Garden holiday

I'm just coming to the end of my 'Garden Holiday'. I did the same last year, took a week off work and spent the whole week doing all the overdue jobs and spring cleaning in the garden that never get done in a normal day off or weekend. I managed to stain and varnish all the furniture, as we have two patios there is a fair amount of it and it is bloody tedious and laborious!


We had some friends from Glasgow come and stay, we became friends with them years ago when D first met them in Corfu and we meet up most years in Corfu but they'd never been to our place back home in the UK. Anyway, we'd rattled on about how our garden has progressed from when we first move in 18 months ago and that we'd won best city garden in the 'In Bloom' competition so the pressure was on to make sure that it did look good when they arrived (It's looked totally crap all winter!). To be honest I don't think any one else would notice if it wasn't perfect but when it's your own garden you notice EVERY imperfection, well I do and I become like a thing possesed trying to kill myself in the process of cleaning and sorting. So true to form we spent ages blast cleaning the patios, mowing, digging, weeding etc and by the time they arrived it looked great but better than that was the fact that the weather was fantastic, their company was superb and we had a really relaxing and over indulgent few days.





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D and friends on top patioI went up to the plot mid way through the week to weed, water and hoe. The carrots and parsnips that I sowed hadn't appeared and to be honest I think it was through lack of watering. I re sowed the two rows of carrots and today I managed to repair my mountain bike which has only taken 2 years ! So now I am able to ride the bike from house to plot in 5 mins, water hoe and back in no time! It was great to do actually, it felt so good to be able to get to the plot without having to take the car.

The other big job for this week was to sow all the outstanding veg that I have been meaning to do. I spent around 2-3 hours sitting on the patio at home in the blazing sun sowing beans, courgette, squash, peas, sweetcorn, cucumber and lettuce into loo rolls, modules and pots, a very therapeutic way to spend an afternoon (especially if you've got a good red wine and fab weather!!) The runner beans always intrigue me, they're just beautiful, the markings on them are amazing, the feel of the beans is like a worry bead, they are so tactile, they really are beautiful things.

So, now I've got the bike up and working there shouldn't be any excuse to pop up for 10 mins or so when I get home after work to slosh some water around and a quick bit of weeding...well that's the idea anyway!