welsh hills again

For most of 2010 and 2011 I took part in the end of month view in the garden, hosted by Helen at Patientgardener   It has been fascinating to have a record of the passing months although I must admit I slipped a bit at the end of last year.  My garden sadly does not have fabulous bones, even though it is in a fabulous place, and particularly when autumn and winter are windy and wet it all looks rather soggy and sad.  So I have decided to cheer myself up by posting pictures of what is in flower in the different areas as well and to my surprise a lot was in flower when I went out with my camera on the 2nd January 2012. Here is the side garden.  How I wish for a crisp gravel path running up towards the gate and out into the field to the workshop.  At this time of year the grass is muddy and worn.  Truly uninspiring. But there are things in flower if you take the time to look. In the foreground of the picture, behind the sweet box, the first of t...

Life is full up on the hill at the moment. The kitchen is still in progress. Here is Ian taking out the sink and then the new ceiling in all its newly plastered glory. Still to be done? Don't ask. It will happen, eventually. The garden is throwing stuff at us faster than we can eat it: cavolo nero, onions, chard, beetroot, potatoes, raspberries, blueberries, beans, salad stuff. And the cutting garden too is full: full of dark purple sweet peas, orange marigolds, orange and gold cosmos, black cornflowers and White nicotiana. There are jugs all over the house but I still can't keep up. And of course there are the projects which have totally stalled. The quilt which hasn't moved on since last November is lying in a box upstairs. At some point it will start whimpering reproachfully when I go by but just now it is dozing quietly. The socks which I dropped a stitch on in January have already got to that reproachful stage. Every time I go past my knitting bag they sigh heavily....

I only usually blog once a week or so but I thought you might like to see a bit of house renovation - some of the dust and slog behind living the dream! Last year we moved the main cooking kitchen back into the old part of the house where it belongs.  We were left with an early 80s horror in the back kitchen, the peeling melamine and stained worktop setting off the mouldy patches on the wall a real treat. So this year's job was to redo the back kitchen as a scullery/utility and work started yesterday with the emptying of cupboards. So the new kitchen fills up with boxes from the old one, which go under the table and on the table and on the freezer and the diswasher and out into the laundry and just about everywhere. The cupboards come out and it is going to get worse before it gets better. Here it is getting worse as the tiles come off. We are trying to leave the sink connected for another day or so and here is Ian actually making it a bit better by cleanin...