A Weally Wather Windy Week.

Hello there.  I don't know where this week has gone to!  Every evening this week I've had good intentions to blog, but my tired eyes have got the better of me I'm afraid.  Never mind - here we are again!!   GAH!!  Just HOW windy was it during the early part of the week?!  Our garden is pretty breezy on the warmest of days as we're up on a hill and backed by a lot of very flat farm land, but over these last couple of days the wind has been so strong it's been difficult to work in.  We've been trying to fence build  (no that's not a euphemism!) and as you can imagine this has been a  somewhat challenging task!

We haven't used the traditional lap fence panels this time, but some reed and bamboo screening which Mr B has made into panels and painted with fence paint.  They look pretty snazzy and do the job.  We've lost so many fence panels over the years because of the strong cross winds that to spend more money on "closed in" fencing is daft.  Here's some pics of the work in progress, thankfully all completed now and we have our top patio almost tidy!

Painting this screening was like painting the Forth Bridge!



New boards in place to hold back the (now depleted) old raised border and replacing the rotten log roll.



Just the bricks to tidy up now and we're done.

We have had plenty of other garden chores to be getting on with whilst the wind was at it's breeziest.  The raised bed is now full of soil and compost and ready to plant.  I've cat-proofed it for the time being  by lots of plastic coverings and bits of wood cos of course, if I was silly enough to leave it uncovered, that ton of soft, freshly dug earth would simply become a giant cat loo by morning and I would be a very cross lady indeed!!

Some of the seeds I planted over Easter are now beginning to show signs of life.  The cabbages have mostly all sprouted and the sweetcorn babies are beginning to break the surface of the soil.  I fear that some of the seeds however, may have been killed off by the extremely low temperatures we experienced over winter - I'll give them another few days then I may have to admit defeat and either buy some young plants or new seeds.

The garden is very dry at the moment.  It's a dry garden anyway which isn't helped by it being constantly battered by gusts and the fact that it's an absolute sun trap.  I have to be quite vigorous with watering as otherwise the pots in particular dry out in the matter of a day or so.

The aqueligias are all in bloom now, nodding their bonnets in the breeze.  I inherited these pretty little plants when I moved into the house.  I've lost count of the times that I've tried to dig them up in years past to move them elsewhere.  They're having none of it though!  They're obviously very happy where they are thank you very much and have no desire for a change of scenery! 

Pretty little things aren't they?

We've been able to fire up my beloved chiminea too these last couple of days.  We always have lots of wood and papers to burn so there's been plenty of fire fodder!

Mr B with his pokey stick!

I could sit and watch the flames for hours. 

We took ourselves out for the day yesterday.  Just to Worcester for a look around the town.  We hadn't been anywhere during our week off work so we decided that yesterday was our treat.  We took the train and got into Worcester for around 11am and had a lovely  wander around the shops.  I must admit that I was a little disappointed.  There have been so many store closures since I was there last and lots of shops are standing empty now.   There are still a few charity shops worth a browse and a couple of my 'Wytchy' shops as him indoors calls 'em!  I was a very lucky girlie cos the following items were bought for me! **insert big smiley grin here**

A beautiful 'tile' with my beloved Green Man depicted on it:

I love it!!  Not quite sure where it's going to live yet.  I'm not putting this one outside as I don't know how weather proof it would be, so it may have to live in the cabinet with the dragons, pumpkins and Amy Brown fairy! 

AND this beautiful plaque from Past Times.  This will go up on the side of the shed where it can be surrounded by the ivy growing there.  The 2p coin is for you to get some idea of the scale of them. 

We had a splendid Chinese buffet lunch at a place called Angel Chef.  It cost just under £17 for the two of us.  This included unlimited trips to the buffet which had a mahoosive array of Chinese delights to tempt us (we only managed two trips and the second one was a struggle for me.  My eyes are greedier than my belly sometimes!!), pudding ( chosen from another array of 'slightly bizarre' dessert choices such as slices of swiss roll, jaffa cakes, bananas in custard, biscuits, a gateau, lots of fresh fruit, squirty cream, battenburg, jelly slices (!), jelly and blancmange and whippy ice cream - as well as banana and pineapple fritters!  I chose some fresh lychees (ADORE this fruit) with a slither of toffee gateau topped with a little swirl of whippy ice cream.  Mr B's inner child took over and he chose bananas in custard and a had great fun creating the perfect ice cream swirl  that any self respecting ice cream van man would have been proud of (*rolls eyes*).   I think the cost of the buffet itself was around £6.50 per head and coffee was £1.85 each but there were unlimited top ups - which happened every time we were away from the table!  How we walked around Worcester after lunch is beyond me!!

Have a great weekend!!