Let's talk rentals

* This is a paid collaborative post

It was only after that brief conversation with our new neighbour over the garden fence, on what is already a long-forgotten Spring weekend that I thought about what it’s like to rent a property.  It’s not something I’ve experienced first-hand, ever, which thinking back is also quite odd.  I think that’s mostly because I grew up in London, started work in central London soon after leaving school rather than going away to study and well, haven’t moved very far.  I’m still in London, I’ve had a brief foray over to Essex but came back to South London, which is home for me.  

But considering what it’s like to rent a property from a renter’s point of view is an interesting one.  I’m sure that the overriding priority, is like the rest of us, having somewhere to live that works for work, is affordable, doesn’t need too much work and additionally is managed well and has a landlord that’s professional and fair.  It’s actually not too much to ask is it, but I’m sure it’s not that straightforward.

Then once you’re in your new place, there’s the requirements in the lease to uphold to ensure your tenancy is not only not interrupted but if you want it, extended at the appropriate points.  

And that’s where our over the garden fence conversation comes in.  I’m sure that it came from a place where they were keen to ensure their new garden was kept manageable and under control.  And that’s admirable.  I also know, through experience, that once you start trimming and pruning and cutting back, it’s quite addictive and that’s where I was keen to save (actually that’s rather stronger than I mean, protect is better), protect the new growth on our highly scented and many years-trained Jasmine.

While renters rightly have legal protection, finding a new home you like then jeopardising that by not completing your undertaking, however unintentionally, must be galling.  

Equally when you move in to your new home you have an expectation that it is fit for purpose, and that the previous end of tenancy cleaning has been done, and to a high standard.  As a landlord the quality and thoroughness reflects on you too, and you’ll want to present your property in its best light.

Photo by The Creative Exchange on Unsplash

In some ways this is a better, and I’m sure more consistent way of approaching cleaning a house following a house sale.  In all the houses we’ve moved into - which is just five, but seems a lot to me - we’ve had some positive and negative experiences, I guess we all do.  But wouldn’t it be great all round if we didn’t?

I’m sure there’s many horror stories out there, but let’s focus on the positive.  Let me know your best experience of when you’ve moved into a new home, either rental or mortgaged in the comments below.

Mine was moving into this house, we discovered a bottle of wine (which is always welcome) and then rather randomly some duck breasts in the freezer.  It turns out we quite like duck, and it’s relatively easy to cook too…

* While this is a collaborative post, all views and opinions remain my own.

Reflecting on my week #73

I had a day off on Wednesday, and couldn’t believe my luck with the weather. And while I was due to spend most of the day inside at the Garden Media Event, I did manage to find some time to spend some time in a couple of my favourite Islington shops and spend some time just sitting on the green (on a bench obviously) enjoying the weather. It was so, so good. I’ve realised that in the everyday busyness of getting things done, I’ve somehow lost the space to think, for ideas to percolate and filter through and my day at the Business Design Centre provided lots of inspiration, as well as some time to just be.

To notice the small things in our environment - like the patina on these chairs outside a restaurant in Islington. They’re the type of thing I love, and the type of thing that MOH would immediately start taking some wire wool to and rubbing down. Seriously. Remember this is the man that dusted a wine bottle that was purposely meant to have dust on, in the shop, much to my amusement.

It’s also probably not a coincidence that this day off was the day that I rediscovered my Gratitude Journal. The one I’d diligently been completing since our break in Norfolk. Of course I found it under a pile of papers too, all of which I probably should have done something with, but I can deal with them another day! You might have seen it in my Instagram stories, as this week I’ve also decided to explore those. I’m not convinced I’ve anything much interesting to say, but i’ve already noticed an increase in activity and engagement over on Instagram.

If you have seen them, you’ll probably also have seen my fight with the knots - all self-made - in this beautiful skein of wool. I’d popped into SMUG and managed to leave without any purchases, which is unusual and then popped next door into LOOP London, where no such thing was ever going to happen. It was always going to be a case of how much, or rather how little I could spend before leaving.

These colours are my colours, and I was keen to get started. I only bought one skein, and that was all I was about to buy, but I needed to be sure I could make something I’d wear. The ladies in the shop assured me it was plenty to make a wrap, and my current thinking is an oblong chevron, lacy kind of wrap. But to use it, it needed to be wound into a ball. The knowledgeable ladies in the shop, also said that these skeins were hard to wind on a wool winder and so winding it by hand was the only option.

And yes, I still bought it. I mean, those colours.

It did remind me though of wool my mum used to buy, that we would take in turns to wind onto cones using her wool winder. Or when the wool winder wasn’t an option it would be my dad who would provide the guide for the wool. Realising that I stood little chance of employing MOH in the same way, I looked for alternatives, and the clothes horse was my best option.

And I was making great progress. I’d clearly not thought this through though and with washing in the machine I was up against the clock. Then I got a bit over confident and the much smaller skein slipped and ended up as a tangled mess.

Eventually I got down to the final knot.

This knot alone took plenty of time to unravel. I’m not known for my patience, and my persistence with this left MOH bemused. He was the one that suggested just cutting it, but from the look on my face he knew this wasn’t going to happen. Had he known the wool cost half the price of one of his more pricey cycling tops, then he might have been a little more on board with the care I was taking, but he didn’t need to know that detail.

He’s already realised that wool is expensive, I took him into a wool shop in Yorkshire where they specialised in locally sourced wool, and so of course it was more pricey than perhaps he thought, but as he’s a man that doesn’t skimp on quality and we both spend money on our hobbies, it was accepted for what it was.

Once I had the large ball wound, I wondered if I should have gone for smaller balls. But even though I much prefer variegated wool crocheted, rather than knitted, I’m still not a fan when the colour changes dramatically, and so having it as a continuous ball works for me and I’m hoping it will work well with the style I’ve chosen. I’ve got two patterns, both of which are very similar, now I just need to work out which I’ll tackle.

I can’t wait to start crocheting, however my head’s still buzzing with all the inspiration I picked up at the event on Wednesday and trying to work out how to share all of that here. It was just what I needed, as it reminded me just how much I enjoy this space of mine on the internet.

It seems it took a day full of garden products, some sun and quite a few knots to remind me of that…

Is Spring springing?

I’d like to say it is, and there’s evidence in my garden that my garden thinks so too.  I was tempted out there for the first time this year at the weekend, and the plan was to have a bit of a tidy up, poke around a bit and not do anything too strenuous.  And I guess I didn’t really, but I did much more than I first thought, which included climbing into the trellised corner of the garden to quite literally tug at a vine that had grown into our cherry tree.  It wasn’t going to be good for any tree, let alone the tree that actually produces cherries.

It was time for the dogwoods to be cut too, so that next year we’re treated to some more vibrant red stems.  Cutting them always makes me nervous though so now I only cut some of the stems, so the plant has a chance of surviving.  I’ve had them since they were bare rooted plants, they’re now taller than me, so there’s quite some investment there - mostly of time, as bare rooted plants are a great and cost effective way to buy dogwoods.  I did cut an older plant back hard once, and that was the last I saw of it, hence my hesitancy.  And after I’d finished the green garden bin was pretty full for the first time this year, and actually it was good to be out there getting stuck in, of course the weather helped.

Back to the bulbs, they’re much prettier and worthy of photos.  This crocus did well to survive MOH’s leaf tidying skills, actually as you can see only fifty percent of it survived. He’d tried to stand the fallen stem up again though in the hope I wouldn’t notice...

The cyclamens have had a really good winter in our garden and now I’ve clumps of their highly decorative leaves around the garden, and I’m not complaining.  Some have even jumped over into the grass, which I’ll need to rescue before MOH fires up the lawnmower, as as the crocus discovered nothing is safe in his path.  I also need to find out if and how I can thin these and spread them even further around the garden, as it’s always nice to have plants repeating throughout a garden, for continuity.

The black grass has also done well, though it’s not spread as quick as I’d like.  I think I’ve plenty of little plants here, so another job is for me to find out how to maximise these.  What I don’t have to do though is find a way to help these miniature iris-like flowers spreading around the garden, they’re doing well enough on their own.  They’re not quite at forget-me-not level, but I’m keeping my eye on them, and I’m ready to unleash MOH if needed, they’ve been warned.

I’m now even more convinced than I was before (and that was quite a lot) that the plants below are elephants ears and not hostas as I thought for many years.  They are spectacular though, have a great name and sit in a part of the garden where they enjoy the sun.  Even their waxy leaves are looking healthy and not quite as nibbled as they will be later in the year.

Unusually though the euphorbias seem a little behind the other plants, but I guess that means we’ve still got their lime green loveliness to come - that’s something I love, and MOH tolerates.  Even I’ve given up trying to save them if they hop over into the grass, but that’s mostly because they are so plentiful so need to be taught a lesson or two.  The leaves in the background are thanks to the foxes, who’ve unbagged a black sack or two of leaves, for fun this winter.

I made an unexpected discovery in my succulent trug, and that’s foxgloves.  I’m not sure I want them there, but after years of no foxgloves, right now I’ll take foxgloves wherever they want to grow.  I had success moving them last year to where I wanted them, so I’m hopeful that I’ll be as lucky again this year, but not just yet.

That’s the challenge with this weather, it’s lovely now, but is it here to stay?  A sharp frost could damage newly pruned plants, which in turn could jeopardise their flowering or suffer later on.  I caught our new neighbour enthusiastically cutting our jasmine this weekend too, which I wasn’t too impressed about.  I know they have a legal right to cut things that have grown over the fence, and I also know that pruning is addictive, but even so it was a little too enthusiastic for me and so I politely pointed out that it was the wrong time of year to be so keen, and I didn’t want to miss out on the flowers, or the scent the jasmine brings.  It was all very amicable, and there were apologies, so all very British, and I’m hopeful it’s just keenness rather than anything more.

But while I was waiting and watching to see if I was being overzealous and over protective, I got to stand and admire the sunlight on the fatsia, they really are special plants throughout the year, and I’ve no idea where this one gets all its leaves from.  And look what else I spotted, some only just turning blue muscari, or grape hyacinths, I don’t think I’ve ever spotted them in this state before and I think this makes me like them even more.

It’s fascin to see how they appear to push their way out of the ground with their spear-like flower already formed.  Look to the right of the just-turning-blue muscadine, in the photo above.

Throughout the garden there’s evidence of bulb growth, so I know there’s more to come.  There’s a couple of daffodils out, and more on the way, and they’re even pushing their way through the cyclamen clumps, and I have to admire their willingness to grow and hope they’re not thwarted by a return of the Beast from the East, which was in full swing this time last year - it’s hard to comprehend the difference this year, isn’t it?

The markings on the cyclamen leaves are also pretty special too, that’s another reason to rescue as many as I can from the lawnmower, when the time comes.  And after that initial poke around, I’m fired up for gardening again this year, and already my garden to-do list is growing, just like my bulbs...

How’s your garden faring as Spring starts to Spring?