Cold Frame

We had a visit over the weekend from university friends, Ann and Alan. It's been a little while since we saw them properly, though we were at their wedding in August. They set off home earlier today, which left us time to get out in the garden for a bit.

We've planted some pansies (Amber Kiss) in the troughs near the porch, and will try to plant more in the hanging baskets over the next week or so. This necessitated removing the Busy Lizzies from the troughs: they were rather past their best, and I've cut them up and suspended them in jars of water, where they'll hopefully send out adventitious roots. They can then be potted up somewhere, and over-wintered. I think I ought to take some more geranium and fuchsia cuttings, too.

Alongside this, we rescued a few dozen bricks from where they've been loitering near the compost bins, and brought them to outside the dining room window. We've used them to build the walls of a cold frame, which we've topped with some secondary glazing panes rendered redundant by the new windows. Into these we've put the perennials that arrived a little while ago and were potted up. I'm hoping they'll get a bit more light, and grow a bit faster!

The kitchen is almost back together, now: we've restocked almost all the cupboards (that is, we've removed most of the kitchen stuff from the dining room, guest room, and study...), and tidied up almost completely. The floor still needs to go down (probably starting in two weeks), and the walls need painting. We've got some holiday coming up, and hope to do the latter then.

That said, we also have a lot of other bits to get done, such as planting the two thousand-odd bulbs we've got waiting, building a new compost bin (and repairing the current one), finishing the vegetable beds, and brewing some wine and cider. Thus, it will probably be a busy, if fun, holiday.