Compost Turning

I've had a day off today, getting a few bits done around the house while Liz works from the sitting room. It's been a useful one, with reasonable weather, too, and we finished the day with a trip to our local garden centre's Christmas preview evening (with 15% discount on everything...irresistible).

A lot of this morning I spent getting the plumbing and worktop in our bathroom sorted, and now the sink is properly connected, and the worktop is in place, attached, and sealed. This is rather necessary, as the plan is to dismantle the pink (house) bathroom at the weekend, so we wanted a working toilet and basin, even though we'll be using the guest en suite for showering for a while yet (until we can tile ours).

I've trimmed the old hollow-core back door, ready to re-use in the doorway between the master en suite and the new guest room. For now, it's just secured in the frame: the existing wall prevents it opening, so (as I can't, therefore, get to the hinges) it can't be screwed to the frame until the wall's taken down.

I've finally got round to labelling the plants we bought at Tatton in July, before they die back and vanish for the winter—unfortunately, I've lost track of a eupatorium, and the two echinaceas ('Secret Love'), so I'll have to hunt again for them.

Over lunch, we set soaking the dried fruit for our Christmas cake, which we'll make at the weekend. It has loads of dried fruit, nearly three pounds, which we soak with a mug or so of tea for a few days.

Before dusk fell, I managed to turn the compost heaps, thus freeing up (kind of) the first bay, which promptly half-filled with the mound we'd formed nearby. It has let me empty the bin outside the kitchen, though, which is good. Hopefully the space will suffice until spring, when we'll start needing compost again, thus emptying the third bay, and creating trickle-down space in the system.

I also managed to knock a long-standing job off The List, and cleared a silted up corner of the drive, and the drainage channel between it and the track, so the drive will, hopefully, flood less badly this winter.

This evening's shopping trip was good, with a few Christmas decorations, including a long string of lights for the acer in the front garden, and a half-priced holly (the variegated form, 'Silver Queen'), which will go on the hillside, to complement the pure green hollies already well established.