All posts by tim
Po
Decking photos
We’re at it again!
With the best summer weather any of us can remember this year, instead of relaxing and enjoying it, we’re in full construction mode in the garden.
Earlier in the year the new shed was a major project. Last weekend we re-fenced the chicken pen – in a new configuration which makes our garden look less like a rambling farm.
And this weekend we started on the next big thing: a new deck at the bottom of the garden.
The result should be a 2.5m x 2.5m area which catches the last rays of the sun in the garden and gives a good view back to proudly gaze at the house with a glass of wine.
That’s the theory anyway.
At the moment, it’s all dig, dig, dig, concreting posts into the ground and screwing big bits of heavy wood together with massive bolts. Hard work.
Hope it’s worth it. Photos to follow
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New shed – finally pictures
New shed
By popular demand, here’s the shed we’re putting up in the garden… a lot smarter than the one we have today:
Sprung
Yes, Spring has sprung. After what seems like a very long, cold, damp winter in the UK the spring has finally arrived.
I’d almost forgotten what it is like – watering the plants in the evenings after work, cycling home when it’s light, watching the chickens happily bathing in the sunlight and drying out and cleaning up their feathers (harder in the winter). The difference in the garden in just a few weeks is incredible – shoots and green things arriving everywhere you look.
We came through the winter a little worse for wear – poor old Shilpa, the last remaining ginger chicken, carked it from some mystery disease which we think might have been peritonitis. So we’re down to three: Chicken Bhuna, Chicken Madras and Kulfi and have a 50% success rate so far.
Now our plans turn to a proper garden redesign and we’ve ordered a new shed as a starter for that. Lots more planning to do.
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No planes!
I use London’s airports regularly and frequently and despite trying my best to be environmentally friendly I normally have to side in favour of plans to increase capacity for planes in the future – otherwise I’d be being hypocritical.
I also live under the Heathrow flight path and similarly prefer not to hypocritically condemn the flight noise when I know I use those noisy services myself…
…but the ash cloud from the Icelandic volcano eruption which is currently preventing all air traffic in the UK today and possibly for the next week or so and it’s resulting silence in the garden is surprisingly nice – like it’s “so quiet” you can hear the birds.
Since I don’t need to travel anywhere any time soon, I’m enjoying the treat.
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GranTourismo!
Check this out for a cushy job: Two travel writers get paid to travel around the world for the next year, staying in holiday rentals of their choice, writing about their various experiences whilst also writing their own books and taking other travel commissions.
They’re writing about their adventures at http://grantourismotravels.com/
The idea sounds very glamourous – especially since Lara and Terence have been “on the road” as travel journalists for the last 4 or 5 years and probably deserve an end to the endless hotels. Even though they’ll be staying in a different holiday rental every two weeks or so, at least they get a place of their own to call home and can cook in their own kitchen.
It’s an interesting way to make a living whilst travelling anyway – although it’s no cakewalk either – they have to do a lot of writing and clearly carry a lot of gear too.
What I like about Lara and Terence is how they’ve written about how they go about organising themselves as well as their experiences and what it’s like to be doing the project.
[Disclosure: I work for the company which commissioned these writers. And I’m secretly envious of their gig.]
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