I decided that they would be ‘useful for something’, so when a hearth was required I suggested these. We duly measured them and found that three pieces would be more than enough for the job so, on Tuesday evening, we decided to ‘liberate’ them. They were quite heavy and the only way to collect them was in my four-wheeled cart that I used for markets, so we walked along the main road for about a quarter of a mile, then crossed over into a field and bumped our way across that until we met up with the track to the lake. We duly loaded the slabs onto the trolley and bungee-corded them down before repeating the process in reverse, whilst trying to look inconspicuous! When Dave and his mate, Mark, unloaded them from the back of the car they were amazed at the quality and reckoned those three pieces alone were worth £150.00! I love a bit of recycling! I did wonder whether it’s theft to remove someone else’s fly tipping?

The cart loaded with slate

Dave and Mark did a brilliant job, bagging up all of the rubble and taking it outside, and polishing the slate so that you can see all the beautiful veining. They also removed my ‘feature wall’ for me whilst waiting for their cement and adhesives to harden. I didn’t ask them to, I’d just mentioned that I had begun to stress about it as I’d found how painful it was to try and remove it with a bolster and lump hammer, but they had a Kango-type drill and had it all down in about 15 minutes – I could have kissed them!

... and this ...

... to this!

Last Sunday I made myself have the day off, as I’d been burning the candle at  both ends, so went on a foraging expedition to pick elderflowers, which seem to be everywhere at the moment. I have now made and bottled a double quantity of cordial, so that should last a little while. If I can find more bottles I may be tempted to make another batch soon.

I have still managed to control my urge to start tackling the jungle that is my garden, but I have discovered two beautiful, scented roses which is lovely – they will need some TLC later in the year to bring them back into some sort of shape, but that can all happen after I move in! Moving day is still a bit of a moveable feast – I’m heading for the first week in July, but that could change if I can’t get all the messy jobs finished and new carpets fitted downstairs.

It's a shame that I am spending a lot of this gorgeous weather decorating inside but, when I stop for a break, I realise just how lovely this spot is. I take my lunch outside and sit on my decking gazing at the fantastic view and listening to the birdsong. There are blackbirds and house sparrows close to, with the ubiquitous jackdaws and magpies in the field below me and occasionally a burst of activity in the air above as a small gang of swifts go screaming by, playing tag and twisting and turning over the fields. The absence of traffic noise is a blessing and I understand that the sunsets up here are magnificent. I'm getting quite excited (rather than anxious) about moving in, now!

My other lovely rose!

Wintry May

The view over my garden

Well, I think Spring lasted for about a fortnight before we were plunged back into wintry weather!

I planted my potatoes on Good Friday (the traditional day for planting spuds) and they cautiously peeped their heads above the parapet a few weeks later, only to have their leaves burned by a ferociously cold wind. They will grow through it OK, but it stopped them in their tracks for a bit. Many of my gardening clients had plants that were burned by that same wind, hydrangeas seem to have come off worst from the encounter, with some very sick specimens around at the moment – hopefully they will all recover.

At the moment I have no idea what to wear when I set out of a morning to go gardening – I usually start off in three or four layers and gradually shed them if the day warms up. If the weather deteriorates, I have shower-proof trousers and jacket in the car, plus full waterproofs if necessary and several hats! At least I’m prepared for whatever our crazy climate throws at me, although some warm, dry weather would be nice, preferably with a soft breeze blowing to keep the temperature just right – I am heartily sick of working in gale-force winds, as it tires me out and makes me very irritable. Someone once told me that the reason that I hate the wind is because I am a Fire Sign and it extinguishes my flame!

I’m afraid that I have not been ‘up close and personal’ with Nature recently, so cannot give you a full update on what is about at the moment, although the Hawthorn is all in bloom and the beautiful Queen Anne’s Lace and Campion are filling the hedge bottoms. There are still splashes of bluebells and also the pretty lilac-coloured Lady’s Smock or Cuckoo Flower, on the roadsides round here and in the woods the Wild Garlic reigns supreme. I am eagerly awaiting the blooming of the Elders as I have run out of Elderflower Cordial and need to replenish my stocks for the year ahead.

My new home

The main reason that I have not been out and about as much during this last month (apart from the inclement weather!) is that on 7^th May I got the keys to my new home and have been busy trying to get it sorted before I move in. I have not lived in my own space for eleven years – the first five were spent ‘on the road’ WWOOFing and the last six I have been renting my friend’s annexe. The house is a two bedroomed, ex-Local Authority house built in the 1950s and not at all what I had expected to buy when I first started looking several years ago, but the West Country has become a rather popular destination for city dwellers looking to escape and the prices have risen quite a lot in the last year. Having said that, the house is very light with a sitting room and dining room linked by an archway and the most glorious views towards the Mendips – in fact it’s pretty much the reverse of the view that I used to have from my cottage in Draycott which, with a powerful set of binoculars I could probably see from my dining room window! More to the point I will finally have my own garden again, although it is more like a jungle at the moment, and will take a lot of hard work to get under control.

Jeni stripping wallpaper

Since the beginning of May I have spent most of my free time, between gardening jobs, to-ing and fro-ing between Pylle and Glastonbury, getting the decorating underway and trying to sort out the order in which the messier jobs need to be tackled. Upstairs only really needs a painting job done on the bedrooms and bathroom with the odd bit of wall-drilling to reposition the wonky curtain rails, but downstairs needs a bit more done. I had hoped to have the Artexed ceilings in the sitting and dining room skimmed to create flat ceilings but the plasterer that came to look at the job was rather pessimistic about the strength of the plasterboard fixings to hold up an extra weight of plaster and obviously didn’t really want to do the job. On reflection I decided that I would save myself the £600+ and learn to live with them! The next messy job was opening up the blocked-in fireplaces to enable me to have a multi-fuel stove installed. Having removed the ghastly mock-vintage wallpaper from the chimney breast and removed the piece of board covering up the hole where a fireplace should be, I was presented with a much smaller orifice than I was expecting as the original fireplace had been reduced in size by the insertion of some rubble and copious amounts of concrete. I knocked a bit of it out with the aid of a bolster and lump hammer but then lost my nerve – it wouldn’t be the best way to introduce yourself to the next-door neighbour would it, through the back of his fireplace!! I now await the arrival of the stove guy who is coming to view the job on Wednesday afternoon and will, no doubt, tell me how much more brickwork I need to remove.

The sitting room fireplace

I’m not going to install a fire in the dining room, as the two rooms are linked, but may leave the aperture as a feature. There were two pieces of plasterboard hiding this fireplace and its adjoining alcove, but they had been badly put up in that there was at least a half inch gap between the plasterboard and the ceiling and another gap all down the length from floor to ceiling, so they had to come off. However, they had been stuck to the existing plasterwork with ridiculous amounts of glue, so have taken a fair bit of plaster off the chimney breast as well – another job for me to try and fix.

Dining room wall before...

... and after!

The only other really messy job that needs sorting before I move in, is the removal of a strange feature wall constructed (very badly!) as a fill-in in the triangular space formed by the staircase. Whoever put it there obviously felt inspired by the large ammonite that they had acquired, but it is so awful that it is not a thing of beauty and needs to go! I can’t decide whether to hire a skip or build a rockery!

The 'feature wall'!

I had hoped to have done all of these jobs before any furniture was moved in, but the timing did not quite work out, as I was offered a 3-seater sofa and an armchair that had to be removed by the end of May so, last Saturday, Jeni and I met up with her friend Aaron and his long-wheelbase Transit van to collect the furniture and a double divan bed. The bed was destined for Jeni’s house in Shepton Mallet so we drove there first, in an absolute cloudburst, unloaded the bed, loaded her old bed, which I am having in my spare bedroom, and set off for Glastonbury. Everything was going well (apart from the appalling weather) until we came to take the sofa in through the front door – it wouldn’t fit! The sofa is seven foot long and the porch ceiling is about six foot eight inches high, and you have to turn through 90 degrees to get through the internal front door into the sitting room. We put the sofa back in the van while we thought about the problem.

At this point I should mention that there is no rear access to my property. What had obviously once been a free-standing storeroom with a passageway running from front to back between it and the house, has been converted into an attached,  flat-roofed single-storey extension housing the kitchen. We thought we could probably get the sofa through the back door, into the kitchen and then into the dining/sitting room but how to get it there? The only answer was across the flat roof! Aaron and Jeni got the sofa so that it was balanced on the edge of the roof and then Aaron climbed up my step ladder and heaved himself onto the roof where he proceeded to push the sofa across the roof whilst Jeni and I took the stepladder round to the other side and repeated the manoeuvre in reverse. Unfortunately, I was so busy doing this that I didn’t get the chance to take a photo! I don’t think that sofa is going anywhere for a long time and when it does, it will be in manageable pieces! I will be carefully measuring any other furniture before taking it to the new house to make sure that it fits through the front door.

Today (Friday, 21^st May) I have driven across the Mendips to do a weekend farmsit for my friends at Dundry. It is the first farmsit that I have done since September, so I hope it all goes well. The weather always seems to be blustery when I head for this exposed hillside just outside Bristol, but today was worse than usual with high winds and lashing rain! I felt a little nervous as I drove along under the dead and dying ash trees! Before the leaves came out on the trees, it was easy to kid yourself that ash dieback was not really such a big problem, but now the devastation is blindingly obvious and tragic in its enormity. Last year you could see that some of the trees didn’t look very healthy but now they are dead, bare branches clawing the sky in their death throes, and it seems to have happened so fast. All the ash trees, whatever their age and size, have been affected and there are stands of trees with not a leaf on at all and many more with tiny, wispy leaves at branch ends. The look of our countryside, particularly on Mendip, is going to be dramatically changed as these ubiquitous giants are gradually felled, leaving huge gaps in hedgerows and shadeless fields. I am going to nurture my tiny ash sapling that I brought back from Shropshire, where I pulled up hundreds in the years that I WWOOFed there, in the hope that it will prove to be immune – I feel it’s the least I can do!

A sunny corner for breakfast