We woke at about 8 this morning and looked out across a sun filled garden. A garden who’s grass needed cutting, and with numerous jobs to be done.
After several cups of tea and a few emails, we headed out to do battle with the weeds. I’m probably being a bit unfair actually - this time of year is really great in the garden - things are coming to life all over the place.
The bushes are covered in buds, and the big old apple tree is throwing out blossom like it’s just found out how…
I figured that it would be pretty foolish to have a wash before getting plastered in mud, so found myself outside in some old shorts, a worn out t-shirt, and a tilley hat to conceal my bed-head hair. Resplendant in my wellies, W said I somewhat resembled a giant Christopher Robin. Great…
We got the grass mowed and attached a drainpipe to the shed - in order to catch rain water. A drought is predicted in the UK this summer, so we are getting tooled up ready for it.
Following that, we headed off to the garden centre to buy industrial quantities of bark chips - the idea being to coat the ground around the new trees we have planted in order to keep the ground moist, and to stop weeds and thistles growing (it’s worth pointing out that I had no idea about any of this - I just do as I’m told in the garden).
You have no idea how much 6 100 litre bags of wood chips weigh - especially when you’re lugging them from the back of the car to the far end of the garden in the rain.
We need at least another 6 bags.
After a bit of a pitstop for lunch, we headed back out - this time to PC World to try and get the laptop mended (the DVD drive keeps playing up). PC World were their usual unhelpful selves, but I’ll save that rant for another day.
On the way back from PC World we somehow found ourselves at another garden center - this time looking at more water butts. We came away with a 500 gallon monster to put at the back of the house. We have a huge roof area, so grabbing the rain water and storing it is a bit of a no-brainer really. After a bit of handiwork with a hacksaw and a drill, I got it installed at the back of the house. I’m sure we could probably sell the rainwater back to our neighbours now.
Of course, having done all this work to catch water, we have almost certainly guaranteed a drought this year. It will never rain again.
My thoughts are now filled with the Marlow 5 tomorrow. Hopefully the weather won’t be too awful; even if it is forecast to rain cats and dogs.