Saturday 26 December 2015

Christmas 2015

It's been a busy few days, with quite a lot of entertaining. We had Liz's parents with us for a few days over last weekend, and her sister (and nephew) managed to come up for a bit. Some of our other mutual friends called round, and we enjoyed a day with a house-full. On 23rd, we had a day out in York, shopping and then a performance of Peter Pan on ice in the evening, which was good fun. Christmas day we spent at my parents' in Thirsk, which was a lovely relaxing day with lots of food. Today, Cath and her family were with us for the afternoon, with...yes, more food.

Tomorrow, David and Ann arrive: they're staying with us until the new year, and it should be a really relaxing few days.

Sunday 6 December 2015

Birthday

We've had Liz's parents with us for the weekend, and spent a day in Scarborough with grandparents, all to celebrate her birthday. It's been good to see them all, and we went out to the stained glass centre which we all like. Next weekend, we have my parents with us on Saturday, and then we're hosting the neighbours for Christmas drinks and nibbles—so we'll probably spend the whole weekend cooking, eating, and drinking...which I can scarcely complain about.

Sunday 29 November 2015

Wall Hanging

It's been a long weekend, as we had Friday off. We spent the day helping Cath & Jason move house—they've not gone far, so it was five of us with a Transit van, while baby & dog were with Cath's mum. It wasn't too traumatic, in all: they completed around noon, and their buyer wasn't actually moving in on the day, so it wasn't too stressful. Fortunately, we managed to corkscrew their sofas up a rather unpromising twisted staircase...which was by no means certain for a while.

Today and yesterday have been relaxedly getting on with the wall-hanging/curtain for the dining room for me, which is almost finished, while Liz has got on with bits and pieces around the house. Yesterday, that included painting the downstairs windowboards and reveals, which are now looking really good. The gloss could do, really, with another coat, but that'll wait until spring, when I hope to do the window frames too. The weather's been atrocious, so the only things we did outside were to rearrange a delivery of firewood on the drive, ready for chopping, and harvest some Jerusalem artichokes (delicious), parsnips (one good, one rather forked), and scorzonera (to be eaten).

Sunday 22 November 2015

Plaster, Primer, Paint

Liz has spent today and yesterday painting the walls downstairs: a coat of white, and then a top coat of 'Timeless' emulsion to finish.  She's even managed to do the bits of the sitting room that we haven't re-plastered (around the door into the dining room, and the wall behind the sofa/bottom of the stairs. I've been doing bits and pieces, getting the biomass boiler fired up for the first time this autumn (the stove is no longer able to keep up with the cold outside), priming window reveals and boards, and repairing (finally!) the sewing machine.

We did manage to have yesterday evening off, though, and spent a pleasant evening at Eric's, a nearby restaurant, with Cath and Jason. Delicious food, and lovely to spend the time with them both.

Wednesday 18 November 2015

Window Reveals

I've been at home today, and have managed to get all the window reveals and curtain boards filled and caulked, ready to paint. It's taken ages! They're looking a lot better, though, so once the walls and they are painted, downstairs will look almost finished. I also spent a little while trying to repair the sewing machine, which I've not yet succeeded with.

Sunday 15 November 2015

Ditches and Drains

Yesterday, I spent a very pleasant day with David in Leeds, whereas Liz has painted the sitting room and dining room walls with watered-down basecoat. They're a bit patchy, of course, but they look loads better. Next weekend we will hopefully get one or two of the proper coats on top.

Today then I've done some bits and pieces, which hasn't really felt very productive: but Liz has first-coat painted the rest of the kitchen, including undercoating the big window's reveals. Meanwhile, I've filled the screw holes on the reveals in the sitting room (almost), and started undercoating them.

The really heavy rain of the last few days has meant there have been two little rivers flowing down the orchard. We've had about 4" of rain, which is a large fraction of the annual 48"—that's about a month's rain in two days. The ditch is just about keeping up, but the silly drain that I keep meaning to change is, well, being silly, and flooding some of the water onto the lane. That's a pain, as it scours the potholes. However, it's all worse still for the New Barn, as everything in the ditch and track finds its way to the crossroads, and some goes down to them. The ditch for this has, really, been inadequate for this much water, and they're in serious of danger of a flooded ground floor. Madness, for 1100' up in the Pennines, to flood, but there you go.

In brighter news, my part-made pond (where I dug out clay for planting the pond) has filled. I suspect it will empty again, as I don't think the walls are sufficiently clay-heavy to hold it. Never mind: as I make more ponds above it, to create a chain of reservoirs, and eventually line them, they'll clearly fill—and they will help slow the flow of water.

Sunday 8 November 2015

Christmas Cake 2015

The Christmas Cake bake was upon us, having soaked the fruit for a couple of days. It took a couple of mugs of tea, which is more than the recipe, so we'll see how that's worked. It took 4:20 to bake, which is a bit quicker than last year—I don't think this is a precision thing, though. Anyway, it's made, and it looks very tasty. We'll probably marzipan it in a couple of weeks, and ice it the first weekend in December—so I need to remember to give it a drink a couple of times before then.

The curtain isn't finished, partly because we had a machine failure: the feed plate has stopped feeding, because a gear broke. I need to order a replacement, and figure out how to fit it... However, the bit that's done looks really good, so that's very pleasing.

Friday 6 November 2015

Christmas Cake Fruit

We're getting on well with the wall hanging, but it won't be finished this week! We're going to bake our Christmas cake on Sunday, so we've also had soaking the dried fruit for that. It's the same recipe as we made last year, which was very tasty: notes to follow on Sunday.

Monday 2 November 2015

Wall Hanging

We're just back from a weekend visiting David and Ann, which has been really relaxing. We called in on Liz's sister on the way home, too. Back home, now, and this week we're planning to make progress on the wall hanging/curtain that will cover the insulation on the gable wall of the dining room. I hope to make good progress, but I'm not convinced we'll finish it.

Sunday 25 October 2015

Autumn Longevity

We've had a weekend of not doing a lot, which has been pleasant, while Jenny and Philip visited. The garden, which we had a chance to wander round without task, is holding up really well to autumn: I think more so this year than many, as a lot of things are later, and unstressed by a cool damp summer and mild autumn. It's nice, though.

Thursday 22 October 2015

Leafmould

A day off for me, and along list of bits done. I've repaired the latch on the door into the utility room (wasn't staying shut); got to the bottom of the inaccessible CCTV (I hope); fixed a problem on the LAN (invisible switch due to mismatched subnet address, which seems to have been causing access points to drop out); constructed a threshold step into the preservatory, now that we're more certain about plans to enclose the porch (more on that later); and plasterboarded above the windows on the front wall of the preservatory (including some roof-space insulation). These last two tasks should make the room considerably less draughty, which is important as the autumn proceeds.

On my way home from taking Liz to work, I also collected five big bags of leaves, which will get stowed away somewhere for a year or two, to become lovely, marvellous leafmould.

Sunday 18 October 2015

Pictures, Plastering, Planning

I've had a three-day weekend (Liz was working on Friday), although in some ways it's not been the most productive, for being longer. Friday was a rather unsatisfactory day, as I struggled to make progress with one of the main planned jobs—getting the CCTV up and running properly. The external camera system's not been working quite as intended. The footage is recorded (a little too zealously, so I could do with tweaking the motion sensitivity), and I can monitor it from anywhere in the world via the wonders of the internet. However, I can't see previously recorded footage, only live: which isn't much good for when I want to know why the house alarm's gone off. Anyway, I've got not further with that, and am still only able to see recorded footage locally.

However, I did get further with other things. I've made a trip to the tip/scrap metal place with a load of rubbish, which has improved the situation on the drive and in the preservatory. Our new bike rack has arrived, so I've assembled it and attached it to the car. I've also finally got round to installing the network switch, which means that all the ethernet sockets are now live. That, in turn, has meant I've been able to install the two IP cameras, meaning I can check in on the cats while away from the house...well, that's one benefit.

Saturday was a long, but much more satisfactory day. I've sorted out the satellite cable where it comes into the sitting room, wiring it into the same patch socket as the three data sockets behind the TV unit, which is much neater. I've also gun foamed all the gaps and holes in the plasterboard in the sitting room and dining room, which has meant Liz has been able to finish plastering them both.

While she did so, I tidied up the kitchen plasterboard: tweaking how it's sat behind the radiator, filling holes and gaps with more foam, and preparing the tricky area between the doors where the light-switches go. We've then plastered the room, between us: Liz getting it onto the wall, and I've gone along behind her, smoothing it to match the other plaster in the room. It looks comparable, actually, which is a relief.

Marmite was deeply unimpressed, but I added some pawprints: she, like Domino and Chess, is now immortalized on the wall.

Today's been easier-going. We went to Samuel's christening, which took us out until mid-afternoon. When we got home, I racked the wine into demijohns, and have barrelled the batch of beer I started in July. It's meant to only take ten days, or so, to ferment...but it always takes more like ten weeks. Never mind. It's now in a barrel, in the cellar, and should be ready to drink in a week or two.

The last task has been planning our long-intended curtain for the gable end of the dining room. The wall's a nice stone wall, against which one of our mirrors looks good, and we didn't want to lose this when we insulated. Instead, the insulation is, technically, removable, so in theory every spring we can take it down and have a stone wall once more. Whether we bother remains to be seen. However, for the months where the insulation is up, we want to hang a curtain, and we've come up with an ivy-leaf design we plan to make. Just need to order some fabric, and we can give it a try in a couple of weeks.

Sunday 11 October 2015

Late Cuttings

The newly repaired intelligent water heater arrived back this morning from its circuit board transplant. We got it reinstalled as early as we could, and it was up and running again by lunchtime. Not clear, yet, what went wrong with it, but hopefully the manufacturer will get to the bottom of that after testing.

The accumulator tank's lost heat, obviously, in a week of not being heated, but will hopefully be back up to operating temperatures within a few days.

We've spent a lot of the rest of the weekend in the garden, keeping it looking as good as possible for the rest of the season. I've mown and edged the lawn: it's growing really slowly, now, but still looks neater after it's mown. There was less than one hopper full of clippings, whereas it can be nearly five when it's growing at full speed—that's for a weekly cut. Liz has managed to weed practically the entire garden this weekend, another testament to how much slower things grow (and germinate) at this point in the year. I've taken a large number of cuttings: lots of achillea (the Cassis mix, the white, Inca Gold, and Lemon from the colour wheel and herb garden), more Verbena bonariensis
, another clutch of agryanthemum stems (which root in water, before potting them up), sage, box, and fuchsias—the unnamed ones in the front garden and in the long border, as well as Army Nurse, Hawkshead, and Delta's Sarah. I'm trying to get some layers of the Virginia Creeper (in full, fiery splendour at the moment, over the front of the house) to take, as well, though they're a slow affair. I've also divided a number of perennials, ready to pass on to a friend of Liz's who has a new border to fill: the variegated Gardener's Garters grass, the Golden Alexander lysimachia, three heucheras, and (these are seedlings potted up) sweet rocket, aquilegia, catananche, gaura, and wild strawberries. They await collection next week, with some cuttings, and spring-divided perennials, to follow next year.
Liz has spent some of this afternoon plastering the front wall of the sitting room, which looks much better. We're trying to get all of the downstairs plastering finished in the next few weeks, so we can also paint before the Christmas decorations go up. That's partly so it looks better for the six weeks the house will be decorated...and partly because we then won't be able to do any plastering or painting downstairs until mid January.

In between things, I also collected as many elderberries as I could—which isn't many. It doesn't look like a great year for them: most of the corymbs didn't have a high proportion of set berries, and they weren't as plump as they often are. Still: I bulked them (1.8kg) up to 3kg of fruit with some frozen blackberries, and have set off a 2 gallon batch of wine: fruit, boiling water, nutrient. Pectolase before I go to bed, and then yeast tomorrow. On Thursday (or maybe Friday), I'll strain onto sugar in two demijohns.

Sunday 4 October 2015

Tidying

I spent a fair bit of this morning trying to get to the bottom of why our intelligent solar-PV diverting water heater doesn't appear to be working. It seems to be a hardware fault, after a lot of diagnosing, and it'll have to go back to the manufacturer this Monday for repair. A real pain, but the company's been excellent in trying to resolve it, and the unit's under three years of parts & labour warranty, so it'll all be fine soon enough, I hope. And then we'll be back to having lots of hot water.

We're reinsulated the accumulator tank, which hasn't been properly returned to order since we installed the heating elements. That's meant reshaping the outer casing, and replacing the foam insulation I had to carve away in order to access the blanking plugs with expanding polyurethane foam. While I was messing around with the equipment, I've also cleaned (and fixed, in fact) the chimney exhaust fan, and swept the biomass chimney, as well as the sitting room chimney. The former needed it—the latter less so, but it's good to do every few months.

Having got the cables to the right position, and leading all the way back to the control unit on Wednesday, we've now mounted the external CCTV cameras, and positioned them to give us a good view of the outside of the house. I think they might need slight tweaking, but they seem about right.

Liz has undertaken a massive tidy-up while I've been so occupied, weeding all the fruit beds and cutting back the raspberries, cleaning the house, and weeding some of the ornamental beds. The garden's looking really good, even though it's October: so much so that actually there was no envy when we managed to get to Harlow Carr this afternoon. Our much smaller garden is, I think, stacking up well.

Wednesday 30 September 2015

Workshop


Almost all of today I've spent in the preservatory and workshop: I'm almost there, but it's going to take a bit more effort tomorrow evening to finish. We've very nearly got a properly organized workshop, for the first time ever, with all the tools and parts in sensible places, and each with a home.

By about 3, I was properly bored of tidying and sorting, though, so I switched tasks. I've now brought all the CCTV camera cables in to the middle loft (one was above the dining room, and two above the kitchen). I've put up a shelf at the back of the dressing room, on which the router, CCTV controller, ethernet switch and—one day—NAS can sit. I've also put two new double power sockets next to the shelf, to power all that kit. I still need to mount the CCTV cameras, hook everything up, and install the switch—at the moment, I only have the four sockets on the router to connect things to, but once the switch is there, and I've patch-cabled all the sockets on the patchpanel to it, all the LAN sockets in the house should work.

Monday 28 September 2015

Autumn Cut

We've had a long weekend, of four days at home (three for Liz, who had to work today), which has meant being able to get quite a lot done.

This year, we've been maintaining the hillside differently to the previous year. Instead of cutting it all back every time, I've only mown a pair of paths up from the main entrance: one up to the apple walk, and one to where the plum arch will one day go. These two points are where you can then go through to the middle section of the hillside, where the clearings are. The rest of the orchard I've left uncut, and the grass has grown up and gone to seed, and there's achillea, scabious, and...well, brambles, gorse, ragwort, and thistles.

However, it's probably looked better for this, and the colours have gone from a bright green, to deeper green, and on to browns and golds as the grass flowers. We think it's probably been better for wildlife, too: and it's taken less work, as trimming the paths only takes about thirty minutes.

As autumn comes, though, we need to cut the grass down. If we let it be, it'll eventually form ugly tussocks, again, and brambles will grow up and cover everything, and we'll be back to where we were in 2012. We'd like to, eventually, plant the orchard with lots of prairie-like flowers and grasses, which will make excellent foraging for bees and other insects, as well being attractive. However, we're a long way from that, simply because of the scale of the area. For now, we need to cut everything back in the autumn, which will keep it neat over the winter, and stop the grass getting too thuggish.

That's what we've done, with me mowing with Sigrid, while Liz raked up. We've built a few bays out of old pallets, and heaped the material into these. It should, over the next twelve months, break down enough to use as mulch.

Needless to say, it's been hard work, and taken a day and a half, but the hillside looks much tidier, and should hopefully go through the winter in better state. While we had the brushcutter out, I've also done the verges, and also cut down the grass in the copse, and along that side of the garden. I didn't manage to do so last year, and the daffodils didn't look as good, buried in long grass, this spring.

Long overdue, we've also sorted out the composting area, below the wood shelter. There was a lot of rubbish in there, which we've shredded, or moved to the log piles in the back, or in the copse, and we've made space to put out the four Dalek composters. We've emptied the oldest compost into these: it's not quite ready to use, but hopefully will have finished breaking down by the spring, when we'll use it on the fruit cage beds. That meant we could get all the accumulated material into the middle and right hand bays, leaving the left one empty. That should be enough space to see us through the winter, as, once we stop weeding, there's not as much being produced. The Daleks and, hopefully, the right hand bay at least, can be used in the spring, and we can go into next year with more composting space. We never quite got on top of it all this year, which has left us with heaps in front of the compost bays, which isn't lovely.

The other outside job that we've been able to tick off is getting the cables for external CCTV cameras routed into the roofspace. They're unconnected at either end, and are waiting in the loft (to bring together into the central loft space, and the down into the dressing room, where the controller will live), and at the camera points (ready for me to mount the cameras).

That done, we had a few hours yesterday to start tidying the workshop, which has been in a bit of a state for over a year, since we started the insulation work. We've emptied a lot of it into the preservatory, and I'll continue tidying on Wednesday.

Today, as I was on my own, I've drained the radiators of the cleanser mix, and refilled them all with 'fresh' water (it's not, really; it's from the accumulator tank), and added sealant. That'll run through the house pipes and radiators for a few weeks, making sure there aren't any pinholes or weeping joints.

Draining twenty-something radiators, and refilling them, took almost the whole day, but I also managed to take a number of cuttings: a pot of each of the Lemon, Inca Gold, Walther Funcke, cassis, and white achilleas; Verbena bonariensis and 'Bampton'; and the actaea we got at Tatton.

After we painted the apple walk a couple of weeks ago, we didn't get round to tying the apples back onto the framework, so I've gone up and done that. Finally, I've got hold of some extra long coach bolts, which I'm using to better secure some of the wood shelter's frame.

Sunday 20 September 2015

Painting, Plumbing, and Green Manure

Liz has spent a lot of the weekend painting: priming, basecoat and topcoat in the master bathroom (two walls), and the guest bathroom (just behind the towel radiator), so that I could finish plumbing them in. Plumbing them in was the last part of getting ready to run a system cleanser round the central heating system for a while, before I then run a leak sealant (just in case), and top up the system ready for the winter. The cleanser is because of the two new radiators, and the new piping in the preservatory, and because it's been a while since it was last done.

While Liz was doing this, I finished connecting the preservatory radiator to the central heating circuit. I'd got the pipework from the radiator along the wall of the room, and up into the loft, but then had to take it around the loft space, through the wall into the porch loft (heavy going, even with the big SDS drill!), through that loft, and then t-junction the two pipes into the flow and return. I was rather trepidatious of that stage, as they're big, 28mm pipes, and I really didn't want to go wrong, as that would mess up the central heating for the house, not just the preservatory. Anyway, although it took ages to get there, I've jointed them in, and they seem to be watertight.

We've managed a few other bits, in and between: the lawn is mown, and we've pulled up the beetroot and onions. I've sown green manure in those two spaces, to overwinter (it's caliente mustard): the sowing I made where the potatoes went is starting to come up nicely.

Tomorrow evening we'll plant out the overwintering onions, which are going to go around the bean/pea supports in the herb garden.

Thursday 17 September 2015

Roof and Sausages

We received our half pig, and have spent the day getting it sorted out. We set a number of joints soaking into a beer brine (same as last year, a Wiltshire cure) and made a batch of brawn (as per last year).

Sausages were 3.4kg of pork, 540g of oats, plenty of black pepper, 750g of chopped apples, 4tbsp of fresh herbs, and 40g of salt.

This year's black puddings were poured into beef middles. Same recipe as last year, with an extra 200g of oats, funnelled into the skins, and the poached for ten minutes or so.

While all this was going on, my builder has re-attached the roof ridge tiles (which were just sitting there, balanced, with the mortar decayed). He's taken some photos from the roof, too, which are rather a fun perspective on the garden.

Sunday 13 September 2015

Dreaming Spires

We've spent a lovely weekend with Katherine in Oxford. It's the first time we've visited her there, and a very long time since either of us have been to Oxford. Magdalen College is beautiful, and a sprawling medley of architecture that still really hangs together. The gardens were pretty, and full of colour and continual interest, which was good to see. I need to extract photos from the camera, I know. Anyway: very pleasant, including a wonderful meal in the fellows' dining rooms, which was delicious, plentiful, and well accompanied from the cellar...

Wednesday 9 September 2015

Blood

On the way home from work, we picked up a gallon of pig's blood, as our half-pig went to slaughter today. For once, I was also able to pick up the pluck, which I don't normally get, so I've been able to freeze this (separately, as liver split into three; heart; and cubed lungs (or 'lights')). The blood's frozen as 500ml portions, which defrost easily to make black pudding when we get the rest of the carcase.

Once we were home, I went up onto the roof of the utility room extension, to repair some flashing where the soil stack goes through the roof. The bitumen seal has worn out, and there was a significant gap, which has been soaking the roof timbers. I think I've made good, so the stones should be weatherproof for the winter.

While up there, I also needed to clear the downpipe for the main house gutter at the kitchen end. I cleared out the other end a month ago, and it turns out this one was blocked, too. Good job to have done before autumn: the bends right at the top were completely clogged with soil.

Tuesday 8 September 2015

Maintenance

Having finished window frame painting, I had a bit of other work to get done before the season deteriorates. Last Thursday, I had new seamless aluminium gutters put on the back of the workshop, the back of the porch extension, and the back of the utility room. Combined with the main run of guttering on the back that was done last September (03/09/2014), this means the back of the house is now all matching, non-weathering aluminium gutter, which is rather good. The soffits (of the porch and utility room), and the fascia boards (all three), though, are still wooden, and needed repainting. There are a few bits I shall need to repair more carefully next spring, but for now they are, at least, protected.

Monday 7 September 2015

Ladder Work

A evening up a ladder, today, spent clearing ivy and Virginia creeper from the front of the house, before it creeps across the window frames, or reaches the guttering. I also finished painting the windows: this year has been the preservatory, the porch, the kitchen/utility room, the guest ensuite, and the master ensuite. I shall be trying to do my quota earlier on in 2016, rather than at this end of the summer...well, early autumn.

Sunday 6 September 2015

Repainting the Apple Walk Frame

After a pleasant week off where we didn't do a lot (other than show Molly round the garden and drink quite a lot of tea), we've had a couple of busy days getting a few things sorted.

We started by repainting the apple walk, which hasn't been painted for some time, and has been starting to look rather grubby. It needed a couple of coats of paint, which we've now applied, and which will hopefully see it through the winter.

We spent half a day getting a bit further with the steps out of the dining room, which are now half built (the half in front of the third that opens 'first'!), and we've worked out which stones will form the rest, though it'll be spring before we build them.

Necessarily, the lawn needed mowing, and Liz has been weeding, but that barely needs mentioning.

Tuesday 1 September 2015

Colour Wheel Patio

It's the start of a week off, and we've spent Saturday repainting and reconstructing the arbour, which we brought with us when we moved. It's been lying, dismantled, in front of the beech bench, since we took it down ready to dig over the colour wheel and lay drainage. We started painting it (the bits we wouldn't be able to do once assembled) on Friday night, finishing by torchlight; on Saturday we put it up and finished painting it.

First, though, we had to lay a patio. We shifted the rather uneven surface stones and bricks around, to get a level surface, and have then poured about 1250kg of sharp sand onto it, tamped it down, and placed the roof stones we found, and moved out of the way in March (25th). There aren't enough to lay a complete surface, but there are enough, and the sharply drained gaps we've planted with herbs. We'll need a few more, but they're looking good, and should grow to fill the spaces next year.

Once the patio was laid, and pointed, we rebuilt the arbour, and returned the two clematis in their (fake) lead planters to alongside it: which means the colour wheel is finally completed.

Wednesday 26 August 2015

Apple Walk Training

This weekend we've had Liz's Scarborough grandparents visiting, on their way down to Ludlow to visit her parents. It's been lovely to show them round the house and garden, as it's been a couple of years since they saw it, and it's changed a lot.

This afternoon, after they'd set off for Shropshire, we did a bit of work on the apple walk. I needed to add the next tier of wire (above the rebar 'hand rail'), and tie in a number of new shoots. A couple of the apples have now got past the new tier (the fourth), which is excellent, although they'll get cut back down to it in February, to prompt side shoots to break.

We also painted the sheds, which needed a top-up, but then rain stopped play, so we had to call it a day.

Preservatory Wall

I've been on my own at home today, and have mostly built the new partition wall that covers the wall with the workshop in the preservatory. The old wall is chipboard, held together with some timber slotted profiles, and isn't very robust, or sound-proof, or pretty. In theory, we could have attached plasterboard directly to it, and plastered, but the plaster would probably have cracked almost immediately. Instead, I've built a proper stud wall, which has allowed us to rehang the old front door from the kitchen (back from 2010) to go between workshop and preservatory, add electrical sockets, LAN sockets, and a second lightswitch, and hide pipes to go to a new radiator on the gable end wall. That's all taken all day, and rather a hard day, but it's almost finished. There's lots of plumbing, to connect the two pipes into the system (they're not connected the central heating) in the lofts; and the wiring is similarly isolated. Once the whole room has sockets, then I'll actually wire them into the distribution board, but for now they're dead: it makes working on them easier, as nothing needs to be disconnected.

Tuesday 18 August 2015

Preservatory

We painted the windows on the front of the preservatory and porch last week, and this evening I've done the ones on the front of the kitchen and utility room. That's probably all of the ground floor windows I'll do this year, unless any look like they need a touch-up. I also need to do the two in our bathroom, and the guest en suite bathroom; and check over the rest of the first floor ones.

Sunday 16 August 2015

Friends

It's felt like a pleasingly long weekend, as we had Friday off, and we've had visitors with us from mid-morning Friday until mid-afternoon today. Philip and Rachel arrived first, followed by David and Ann around 2200. Katherine arrived early morning on Saturday, hot on the heels of Liz and Robert (and children; the younger's just 10 weeks old, and very cute). They only stayed the day, but we managed to get outside for several hours (with barbecue), and without any children falling into the pond (or barbecue). I'd call that a success.

Everyone else left over the course of today, after what's been a very pleasant houseparty. We even came up with a new name for the garage (as it isn't, strictly, a garage any more, and was accommodating David and Ann). Henceforth, it'll be the Preservatory, because of all the bottled fruit, bubbling demijohns, and jars of jam.

We then set to chopping a load of firewood, as one was delivered during the week, which is now safely stacked away.

Sunday 9 August 2015

Floors

We spent yesterday morning in Haworth, where Philip and Rachel are staying this week. They're in a rather nice cottage on the main street, in easy reach of all the sweet shops (and less easy reach of, say, supermarkets). We went on a circular walk south to Oxenhope, then back,  taking in the river, railway, Three Chimneys house, and coming in to Haworth through the churchyard.

In the afternoon, we painted the garage floor. On Wednesday, we sanded it down, and I sealed the gaps between the boards, and it's now getting two coats of decking paint. This has the advantage of not needing priming, and being waterproof enough to mop, later, if we need to.

Today's been a day of sorting and tidying. The garage now has curtains, as well as a cleaner floor, and we've spent a good while in the garden. We've dug up all of the Lady Christl potatoes, which have done well, and replanted the space with various brassicas.

Sunday 2 August 2015

Berries

We've been away for the weekend, visiting grandparents in Scarborough. The weather wasn't great, so there wasn't a trip to the seaside, sadly, but we did manage to do a bit in the garden for them this morning -- clearing a patch of over-crowded day lilies (we pinched a few clumps for ourselves, which have gone into the holding bed at the bottom of the pond) and Japanese anemones (an anonymous blue-ish one; now in the long border). In its place went a rather nice fuchsia, 'Checkerboard', which was a present from a nursing home of which William used be chair of the trustees' board. We came home after lunch today, and have spent a few hours picking the soft fruit. It's been a poor year for gooseberries, with only one tub, but the currants have done very nicely. We'll freeze the blackcurrants, and bottle the red/white, as well as the gooseberries. There's a couple of weeks left, hopefully, in the raspberries, which we've been freezing, and the blueberries will probably start to ripen soon.

We think we've lost rather a lot of gold and green gooseberries to birds, which are able to get in through the chicken wire roof of the fruitcage (but not the 1" mesh walls). I think we'll get more mesh, and put this on top of the chicken wire: that way, the metal net can take the weight, but the knitted netting can keep the birds out. The nylon mesh, under the weight of snow, has ripped to a greater or lesser extent every winter, which is why we rebuilt the cage -- but if it doesn't keep the birds out, there's not much point.

Sunday 26 July 2015

RHS Tatton Park 2015

Today was the 2015 RHS Tatton Park flower show, which is the fourth we've been to. Once again, we got there nice and early (setting off at 0820; next time we're going to try to leave at 0800), and were through the gates shortly after 10. The weather wasn't as kind to us, this time, as previous years, and it was wet most of the day. As a result, I have fewer photos; but we have more plants, I think, than any previous year.

We did well, actually, on the sell-off, and managed to get a few things I'm particularly pleased with. Tomorrow, we'll plant them all out!

Saturday 18 July 2015

Summer Prunus Pruning

Today's been spent tidying and straightening. I've mown the lawn and turned the compost heaps, Liz has weeded, and we've cut the paths on the hillside again. Also on the hillside, we've pruned the plums, as well as the plums and cherries in the garden. As such, although there's no specific grand improvement, everything's looking rather the better for it.

Thursday 16 July 2015

Radiators and Elderflowers

A day off for me, today, which has meant, inevitably, getting on with a list of jobs. First was getting the fridge-freezers onto the driveway, and giving them a thorough clean. They, the filing cabinet, and pine desk, were all collected over the course of the morning, and have gone to new homes. The garage is much neater as a result, and the pine desk has been replaced in the front guest room with an adopted antique dresser. That needs a bit of attention, but should clean up nicely.

After the lawnmower's failure last weekend, I then replaced a new switch/capacitor unit, and also lowered and sharpened the blade. It should cut more cleanly, now, and actually works, which is a clear improvement.

I've cut 50-odd elderflower florets, and started a double batch of cordial. That should be ready on Saturday, or Sunday if it's slow. (To the 50 heads, add 6 pints boiled water, 6lb sugar, five thinly sliced lemons, 4oz citric acid. Leave for 2-3 days, stirring a few times, and strain. I also add some wine-maker's stabilizing powder and a Campden tablet, to reduce the chances of spoilage.)

I then did a trip to the tip (sorry, Household Waste Recycling Centre), with a load of left-overs from building work and tidying, and then scurried to a scrap metal merchant to get rid of the accumulated scrap. Most of that's been near-worthless ferrous (a whole £3.80), but the £25 for the old water cylinder is better. That will probably go into the Tatton Park fund for a week's time.

Liz finished her work soon after I got back from that, and together we've hung the two towel radiators in the bathrooms. The guest en suite didn't have a radiator over the winter, as we'd not got one to put up; our en suite had the old radiator (albeit in a different position), which worked, thermally, but was a bit in the way. The new ones fit their spaces really nicely, and were surprisingly simple to put up. I now need to sort out the plumbing, which is a little less urgent, as they're not running. We need to briefly take them down to plaster and paint, and then I can finish off.

I also finished the work under the back guest room floor, where there's a void where the old staircase was. This has a nexus of plumbing, as it's where the central heating flow/return enter the old house, and it's also where the power for the immersion heaters, and the data cabling to the garage go. I took a telephone cable that way, too, and I've now pushed this out into the library alcove, where I'll be putting a telephone point. I also took through another Cat 6 cable, which will mean I can then daisy-chain another telephone point out into the garage, meaning it has telephony, as well as ethernet. Very modern, for an 1841-built house.

All that done, there was just time to vacuum, dust, tidy, wash up, and cook dinner before collapsing. Just.

Sunday 12 July 2015

Brushcutting the Hillside

The hillside, and the verges, have been getting gradually wilder as the season's gone on, and it's now been long enough since the daffodils flowered to cut the verges. I had no such excuse for waiting so long for the hillside.

We decided this year to try cutting the hillside paths throughout the year, so that there are two main routes kept clear: from the gateway to the apple walk, and to the plum arch (or, location of the future plum arch, I should say, as it's just a peg in the ground). The rest of the grass we're letting grow, and will cut it in late summer. This should encourage wildflowers, and create a good wildlife habitat. The only exception is ragwort, which we're pulling up when we see it.

It looks a lot neater, now. I also mowed the lawn, which was also a bit wild, though comparitively not long at all. The mower is, unfortunately, playing up, and I had to borrow a neighbour's: ours needs a new switch/capacitor unit.

Today we've spent tidying up the garage, which has meant shifting our new (adopted) fridge-freezer into the workshop, and getting the old two out ready for collection; repositioning the sofa-bed; using the remaining plyboard to reinforce the sewing room floor; getting the half-dozen plasterboards leant up (rather than stacked on the floor); moving the shelving units we acquired into position; and generally making the room rather more habitable. It's taken quite an effort, but with a trip (or two) to the tip, it's much more like a room, now. Better, the planned work of plasterboarding the walls, and putting in sockets, now seems much more achievable.

Sunday 5 July 2015

Water Heater

We've spent a lot of this weekend inside, getting the new hot water system installed. A few weeks ago we ran a new power cable and data cabling (shielded Cat 6 ethernet) from the utility room all the way to the boiler room. Now, we've removed the two blanking plugs from the accumulator tank (easier said than done: it took a 24" pipe wrench, and a lot of welly), replaced them with 3kW immersion elements, and connected up control gear to them. This is the clever bit: the control system measures the import/export power from the mains incomer (the connection to the national grid), and only puts as much power through the immersion elements as is spare. That means that the water heating is free, as we don't import any power from the national grid, if there's space in the tank to heat water.

Sounds easy, but it's taken an age to get everything connected up and working properly: however, it does look like it's working.

This afternoon we potted up about fifty various brassicas, which will go in the ground later in the summer. They've been in modules, but they're getting a bit sad in these, and it was time to pot them up properly.

Wednesday 1 July 2015

Pond Plants

A day of bits and pieces, but the most exciting part has been digging clay from where I plan a natural pond on the hillside (a reservoir where the water flows naturally anyway), in order to pot up our pond plants into mesh baskets. These have now gone into the pond, where they look a little small...but hopefully they'll bulk up soon!

Sunday 28 June 2015

Travelling

We've had a very pleasant weekend, although one with rather a lot of driving: we went down to meet our new (and first) nephew in Surrey, travelling down on Thursday evening (with much roadwork and traffic caused delay, sadly). After lunch on Friday, we went around London to David and Ann's, and stayed with them until Sunday. Marvellous barbecue on Saturday, and a good walk around their area, with hogweed foraged to boot. On Sunday, we went home via Cambridge, and had lunch at a reunion event at college, which meant we also saw a lot of other friends.

Sunday 21 June 2015

Irrigation

Having got the taps ready, today we installed the irrigation system for the two patios (kitchen and dining room), and the front garden. The colour wheel is simply a hose leading to a bar sprinkler. We didn't have time to do the herb garden, other than to lay the supply hose. The 4mm branches, and associated sprinklers/sprays will have to wait. The other big achievement was to finally repair the leak in the dining room hot water pipe, by doing the bypass I explained yesterday. This seems to have worked, and now means that the leaking pipe is no longer used, and the route hot water takes through the house is much shorter, which should also make it hotter. As a side benefit, the pipe we've taken out of the circuit also appears to be the one that was making the water mucky, as it's now running clear. The repair might have taken six months to solve, but we're finally there, and with a much better set-up.

Saturday 20 June 2015

Plumbing

We spent a rather long time on Saturday morning working out how we were going to finally fix the pipe that's been dripping from the ceiling of the dining room. It's been doing so for five months, and all my attempts to fix it have been thwarted by poor access and adjacent pipes. That's made re-making the pipe, re-brazing it, or properly applying external sealant, impossible. We applied brain power to the problem, and, with a bit of investigation of the pipes hidden in the floor beneath the old house bathroom (now the sewing room, above the back half of the kitchen), we think we've worked out a plan.

At present, the cold water main goes from the kitchen, along the front of the house between the floors, then cuts across, goes into the loft of the porch, and gets to the boiler room. Here, it feeds a garden tap, as well as the top-up loop for the central heating, the emergency quench for the boiler, and the cold supply for the domestic hot water heat exchange built into the accumulator tank. The hot water so generated runs down the pipe that used to be the hot water circuit feeding the hot water cylinder, meaning that it runs the same route back to the other end of the house, where it was plumbed into the hot water circuit...running all the way along the house to feed the taps.

Thus, hot water coming out of the taps in the downstairs toilet had gone along the full length of the house three times, twice while hot: this was noisy, and thermally inefficient, as I suspect you would never get piping hot water out of that tap.

What we've figured out, with the benefit of opening the floor in the back guest room to pass cables along on Wednesday, is that we should be able to bypass some of this. The hot water coming from the boiler can be fed into the hot water circuit from the opposite end, near the downstairs loo, in the loft above. This will feed—in order—that loo, the guest en suite, the master en suite, the kitchen and utility room...and then be capped off.

The leaking pipe is the pipe that would have run from where we're now going to connect to this lot, all that way to the other end. Although it'll be redundant, I won't try to remove it—it's not worth the effort.

In further plumbing exploits, we installed a pair of outside taps outside the utility room, taking a valved spur off the cold water tap. That's in order to hook up an irrigation system to water the kitchen patio; the dining room patio; the front garden; the herb garden; and the colour wheel, as well as leave an accessible tap for filling watering cans, and so on. We also planted out the last of the dahlias (Bishop of Llandaff and Twynings After Eight) and cosmos (white Purity), in the colour wheel beds, and near the beech bench.

We've also acquired a new sofa bed from the latest neighbours to move out: it's gone into the converted garage, which can now function as a guest room.

Wednesday 17 June 2015

Cabling

Today's been a mid-week day off for us both, which we've spent running a new power cable from the electricity cupboard in the utility room, up into the loft, all the way along the house, down the back of the guest room, into the floor space, through into the loft of the porch, and then into the garage loft. We also ran a shielded Cat 6 cable at the same time, as well as a second unshielded cable as far as the LAN nexus in our dressing room. In doing this, I also changed the route of the telephone extension cabling, and the LAN cables going to the garage, to take advantage of the way into the porch loft we found. Previously they'd gone along the edge of the floor in the dining room, which I didn't like: this is much neater.

The unshielded LAN cable is so that I can have an LAN port in the utility room (I don't have anything in mind, but while I was messing about, it seemed sensible, as there's not one in the kitchen already). The shielded cable is in order to hook a sensor up onto the main incomer from the national grid, to measure the electrical import/export; and to do the same on the cable from the solar panels, to measure generation.

These sensors will then be used by a controller to modulate the power going to an immersion heater in the accumulator tank, so that only electricity we're generating, and would otherwise be exporting, will be used: we won't import electricity to heat the water. The rest of the work will be done in a couple of weeks time: the job today was getting the cables through the house, which was always going to be a tricky, dirty, and time-consuming job.

Sunday 14 June 2015

Chippings and Chopping

Earlier this week, I had a large load (about 6m3) of chippings delivered by a tree surgeon. He was very accommodating, as well as offering a good price, and they're split between the driveways, meaning they've been easier to move. The first task has been weeding the hedge up the side of the orchard, and giving it a thick layer of chippings. The plants are looking better than we feared, actually, and hopefully the hedge will grow on well over the next twelve months.

We also weeded the apple walk, and finally spread a good layer of chippings over the weed membrane that goes up the centre of it. More still went around the beech trees at the edge of the games lawn, and over the path in front. We've finally laid out membrane along the two paths of the herb garden, and covered with more chippings, and done the same up the two bare paths through the Colour Wheel to the future patio. We then topped up the paths through the kitchen garden, and, finally running low, used the last to weigh down some membrane in the copse, which we're going to slowly start bringing into cultivation, and not leave grassy.

Today, for a change, we chopped firewood.

Sunday 7 June 2015

Holly Tress

The main work this weekend's been taking down a stand of holly trees in the middle clearing of the hillside, which have gradually died. We can't find any evidence of disease, only signs of a rabbit warren under them, which I'm blaming. We felled the wood and burnt the brush wood as we went. The main trunks we've cut, chopped, and stacked.

Although it's a shame to have to fell them, the stand was definitely not adding much, as it's been dead, or dying, for a couple of years, and the clearing is now rather a nice space, which we'll have to work out a plan for.

Wednesday 3 June 2015

Gadgets

I've had a day off today, and have got on with a number of jobs. Firstly, I've made myself a couple of gadgets to help guide cables or hoses around the garden, prompted by the fact that there's nothing stopping the mower cable falling into the pond as I go round it. The guides are made from a 60cm length of dowel, 25mm diameter, which I've sharpended at one end (to push into the ground). The other end has a 12cm slot cut into it, leaving two arms. Between these, at the end, is fixed an old horseshoe, which is free to rotate, fully, between the two arms. The effect is that you can push the rod into the ground, then trap a cable or hose in the horseshoe, against the rod, but take it back out easily. I've painted the rod with the same green as the sheds, and the horseshoes black gloss.

I've cut back the ivy and Virginia creeper on the front of the house, and also cleared the gutter at the garage end, which was blocked and overflowing. That, admittedly, has been a problem for six months, but I've not got round to it. The over-flow has probably been most of the reason for the bike-shelter roof's paint wearing off.

The last of the rubble from the work on the house has gone, off to Chris's silage storage ramp: there's some tidying up outside the back door to do, but it's very nice to have seen the last of the backs of plaster and rubble.

The high winds over the last few days brought down a largeish branch from one of the silver birches above the Colour Wheel garden. It hadn't broken entirely free, though, so I've got it down, using my very long pruning saw, and tidied up the break. Hopefully it'll recover reasonably quickly. I am conscious that silver birches aren't the longest-lived of trees, and we may, in our lifetime, have to fell these trees, and work out how we replace their function of a visual, noise, and wind barrier along that boundary.

While Liz was weeding, I've made doors to the two ends of the newly re-covered fruit cages. These are designed to slot onto the top of the door-frame, meaning that there's no gaps for birds to find. Hinged doors would have been nicer, in some ways, but the unlevel ground, and nearby vegetable beds, made it unlikely to work, so I found another solution. Each one's a frame of 2" wood, with corner braces and a 'handle' plank half-way up; they're then covered with 2" chicken wire.

Sunday 31 May 2015

Potting Up

We've just done a few bits and pieces this weekend: sorted out the two patios (dining room and kitchen), mocked up a fence along the edge of the herb garden (which we want to put in as a windbreak: the asparagus and beans would probably do much better), and potted up a load of things. They include tomatoes, chilis, peppers, hostas, catmint, edible brassicas; and sowed two things— Lysimachia atropurpurea and Rudbeckia 'Goldsturm'.

Friday 29 May 2015

Renovating the Fruit Cages

Over the last couple of days, we've been doing some work reconstructing the fruit cages. When we built the raised beds, we put 3" square posts at the corners, 8' tall in the raspberry beds, and 6' tall in the others. We then ran wire between these, and draped bird-proof netting (knitted 1" nylon stuff) over them, secured at the bottom, and sewn together at the seams and ends. It worked really well, from a bird-proofing perspective, but had disadvantages. First, it was a real pain to get in and out of the beds, and so we didn't weed as much as we might. It was similarly awkward to pick the fruit, prune, and mulch. Secondly, the 1" mesh worked really well to catch snow, and the wire supports weren't strong enough to carry the weight of the loaded net, and broke; or, the netting tore under the strain. This meant, every spring for the past few years, having to sew up the netting, and repair the wires, and it all got a bit too frustrating.

As we've been left with quite a lot of spare timber from the construction of, mainly, the wood shelter, which has been lying around, we decided to change how the fruit cages work. We've used some of the 3" laths to build a ring beam around the posts, and across the span in key positions. Onto that, we'll roll a roof of chicken wire, and staple walls of the nylon mesh onto the beam, posts, and raised bed walls. Hopefully, the chicken wire roof will be strong enough to carry a load of snow; the disadvantage is that the mesh is 2", which will be wide enough to allow birds in. We'll see if that's a problem, but if it is, we'll need to place bird net on top of the wire mesh, so we have the strength of the latter, but the bird-resistance of the former.

Tuesday 26 May 2015

Filling the Pond

We left the pond filling on a timer until about 0100 this morning, but found, when we got up, that it isn't full. We set it going again: in total, it took about 13 hours to fill. A quick test showed that the hose was delivering 12l/minute, which means the volume's around 9300l. We've spent the day sorting out the edging of the pond: the ends of the retaining wall transition to looser stonework, which is more informal, and at the shallow end we've got a number of 'emerging' stones, which, in addition to the innumerable crevices, nooks and crannies, means there should be a good variety and number of habitats for wildlife. The water is very chlorine-rich, and will need a few weeks to out-gas before it's attractive to plants or wildlife. We'll get oxygenating plants for late June, probably, once the water's stabilized somewhat.

Monday 25 May 2015

Pond Lining

Today's been spent lining the pond. We started by tidying up the digging: forming a solid and flat base around the edges where a retaining wall is needed, laying cement blocks and bricks to reinforce this, and smoothing and picking over the surface to remove stones and refine the shape.

Once we were happy with this, we used the waste carpet we picked up yesterday to cover as much of the surface as we could. The carpet should prevent any sharp stones or glass that we missed from reaching the rubber liner. On top of this, we laid a complete layer of 200gsm non-woven liner, which has the same purpose, and then, finally, spread out the EDPM liner (8 x 6m).

We then built the retaining wall, which goes around about half of the circumference, where the ground level is considerably different to the water level. This went rather faster than I feared, and we were finished by about 1900. We've left a hosepipe running, sprinkling water into the pond...it's filling very, very slowly.

While this gradually filled, we back-filled the space between the earth bank and the new wall with soil, and have put in the few pond-edge plants we have: a Rocket ligularia, a rodgersia, a houttenyia, two purple ligularia, and a few hostas. The hostas may need to be moved to a shadier position: we'll see.

Sunday 24 May 2015

Moneywort

We've had a weekend in the Midlands, staying with Liz's grandmother, but going over to her parents' new house for Saturday, and Sunday lunch. Saturday was a pleasant walk across the hills to Croft Castle and parks, where there were lots of bluebells out. On the way back to the house, we called in at a church in Yarpole, which happened to have a small plant stall. As a result, we've come home with some golden moneywort (Lysimachia nummularia), which will go in/around the pond. On the way home to Yorkshire, we called in to pick up some Freecycled carpet which was being thrown out; we'll be using it to line the pond.

Monday 18 May 2015

Plumbing, planting, potatoes

We've had a pleasant couple of days in Scarborough, with the obligatory beach-front ice-cream. Back home, we've been checking that we're happy with the pond construction and layout, because we plan to line it in a week. As we were using the very fast and effective, but relatively imprecise minidigger to excavate, it does need a degree of manual finessing, to get the shape and depths we want. Hopefully that will only take a day or so to get right, and we can then line it, build the retaining dry-stone wall, fill it, and sort out the edges.

Today, we've had a day of smaller jobs. Inside, the dandelion wine is now in its demijohn. We spent the first part of the morning connecting the two outside taps (near the greenhouse) that I started to do last summer, and never quite finished. This means that there are now two watering points which don't require the workshop door to be propped open, which is much better—it means that the kitchen garden irrigation can be left automatically running, which is critical when we're away during the warmer months. The second hose point will let us set up automatic drip irrigation inside the greenhous (much better for the tomatoes during the summer), which is a later project.

Because we only made about half of the climbers' supports 'properly' last year, we've put up a further five that are more rustic, shall we say: lengths of poplar, tied together at the top. Less attractive, but functional. I hope to make more proper frames in the autumn.

We've planted out the tulbaghia, chives, coriander and parsley into the herb garden; as well as the agapanthus into the long border, as frosts should be past, now. I've taken a number of cuttings from the dahlias in the greenhouse, which are starting to grow on well (Bishop of Llandaff and Twyning's After Eight). They go in a propagator in the dining room for a few weeks until they've rooted, and will then grow on in pots this year.

Down in the kitchen garden, the beetroot are now planted out (a rainbow mix, this year: we found the flavour much superior to Boltardy, and really pretty, too). The cauliflowers are also out, and we've planted the second half of the mini salad bed. I think these plants have been in modules for too long, though, so they might not thrive.

The potatoes are doing well, and almost all needed earthing up. The scorzonera has germinated really well; almost every station has a couple of seedlings. The parsnips, inevitably, are much slower, and will probably be less reliable. That's fine, though, we don't need many.

Friday 15 May 2015

Tidying

Two minor notes: I pitched the yeast for the dandelion wine yesterday, which now needs a few more days in the bucket before moving into the demijohn for several months. This evening we've managed to get a couple of hours outside, mowing & edging the lawn (me) and weeding (Liz).

Sunday 10 May 2015

Sweetpea Supports

Last year, I made a number of timber-framed wigwams for growing annual climbers up, but only added the woven willow sides to those for the sweetpeas. They worked really well, though, and it was only time (that is, insulating the walls of the house!) that stopped me doing so for the pea and bean supports in the herb garden. They had to suffice with strings, which didn't work nearly as well. The beauty of the diamond-woven willow is that the tendrils seem to latch on very readily, meaning that they only need a little help to get started, and then the climbers just take off by themselves, with very little twisting in.

Yesterday afternoon, we worked together to get the willows put on the sides of the six remaining supports in the herb garden, spurred on by the growth the beans and peas are putting on while on the dining room windowsill. We're hoping to be able to plant them out next weekend, if the weather's looking stable.

We also managed to sow a number of seeds; some more legumes (to account for germination losses), and a tray of brassicas: cauliflowers, swedes, and turnips.

Today we've mown the lawn, and edged it (have adopted shears from my parents, who don't have any lawn, now), for which it's looking immensely neater; weeded (well, Liz did this), and have started putting a timber frame onto the fruit cages to replace the wire net supports. The nets, and wires that carried them, have gradually deteriorated, mainly because of the combined effect of wind and snow. I'm hoping that timber framework, combined with chicken wire mesh roof, will be longer-lasting. We're about half way on the frame: adding the net/mesh is going to be a bit time-consuming, though.

At lunch, we started a batch of dandelion wine, using flowers picked before I mowed the lawn. The combined yield of the lawn and paths, fittingly, is about perfect for a one-gallon batch. The petals stew (with chopped raisins) until later this week, when lemon and yeast are added. Five more days in the bucket, then it goes into a demi-john until autumn. We've also got round to bottling the two gallons of elderflower, and one of bramble-tip, that I made last year. All very good, so we're planning to make more of both in the coming weeks.

Sunday 3 May 2015

Small Steps

A weekend of maintenance, mainly, with a lot of weeding...and even more potting up. One of those weekends with little visible difference, in as much as things merely look neater. Never mind.

Thursday 30 April 2015

Asparagus

We've managed to pop out most of the evenings after work this week, and have finished the deep-weeding of the herb garden beds that we've been getting ready to plant asparagus into. These arrived yesterday: compost-block grown plants (which are easier to plant that bare-root crowns, and which can be planted any time of year) from Victoriana Nursery. They're a variety bred in New Jersey called Jersey Knight, and we're hoping their origin will mean they're well equipped for our weather. They're meant to be a heavy- and long-cropping variety, producing thick stems; and they're an all-male variety, too.

We've thoroughly weeded the beds, and tonight we planted them out, putting a thick layer of mulch down. We can't crop from them this year, and only very lightly next, but in two year's time, we're hoping that they'll make a big difference during the hungry gap between the last of the over-winter veg coming out, and the new annuals being ready.

Sunday 26 April 2015

House History

We've had a lovely weekend, not doing an awful lot until this morning, as we had Katherine visiting us, and it's been a marvellous reason to sit around, chat, and drink a lot of tea and coffee. We also made use of Katherine's considerable social history knowledge, and made some real progress working out some aspects of the house's history. We looked back at the census records from 1841 to 1911, and managed, eventually, to pick out the house, and find out something of who was living here until a century ago. More on that when I've had a chance to pull it together, but we're hoping to fill in some of the next period, from 1911 until about 1970, when we once again have some idea of who's lived here. As the census data won't (all) be released until I'm nearly 90, we'll have to resort to other methods, I think.

Wednesday 22 April 2015

Orchard Maintenance

A day off, for us both, and we've had quite a varied day, on the hillside and in the garden. We've sorted out most of the patio pots, and planted up a number of things that were a bit crowded. The mulch that Liz moved onto the hillside a while ago has now been spread; on top of cardboard in the nursery bed and apple walk, and under the membrane around the small Hessle, and the mulberries, sweet chestnuts (which didn't actually have membranes, we realised...), and walnuts. We've then used some part-rotted chippings to cover the rest of the nursery bed, so the whips don't get swamped. These have been really succesful: there are three Hessle pears, two each of Crabbie's Seedling, and Crimson Superb (that's 100% of the apple and pear grafts, as I took three of each of these, and one of each apple went straight into the apple walk); as well as one of each quince Ivan and Vranja, and a medlar Dutch. That's not bad: I need to decide whether to try again with the medlar Royal, or buy a Flemish Giant, instead.

The quince in the garden is coming into leaf: I have hopes it might not only flower (which it did, lightly, last year), but perhaps set some fruit.

Sunday 19 April 2015

Tubers

We've had quite a busy weekend, and spent almost all of yesterday weeding the long border, and the herb garden, both of which are looking a lot tidier. While Liz was starting with this, I mowed the lawns, and pulled a couple of areas of moss out of the wood shelter's green roof out. The lawn, after a rather shaggy-looking winter, is much smarter now. I need to find some edging shears that work, in order to tidy up the boundaries, though.

We've also planted out the potatoes: Lady Christl and Red Duke of York. We're only doing those two this year, though more of them—two bags (40&ndash50) Lady Christl, and one bag of Red Duke. Maincrops have been a bit blighty the last few years, and we've had disappointing yields, so this year we've got the Jerusalem Artichokes (Fuseau) and early potatoes, instead. We also planted out the onions: about 200 Red Piroska, and 200 Stuttgarter. I had to re-cut a membrane to plant them through, as the one we used last year was ruined when deer more-or-less danced on it.

The dahlias we potted up a month ago (22nd March) have now gone out to the greenhouse, as the weather seems warm enough overnight to allow this. Some are starting to show shoots, but not all. I'm not, really, expecting them all to come up. One border-planted specimen was badly eaten last year, and I'm not sure it was strong enough going into winter. Similarly, six pots are new garden-centre bought tubers, and while I hope at least half will come up, the shop-bought ones aren't utterly reliable, so I expect some losses. We'll take more side-shoot cuttings, and increase stock. That way, we can afford some losses each winter.

The last thing was a load of seed sowing, meaning that the windowsills are, once more, full.

Sunday 12 April 2015

Kentish Spring

We drove back up this afternoon from several wonderfully relaxing days in Kent: filled with brioche, games, a couple of films, and a daily walk, including one longer one along part of the South Downs way, past an episcopal palace (Otford) and through some pretty, vernal woodland. Sadly, it's back to work tomorrow.

Friday 10 April 2015

Watered In

It's been dry for a week, and having moved a lot of earth around, things are actually pretty dry, so, having planted out a lot of plants yesterday afternoon, I've watered everything again. We're now about to drive down to Kent to see David and Ann for a couple of days, calling in to see the cats' friend in Cambridge on our way.

Thursday 9 April 2015

Bobcat

Last bits today for our week of work, as we're off to visit David and Ann tomorrow. We started by moving the last of the topsoil we needed down to the veg garden. There's still a small heap on the driveway, but not very much. There's a mound of mulch on the hillside for the nursery beds, apple walk, and trees, which we'll need to top up with chipping mulch. The rest of the driveway heap is probably going to be used topping up the two beds to the sides of the beech bench.

That done, we had just enough time to plant up some of the herb garden extension and the colour wheel beds, though it did mean we were finishing off, watering in, by moonlight. The box that remained in the herb garden (having moved several into the long border) have neatly delineated the corners of the colour wheel beds—there are similar plantings in the herbaceous borders at Harlow Carr, which I've long admired, and this mimics that. The Tail Feathers grasses (Pennisetum macrourum) that we sowed in January 2014, and grew on all last year, have gone around the outer edges of the beds, to give some boundary and height. We've then planted out a lot of perennials that, mainly, we've been growing on from plug plants for the last year or so, and which overwintered in the greenhouse in 9cm pots. We also put about nine Deschampsia cespitosa that have outgrown the beds near the beech bench (planted 27 Mar 2014?). As a result, the beds are looking much less empty, but there's space we're planning to grow some annuals in, particularly ones that can be useds as cut flowers.

Mid afternoon, though, we also had to say goodbye to Bobcat the mini-digger, after seven days of hard work. It's let us come on leaps and bounds in the garden construction—in fact, structurally, the garden is now all but complete, as the beds are all where we want them. A little more work in the copse, the laying of the patio, and the construction of the pergola around the access ramp, and the Big Things will be done.

Wednesday 8 April 2015

Last Excavations of the Pond

Back to the pond today, with a lot of time spent sorting out the edges, and making sure I'd taken out enough for the various levels. We wound up needing to take out about a dozen more 'scoops' using the minidigger (now affectionately known as Bobcat, after all its hard work), but I think the depth is now right. There needs to be more work getting the footings of the retaining wall properly placed, but that is, necessarily, careful mattock/crowbar/spadework, rather than excavator.

Tuesday 7 April 2015

Building the Colour Wheel Beds

We took a break from the pond, today, and have spent the day, mostly, moving topsoil around. First thing, a delivery of 6m3 of topsoil arrived from the ever-dependable Tommy Topsoil. Unfortunately, the ground's still pretty wet, so it couldn't all be delivered onto the access ramp into the garden, and two-thirds are on the driveway, instead, which means barrowing it further. Never mind.

Before getting the topsoil moved, though, we first marked out the edges of the new beds in the corner 'Colour Wheel' garden. For this, I bought hand-cleft chestnut stakes, 15" long, which we've put in the ground every 2'. Between these, we've woven cleft chestnut laths—they're usually used to create a matrix onto which lime plaster is applied, in restoration work, but they've worked beautifully here, four courses high, to make 6" edges/retaining walls.

We've then barrowed in topsoil, to cover the soil we've moved from digging the pond. It's actually reasonably good, but a couple of inches of new topsoil will, if nothing else, be less prone to weed germination, and will help to gradually enrich and build the soil.

Once the four new beds were made and topped up, we had enough stakes to mark the intersections of the edging in the herb garden, which is, following Saturday's work, now twice as large. That, in combination with some sticks marking the edges (as well as the intersections), means that the layout is a lot clearer. We've added topsoil here, too, to the squares that will be planted, but not to the areas that will form a path. We still need to decide on a planting plan for the edges: our original plan of box made way to a combination of box, lavender and apples; and then to lavender and apples; it might yet become just step-over apples.

The other place we've moved topsoil to is the vegetable beds, which need an annual topping up. Still need to spread it around, but it's heaped in roughly the right places.

Monday 6 April 2015

The Bulk of the Pond

We had to use the headlamp, mounted on the side of the digger's boom, in order to get there, but we've finished the main digging of the pond tonight.

It's taken all day, but we've made the ramp from the apple, the deep section across the middle, and the large shelf around the back, as well as cutting the planting pocket that will soften the retaining wall, and tried to create the shelf on which the wall will be built. It's going to take, probably, most of another day to check the levels and tidy up the sides, but the bulk of the hole is now dug.

Sunday 5 April 2015

Working on the Pond

For most of today, we've been working on digging the pond, which is going well, and I think will only need one more day of digging in order to have the basic shape completed. We took a break for a couple of hours to dig over the bed we started creating in the games garden. This runs alongside the septic tank (where it's already planted with hazel, willow, achillea, geums, daffodils and snowdrops), round the corner, and in front of the lower bank of shrubs up to the path and steps down into the kitchen garden. We ran out of steam when digging this, several years go (June 2012), and only got as far as the end of the septic tank. We've now done the wider bit round the corner, and along the back as far as the rhododendron...and it's been considerably faster than the day spent digging about a quarter of the area. Needless to say, the micro excavator pulls big stones out of the ground with, essentially, a wave of the hand. We've lifted several really large rocks out of here, and the pond, which would have each taken hours to extract, if we'd managed at all, so it's definitely been worth it.

Saturday 4 April 2015

Digging Over the Herb Garden

Having got the land-drains in the new garden sorted out yesterday, we were able, this morning, to break ground on the pond. My plan has been to dig it out from the bottom apex, near the apple tree, and work back to the top corner, at the entrance near the sweet pea bed. I've had to change my mind, though, as the reach and depth of the digger, and the risk of overbalancing, are problems. Instead, I'm going to do the bottom corner, then the far corner, and work back to a position roughly half-way up the side (basically, sat next to the plum). I think I'll have to then take the digger along the path next to the long border, to finish off, before driving out.

We only got a bit of this done before Katrina and Dan arrived: they're up for a wedding near us, and we're B&B'ing them. After lunch, Dan was immensely useful in helping us dig over the herb garden. We did the first half of this by hand last summer, and it turns out we did the harder half. The remaining area, we'd covered with weed-suppressant membrane, and it's actually had all the rubble from the house renovations sat on it. This has totally wiped out the grass, which has rotted down into lovely topsoil.

Dan ran the digger, turning this over, and we picked out the stones we found. We've also moved the last of the big stones from last time down to the growing piles around the pond, where I'll build them into the retaining wall we need behind the pond (the path along the long border is about 60cm higher than the apex at the apple).

The herb garden's now completely dug over, and tomorrow we'll return to digging the pond.