Slow progress...

...but progress nevertheless 😊  Beverly came over on Saturday and we of course put her to work, despite the photo above seemingly showing her just taking life easy 😄 

I'm afraid that once again not only am I somewhat behind with my garden posts, I've also been a tad remiss with taking photos of our progress ~ oh well, I'm sure you are used to that by now 😉

In my last garden post, we had got the old strawberry bed moved into its new position and the stone chippings paths started.  Since then we've filled what is now the new pond bed with soil and Beverly helped us to get the pond in position.  Unsurprisingly it wasn't easy to get level, despite setting it on a good layer of sand, as I'm sure you can tell!  In the end we decided that it was just going to have to be "good enough"  Hopefully when it's got the aquatic plants in it (which should be arriving by the end of next week) and the plants around the edge have filled out it won't be quite as noticeable 😏

I somehow managed to bruise my right thumb at some point.  I really don't recall doing anything dramatic and can only think that perhaps it was when I was digging out the chunky wooden log that the windchime hook is set into, as it was harder to get out that I was expecting!

I finished planting around the pond, "shopping" from elsewhere in the garden.  I also hunted around in the wilderness on the other side of the garden to find the little frog house that I'd put there a few years back.  It had a fair few snails inside and I don't think any of the frogs that visit/live in our garden have ever used it to be honest, but it looks quite cute set out beside the pond 😊

Adrian filled the second bed with soil from the other two old kitchen garden beds on this side.  There wasn't quite enough of the "good" soil to completely fill it up, so I moved the three rhubarb plants into very large pots so we could start to empty the bed they were in.  The rhubarb will be found permanent positions in the back garden in due course.

You may recall that way back-in-the-mists-of-time we had a soil mountain that had to be sifted to get out all the pieces of rubble that was mixed in with it.  We did make use of some of that rubbly soil though as a base layer in all the old kitchen garden beds, except for the ones where we relocated the strawberries and the rhubarb bed (pictured above), as an added layer of drainage.  We've used some of the rubbly soil in the base of the second new bed but what is left will simply be spread over the ground to level the areas out. 

It's not a very good photo, I know, but I thought you'd like to see the flower on my pink ornamental dandelion (taraxacum pseudoroseum) ~ it's very pretty and I'm hoping that the white one I have in the same tub will flower this year, too 😊

Little words of wisdom

 

Hazelton

 

New blog post at Hazelton ~ tales from a miniature town:

Brunswick House

Hazelton

New blog post at Hazelton ~ tales from a miniature town:

The dangers of a dreary, wet day

Peace...

www.allposters.co.uk

Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.

For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.

For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou

(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)   

Flexing those muscles...

image from Magnific.com

Well, sort of 😏 To be fair, Adrian has been doing most of the "proper" muscle-flexing ~ under my supervision, of course 😄

I mentioned previously that we were going to reuse the old kitchen garden beds to create the new, purely, ornamental ones.  The first one to be moved was the old strawberry bed.  Before we relocated the strawberries into it, it was smaller and Adrian extended it with odds 'n' sods of wood.  This made the bed really weighty and it took a lot of muscle-flexing on the part of Adrian to lift the bloody thing, with me prising it up as much as I could manage with a long iron pole that my Dad gave me years ago. 

We were able to shuffle it across the (thankfully!) short stretch of garden to lean it against the new raised bed.  Adrian then spent a fair amount of time prising off the old bits of tattered weed membrane that had been tacked to the inside.  He wanted to clean it up as much as possible so that he could get some fresh coats of wood stain on it.

The space where the bed had been looked like a flippin' grave when it had been moved 😳  We've already started to whittle the soil down, though, and it won't take long before it's level with the ground around it.

It took some huffing and puffing but in the end we got it in its new position.  It's amazing how smart it now looks after three fresh coats of wood stain!  The canes in the new bed, by the way, are just markers for when I start to move shrubs into it 😊  The very large pot to the left was one of two that originally stood against the front of the house.  At some point I will get the matching pot emptied out and moved to stand at other side of the new bed.

We have also now shifted some of the stone chippings from further down the garden to create this new path.  All the stone chippings are gradually being moved from the lower part of the kitchen garden area; eventually it will be grassed over.

As you can see, I've been "shopping" from the garden to plant up the first of the patio containers.  I also brought a few little bits and pieces round from the kitchen courtyard.  I was going to put one of the round tubs where the chair now is but changed my mind.

I also put a largish pot (that I already had) beside the bench, again filled with plants from elsewhere in the garden.  The black rectangular thing currently being stored beneath the bench is the new pond; hopefully we'll be able to get it in position before too long.  

I'm so thrilled with my beautiful white peony 😍  I couldn't get a very good photo, though, as it was a tad windy at the time.  This is the first year that it's flowered so well ~ I'm just hoping that it won't sulk too much when I move it later in the year!

Hazelton

New blog post at Hazelton ~ tales from a miniature town:

Nothing is ever straightforward!

 

Little words of wisdom

 

Hazelton

New blog post at Hazelton ~ tales from a miniature town:

A completely new build

 

Very pleased...

and a little amazed, to be honest!

I haven't posted about my weight loss journey since back in February but I've still been plodding along.  I've had plenty of weeks where my weight has just stayed the same, along with small losses of 1lb at-a-time, but since my last post I'm now down a total of 29lbs 😊

I realise that "slow and steady wins the race" is a good adage when it comes to trying to shed excess weight and I've definitely been taking that road!  However, I'm also very much aware that my losses would be much more consistent if I were actually following the Slimming World plan as it's meant to be rather than my somewhat lackadaisical approach 😏  My aim going forward is to knuckle down, as it were, and properly get on board with the plan.  Whilst I am, of course, thrilled with my total loss so far I'm also well aware that with having such a lot of excess weight still to shift, dilly-dallying around with the plan won't be so helpful in the long term.

The next step, therefore, is to take time to actually get my meals properly organised and planned out, as per the Slimming World plan.  That way, hopefully I'll be seeing you in the not-too-distant future with news of further weight loss 😊

 

Peace...

www.allposters.co.uk

Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.

For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.

For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou

(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)   

Reading round-up: June 2026

image from Freepik

The Blitz Detective Investigates - The Covent Garden Murder: Mike Hollow

The Blitz Detective Investigates - The Soho Murder: Mike Hollow

The Blitz Detective Investigates - The Bloomsbury Murder: Mike Hollow

The Lighthouse (Inspector Adam Dalgliesh Book 13): PD James

Kill Them Cold (The Hidden Norfolk Murder Mystery Series Book 7): JM Dalgliesh

A Dark Sin (The Hidden Norfolk Murder Mystery Series Book 8): JM Dalgliesh

Sew Felt Animals From Apple Blossom Wood: Claire Bowman

Making Luna Lapin;

Luna Lapin Making New Friends;

Sewing Luna Lapin's Friends;

Luna Lapin & Friends A Year of Making

(four book set): Sarah Peel

Dopamine Home: Rachel Verney

Dopamine Décor: Kate Rose Morgan

Granny Square Fashion: Cassie Ward

The Pattern-Free Wardrobe: Kimberley Hind

June was a pretty productive reading month, not least because I had birthday money burning a hole in my pocket, so treated myself to some non-fiction books 😄

I appear to be up-to-date with the Blitz Detective for now, but I'm hoping that as the war isn't yet over in the books there will be some more stories to come.

It seems that I have now read the penultimate book in the Adam Dalgliesh series, with just book 14 left.  I shall be sorry to say goodbye to Adam and his squad but I guess 14 books in one series is a lot of plots and twists to create for an author.

I'm still really enjoying the Hidden Norfolk Murder Mysteries books ~ there seem to be a fair few stories in the series yet to come.  It will be interesting to read JM Dalgliesh's two other series, one set on the Isle of Skye and the other in Yorkshire, but I am trying hard to resist the temptation to start on them 😏

No magazines read this month as I had plenty of other reading material to amuse myself with, so the pile is still sitting there and is in fact growing ~ I really must make an effort to get some of them read 😄