Nesting

Hi folks.

It's funny isn't it that, even though I know that the next few months are going to be filled with dust mess and chaos, I found myself trying to create one little space where I felt a bit more that I was in control. Somewhere to find a little calm in the midst of the whirlwind.
Seeing as every room in the house needs to be worked on I turned my attention to the courtyard garden.
It was a bit of a dumping ground. Full of old wood, metal, rubble and stone.

I spent a bit of time contemplating where to start but in the end I began to cut and bag the timber pile in the corner filling a ton of bags. Followed by a good few runs to the tip.

Once I had a corner free I set to work. Starting out by using some of the old bricks from the house I built a platform and set up my water feature. I then just started to play around with the plants and stones. This is the end result....

 Still a long way to go  but I am please to have somewhere to sit and relax for a while. I love how our chairs look so small against the height of the walls. Over time though I am sure we'll be able to bring some green height to soften the walls.

I moved all the spare stones to the bottom of the yard for now. Ultimately we'll use them  to create raised beds to plant in and to hide some of the pots. I kept the original chimney pot from when we repaired the chimneys and now it holds a fern.

 I used the cracked lintels from when we opened the fireplaces to create some shelves and giving the cats a few hiding places too.

 Just a little whimsy. I love this little guy, a gift from my daughter.

 It's nice to see the splashes of colour from the pots and flowers that we brought up from our previous home.

 All our special roses have survived the move and are treating us to a bloom or two. The fragrence is gorgeous.

So there you have it, my oasis of calm in the midst of everything. All ready to be enjoyed when my daughter and her partner come to visit over the weekend, followed by my beautiful wife next week. I can't wait!
 Hopefully the next stage of construction should begin over the next couple of weeks which will be very exciting. I'll keep you posted.....
Take care till next time.

Here we go again.....

Hi there folks

As I am sure you will appreciate, it has been a pretty hectic time recently. We definitely seem to do things in a different order to usual.....
But, guess what, I am finally here!

 I am still rather bemused and bewildered though incredibly grateful to be here. Moving day was slightly chaotic as you can imagine. Things didn't quite go to plan but I guess that's been the story of our life so far so you just roll with it.

 Effectively our life is now packed in boxes all over the place....along with two cats who are still not quite sure whether this is a good idea or not. Though they took a little while to settle, now they are exploring away. Hopefully the next stage of work should begin in the next couple of weeks which will be exciting as things should start to change fairly rapidly.

 Though the house cannot yet be lived in I am obviously spending most of my days here so I have been painting some of the plastered walls.

 As you can imagine, working around everything is fun. I have resigned myself to the fact that for the next few months I will be moving boxes and furniture from one place to another while rooms are being finished off properly.

How do you like my comfort zone lol. Somewhere for the cats and I to be nice and lazy. For the first week the cats must have thought they had been sent to jail, spending their days shut up in here and being taken out to the yard for an hour or so each day....
Now, they have the run of more of the house and into the yard with plenty of places to explore (and hide!)

Except here, I don't want to take the chance that they will get out onto the road so this is still out of bounds to them.

I know this post is a bit all over the place, but just wanted to give you a snapshot of things at the moment. The next post will be a little more focused (says he optimistically)
Take care