Gardening at last

I should mention that Dave the Builder has gone away to France for a couple of weeks. For that reason, I’m going over to the house every day. Just to keep an eye on things and be on hand for any questions…or problems. So, this morning I had an early Skype call with mum and dad before heading over on the 9:30 bus.

At the moment, my office is a bit depressing. It’s being used as a store room for various bits of left luggage. Given there’s no shelving or cupboard space, everything is, basically, on the floor. I can just manage to get to my desk but, once there and settled, I quickly get discouraged by the surrounding mess. Needless to say, I don’t like spending much time in there. Once the rooms are finished upstairs, I can start tidying up but until then, I’m stuck with it.

This morning, after checking in with Lee the kitchen fitter and Clive and Robbie, I sat at my desk for a bit to write up the last blog posts before heading out into the garden. Actually, calling it a garden at the moment is stretching the point somewhat: a wild, untamed thing, would be closer and more accurate. I figured out a good way to occupy myself at the house.

And so I spent most of the day clearing out weeds and grass from around bushes and gazebo legs, making it start to look the way it’s supposed to. It was very hot work, given the day was very hot and the sky completely free from clouds. Fortunately I had plenty of water, my crumpled Panama/Ecuadorian hat and some isolated pockets of shade. As long as the weather holds, this will be my task for the week – to rediscover the hidden treasures of our overgrown garden.

While I toiled gently away, Clive and Robbie were working steadily on the terrace, finishing the brick work and, finally laying the first section of hard core prior to stamping it down. They ran out by 3:30 so Robbie was sent off to buy more while Clive packed up for the day.

Lee the kitchen fitter made very good progress with the kitchen. It’s really starting to take shape. My two new cookers have been installed and the fridge is in place, minus the doors. The worktops will not go on until they’ve been measured up then formed. This happens once the kitchen is complete.

The biggest surprise, however, was out the front of the house where the decorator had been extremely busy. After the back of the house was rendered, Mirinda decided the front should also be spruced up. We decided on masonry paint rather than the very expensive option of rendering the pebble dash away. In order to paint it effectively, our beautiful wisteria had to be chopped right down to the brick level of the house. While a bit sad, it does give us the chance to train it properly rather than have it going mad all over the house. As the decorator said, we’ll suddenly have quite a light lounge room.

As I said, he’d been very busy on his own, wielding ladder, roller and chopper. By the end of the day, the house almost glowed in the afternoon sun.

As for me and Day-z…we went for a walk, we spent some time reading under the gazebo, we ate lunch, we went back to Frensham. Oh, and we stopped off in a pub on the way for a lovely, cold pint of Peroni. Needless to say it wasn’t the Farnham House Hotel.

PS: The fridge freezer arrived safely at the suppliers in the afternoon…thanks, Al the Courier.