Floor Finished

We made a list on Saturday morning of some things we wanted to try to do this weekend (a long one). Pleasing progress has been made, although, as it ever was, not quite everything happened.

Painting the last section (3/8ths) of the garage floor with bituminous sealant happened on Friday evening, Saturday lunch time, and Sunday morning. The plan was that the last coat (Sunday first thing) would then have a clear 24 hours to dry before we put the rest of the floor down.

Saturday morning, before we could do the second coat, we spent digging over a further section of knot garden. While I cut turves, and dug over the stony ground, Liz was busy clearing our stone dyke from last time. We've not worked on extending the herb garden since September, in order to get the overwintering alliums in the ground, so it's nice to once more make progress on it. Although we only did a couple of hours work (too hot!), we returned to the garden on Sunday, and have marked out anew the pattern. We needed to do this because we've changed our mind about the size of the squares (diamonds), which we decided were too small (roughly 1m edges), and needed to be 50% bigger. There wasn't quite enough space in them to allow planting, but still be able to walk through them.

The original (rough) plan for beds and edges in the herb garden (© Ian 2013–14)

That also means we'll only have two sorts of edge: lavender and step-over apples (which I'll try to graft over the winter). The box will be grown on to form box balls in the garden, instead of hedging: we think they might, for one thing, replace some of the Lady's Mantle that's really a weed in the long border. They'd occupy the same niche, of a rounded green mass, but with the advantage of year-round structure, and less invasive self-seeding.

The new pattern fits around the corner nicely, and finishes in about the same place, which is good. We then moved the part-painted climber supports into the beds, settling on a layout that has the taller of these forming a backdrop to the garden, in the boxes furthest from the house. There are only four of these at the moment, but I can always make more in time. The smaller are nearer the house, and there are squares that suitably frame views from the windows with supports. It looks very pleasing, and once the supports are painted, and sunk into the ground, I hope it's going to look really good.

On Saturday afternoon, we constructed a hinged roof that goes over the steps down into the wet cellar from the driveway, which will allow us to store bikes on the steps but keep the worst of the weather off them. It's a simple wooden frame, with tongue and groove cladding, but it looks quite smart...although it does draw my attention to the falling-apart (non-structural!) wall next to it, which edges the pathway. Another day's work there, I think. At the same time, Liz cleared the driveway of a pile of apple prunings that have been sat there drying: they'll be rather fragrant kindling next winter.

They've been sitting around for longer than they should (by some way, really), but we've bottled the five demijohns of wine that were waiting.

• Dandelion, from May 2013. For whatever reason, the dandelions rather passed me by this May, so I don't have a new batch on the go. This one seems good, though.
• Greengage from October (a more reasonable time-scale). This was slightly fizzy, so I added a Campden tablet, and bottled it a couple of days later. The taste seemed improved, too, after this.
• Elderflower from July: very good, this one.
• Blackberry from September, a predictably dessert-wine red. It was also slightly fizzy, but a tablet and 36 hours rest sorted this out.
• Chardonnay from a kit, in June last year. It's really rather Chardonnay-like!

In the same vein, this evening we've made a five-pint batch of elderflower cordial. Different process to previously: a dozen flowerheads, a pared then sliced lemon, and then a boiling sugar solution poured over them (1 pint water, 1lb10 sugar). You add 2.5tbsp of citric acid, once cool, and allow to sit for 24 hours before bottling.

The batch of cider that we pressed last autumn has, in turn, finally been racked into two demi-johns. It's not tasting quite 'right', but as I understand it, cider often needs a decent maturation period, so I'll bear with it.

Sunday afternoon was spent, largely, making a hatch for the garage loft, and putting up the last of the insulation. Hanging the hatch will have to wait until I've found the right hinges.

Today, then, was spent finishing the garage floor. The sealant paint was nicely dry by mid morning, so we were able to immediately start work on laying the insulation, screwing down the battens, and filling the gaps with solid insulation. The plywood sheets went on with relatively little fuss, so by about 1530 we'd finished. An hour later, and the room was tidied up, rather than having everything stacked into the half that had a floor, and we've even managed to set out the two armchairs we've had stored in a corner since 2009.

Last thing for the weekend was getting some of the preparatory work done for our new patio doors, which arrived on Friday. They're being fitted on Wednesday (including breaking out the hole for them, replacing the garden window in the dining room), and we've done as much fitting of hardware, and so on, as possible.