New Garden, old problems

My new garden is great. Apart from the fact it needs major work. New patio, cut down trees, new borders, transplant old plants.
First the patio, well as you can see it's been hard work this weekend. We've removed all hardcore now, that includes the rockery, well more like the rubblery! It had massive rocks in it, but now they are all in the skip, well some of them are, we've actually run out of room in that skip so the rest of the rocks and slabs are currently in the front garden waiting for the next skip to arrive.
This week it's moving the rest when we can, unfortunately I'm working most days this week and the builders are coming on Monday! The builders will finish the job off, but doing what we've done has meant we've saved hopefully at least 3-4 days worth of labour costs.
Tree wise we've taken out the large fur tree, myself and Ian spent a day taking it down. We chopped it up and made a lot logs which now are drying off in front of shed, making it look like a log cabin somewhere in the alps!
The hawthorn trees have had a major cut back, two have gone completely and one has been chopped back, this means we at least have some sun coming into the garden.
Border wise, we've started but a lot more to do, come 20th June when we go to Gardners world live we will be coming back with lots of new plants all wanting a new home. We've decided this year is a transition year so it's going to be a little messy and not quite up to standard this year but everything will be put in place for next year this summer.
Anyway, that's all for now.
See you soon.

American TV

American's certainly know how to make a TV programme. Unfortunalty they don't know when to stop either. Look at the evidence. Lost, great start, got a bit wierd, then stupid, then really odd, then i fell asleep, then the 2nd series began...... 24 is superb, gripping, great script, but yet again they seemed to have continued making series after series well after it started bringing virtually every character they've killed off back from the mortal coils. I can tolerate a couple of people coming back from the dead, but when they start bringing back people who we see shot in the face and are quite clearly dead i start loosing interest.
Enough with the complaining. If you haven't watched Mad Men you are seriously missing out an THE BEST TV programmme on TV right now, if not of all time. It really is that good. Don Draper is an absolute gem of a character. I don't think i've come across a character with such depth in a TV show before. The way he one minute is jumping into bed with his latest mistress, the next revealing all about his poor deprived upbringing to his beautiful wife Betty. He seems to be a cool as a freeze dried cucumber on a very cold day, he reminds me a lot of Steve McQueen, he can say one line and it mean a hundred of them, something McQueen was a master at.
The pace of the show is so laid back it sometimes seems not to be moving at all, and that's one of reasons why i love it so.
Series 3 is about to finish on Wednesday, i can't wait till the next one, let's just hope the poor American viewing ratings don't mean it gets binned like the fantastic Studio 54 on the Sunset Strip did.
Keep writing Uncle Sam, I love what you do, sometimes.

House joy!

Well! We've finally moved in! We completed on 21st December. So Christmas was sort of different, apart from having Grace with us for the 1st time, we were also decorating at every possible moment. We would have a lunch with family or friends booked so when Grace would go for her morning nap we would go to the new house to strip walls, paint skirting etc. then head on back for lunch. Oh and just cos we love it so much, we would sometimes head back to the house for more work after lunch!
We moved in on Sunday 3rd. Many thanks to James, Helen, Jonathan, my dad, Ian, Matt, Lucy and Angela. They all helped us move our boxes and furniture plus clean and sort out our stuff once we had everything in.
Today we had the plasterers in. Our dining room is now beautifully plastered. They are back tomorrow to sort out Grace's room. Grace is currently in the 3rd bedroom, sound asleep and seemingly quite settled!
The sitting room is nearly sorted, just need to make some shelves to put some ornaments and what not on at the weekend. Once the plaster is dried in the dining room, we need to paint it and then sort that out. Kitchen done. Our bedroom is sorted apart from no carpet. All 3 bedrooms are currently awaiting new carpets. Just waiting for them to be ready. Oh and the attic is tidy, soon i will start turning it into my boys room!
Once we have the house sorted then i will start on the garden, but that's another blog.
TTFN.

Grace

Hi, Sorry i haven't had much to say lately.
Thought I'd update you all on Grace. She is now very nearly crawling, but also is getting better and better at walking too! She can get into the correct position for crawling, but instead of moving her knees forward she pushes them backwards so she collapses on the floor! This has been her trick for about a month or so now, she's the only one in our swimming group who can't crawl so when it comes to an exercise which involves crawling across a large float and then diving into the water she has to do a different exercise, I'm very embarrassed. I know i shouldn't be but "Dad envy" seems uncontrollable. I want her to be the best at everything but as she's small for her age she isn't as strong as other babies and i know i should just except the fact that she will eventually crawl,walk, get more hair, get teeth (that's Biffys fault, she didn't have any until past 1 year!) i can't help but feel dissapointed! I'm bloody awful! I can't believe i've become a competitive dad already! What am i going to be like when she starts at school!
Anyway, walking is her thing now, she is starting to walk around the furniture, she thinks she can walk on her own now which obviously leads to problems when we try and get her to walk to us across the room, she doesn't want to hold our hands which means she just falls over or cries uncontrollably! We have Biffys old baby walker which unfortunatly is too tall for her right now but as she seems to be continuing on her growth spurt she may well be ready for that soon!
Her hair is growing, from the back forward. She is getting quite a nice bit of hair back there, just not at the front yet!
No teeth to speak of, but as i said earlier, thats Biffys fault.
Biffy went and bought a new car seat today, Grace will now be facing forward on journeys!
That's about it for now, Grace is a fantastic addition to my family, she's very happy, has a great little laugh, is very beautiful (well she is MY daughter), quite frankly i couldn't ask for a better child.

House misery

Well after months of faffing we are finally moving out. The problem is we have nowhere to move into. Well actually we are going to move into Biffys parents but the house we are buying is still occupied as our sellers have had to pull out of the house they were buying due to a greedy man who wanted £60k more for the house suddenly so they had no choice but to back out. This now means we are asking them to find rented accomodation so that we can move in. This is still in early negotiations as this all happened last week so we don't even know if they are now thinking about just staying put or what. I think whatever happens we are definatly not going to be in our new house for Christmas or new year, maybe not even Easter, who knows.
So at the moment we move out of our house in the next week or two and then live with Biffys parents for the indefinate future.
Ho hum......

I was born in the wrong era

I have decided i was born in the wrong era. My music tastes, my favourite films, the fact that I have an allotment, use a handkerchief, etc might just have something to do with it.

My favourite film, The Great Escape made in 1963, my favourite song, "Let there be love" by Nat King Cole, first released in 1961. I should have been born in the 40's so therefore to enjoy all these great things when they first came out.

My favourite artistes are Frank Sinatra, BB King and Nat King Cole. Steve McQueen is my icon, Marylin Monroe my favourite female movie star.

My fashion taste has never really been current. I must admit i don't actually wear clothes from the 60's but i don't really pay much attention to the current fashions. You won't find me wearing low slung jeans, or the latest trainers, probably a free show t-shirt and a pair of comfy boots!

I do want a cardigan for Christmas and yes i do wear slippers at home, actually thinking about it I would quite like a rocking chair too, I don't think i will go the whole hog and get a pipe yet though!

Yes I have an allotment, something that up till recently only old fellas had. Well I don't really think this is relevant in this blog, one of my neighbours is about 30 and he looks kinda cool and trendy. Gardening is very trendy at the moment, which means for once in my life I'm actually trendy but hardly Stella McCartney! (just to show you how uncool i am i nearly wrote Linda not Stella, she does (did) make very good veggie sausages!)

You might be saying that writing a blog is hardly old school, but actually it's kinda like writing a diary and people have been doing that for centuries!!

Toodle pip.

Every allotment needs a "Ted"

Every Allotment needs a man called Ted.
On my allotment we have a man called Ted, he's brilliant. He is the quintesential british allotmenteer. He has been on the plot for over 30 years, has about 5 different plots, knows everybody, makes fantastic tea and is always smiling.
From what i can gather Ted used to be the caretaker for the allotments (i'm on the new part but he's on the old, together there are over 15 acres!), but ill health stopped him. It certainly didn't stop him from growing veg though! Teds plots are emaculate. Rows upon rows of every veg you can imagine. I don't know what he does with it all but none the less it doesn't seem to stop him from growing more!
He is always the first person you see in the morning, and at every 11,1,3, and 5 o'clock the hooter sounds and he's making a brew for whoever wants one at the allotment tea hut.
I've got a few friends on other allotments and they all too seem to have a man called Ted on their plots too. I'm not sure if these other "Teds" are as good as mine but none the less it seems to me that if you want a good allotment, don't just make sure the soil is good, the position with the sun seems right or how far it is from your house, just make there is a man called Ted on the allotment somewhere, then you'll know the plot is right for you.