A good dose of rain!

Isn't it wonderful?

I think I positively leapt out of bed on Saturday morning as there had been a downpour in the night. Normally I would be fed up with the grey and dreary, but not down here. Rain means that my garden will be so much easier to dig. Rather like the difference between burnt toffee and a lovely gooey fudge!

I don't think the garden has seen any water from the skies since we moved in and probably much before that too judging by the state of it.

The garden has been in a very sorry state, which I'm sure I am repeatedly bleating on about. However, what i was seeing was the superficial stuff. I swear I am digging out a second home from under the ground. Anyone need some hardcore?
I think the reason is that our cottage was originally two, so where our veggie patch is now, used to be the driveway for the second cottage. Rather than removing the hardcore, the 10 inch nails, the broken china etc, they just piled the topsoil on the top, hence there are large patches that were making me wonder if I might have struck buried treasure or needed to call in an archaeologist to show him the remains of my own personal Roman villa!




Anyway, this week I've been working on a pathway between the veggies. My plan is to have a garden that looks something like this eventually:

All beautifully lined up neatly with walkways between so i can weed easily - a sort of cottage-kitchen garden thing. So I ordered a bulk lot of blue slate pieces from ebay and have today started the outlines of my pathways

Lower slabs have gone and I'll be putting the weed supressing membrane down and then covering with the slate. The edge here is the leftover bits of rockery that were dug up! May as well recycle!

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Rows of Box to edge the pathway.

More box to edge along the side of the peas, strawberries and onions.

I hope it'll turn out okay. My vision is often far greater than my manageable achievement.
Inside the house is chaos as well. We haven't had the use of the living room for a week now as we're having the first of the two woodburners installed. So we've gone from this:

Looks like an old coach tavern - suitably nicknamed "The nasty, guilded hood".

 

To this, which is far less fussy.

Our builder has plastered it now and we're awaiting the fitting of hearth and fire. This should have happened a little sooner, only I managed to go to London on Thursday taking the key for the garage with me. We're re-using some of the Horton stone that we took off the pond top as our hearth - doh!

So, it's starting to look a little like "ours". My back aches - but I'm looking forward to seeing a bit of muscle tone on my arms after all the digging in months to come.
I'd like to order a few weeks of sun in the day and rain at night please and then I'll be sorted !