Keeping cool under our parasol from Rattan Direct

One of the saving graces for our party last weekend was our new garden parasol. At three metres across it's larger than our previous one and that's a good thing, as it means it's easier to stay in the shade. In this weather, I think that's the most important, and sensible, thing to do. Although I like the sun, and have mostly been enjoying the weather (except for when I've been melting) more and more I've found myself opting for shade.

When I was speaking to Rattan Direct about this parasol, I wasn't sure whether to opt for it in black or cream. As it turns out I think I choose well, as I think cream would show dirt and dust more than the black.

Sitting under a back parasol still concerned me though. Would it attract - or absorb - the heat? It seems not, we've not noticed any difference because of the darker colour. And even our party balloons were keen to take shelter.

It has a couple of features I want to tell you about. First up there's the tilt function. Something I thought would come in handy, and I'm sure it will as the sun changes position as the year goes on - assuming we'll still see the sun, that is. When the sun's lower I think this feature will come into its own, but one word of warning: make sure the base is secure before you tilt the umbrella, otherwise physics will take over.

The outstanding feature for me is the crank system, to give it its official name. Between you and me, I'm more likely to refer it to the wind-y handle, which is descriptive if nothing else. Being able to wind the parasol up and down easily is great, although it's meant that if we're not sure if we need it up, it'll be down before we know it rather than us moving our chairs.  And even with the three metre span of the umbrella, it's easy to manoeuvre. 

I'm a fan of the base too. When full it's heavy, but the carrying handle comes into play, as it's easy to use to move the parasol into the optimum position. And we've been doing a lot of testing for that. I think I've cracked it now though and handily there's a small square paving slab to help us find it again. Of course you can't see it in this photo as, well, because the parasol base is covering it.

Taking delivery of the parasol and its base is probably one of the best deliveries I've every experienced. Despite not getting my delivery slot until the night before, when I got my slot the communication was fantastic. Not only did it arrive in its timed slot, the driver also phoned and texted me his location and that worked well. So too did the tracking device provided, it was regularly updated and I was able to leave work when it was close by and arrive home almost at the same time as the parcel. It's rare for that to happen, so it's worthy of a mention.

So the umbrella has been a bonus, although I wasn't so sure when it arrived as its arrival was immediately followed by a spell of heavy rainfall. I thought I'd tempted fate, but it seems it was just the weather - phew.

How are you keeping cool during the much warmer than usual weather?

* This is a collaborative post, but all views and opinions are my own.

All partied out, but we had an amazing time!

You'll have noticed it's been a bit quiet here the last few days. That's because we had our 110th party on Saturday and in the run up to that there was plenty to do, and of course afterwards there's the party hangover. Not proper hangovers just the returning to normal after an intensely busy period, oh and dealing with this heat too. The weather has been lovely, but I am officially melting now!

But back to the party preparations, with a couple of days off to give us time to prepare, the list of jobs seemed never ending. MOH was intent on cleaning everything in sight, and in fairness, the house looked fantastic. He regularly asked me if I was ill when I joined in and helped out - for the record I wasn't ill.  The lists though, while long, were often reviewed and rewritten, taking into consideration just how much time we had left. I'm still not sure though that cleaning the inside of the bathroom cabinet should have been on the 'must-do' list. I told you he was through didn't I?

The gazebo we'd bought from Wayfair finally made its way out of its box in front of the TV and into the garden. MOH had discovered during the week that it had over a hundred screws and neither of us were looking forward to putting it together. When we received the instructions, that didn't help too much either.  Picture instructions. They're my worst nightmare, and while I think I have a logical brain these pictures don't help me at all. After starting with the easy bits I wandered off and left MOH to it, only to return a while later to find him still perplexed.

Realising I'd have to get involved I tried my hardest with those picture instructions. We got there, but realised part-way through that it would be much easier to assemble with space around the entirety of the structure, something we didn't have. We struggled with the roof arrangement, some of that was down to height and some of it those picture instructions again. Once we worked out the ridge piece didn't lie flat we made more progress. 

The cover - or roof - was abandoned until there were more people about to lend a hand, and for when I really could be busy with other things. On Saturday morning four of them got it on relatively easily and I'm mesmerised by it. it's still up - and has been so useful this week with temperatures of thirty degrees - but it won't be long until MOH is itching to take it down "for the sake of the grass" and then we'll have the age old problem of where to store it. 

I've a plan to colour coordinate the pieces with pretty washi tape, so reassembling it becomes a case of matching patterns together. And so it's staying up for as long as it takes me to do that, at least. We might compromise and remove the white roof, leaving the steel structure up a while longer.

Shopping was done, eventually.

I say eventually as we had a difference of opinions on what the food would be. We agreed on pizzas and barbecue fare, but on everything else MOH was coming from a completely different place to me, this was oh so evident when he asked if we needed to buy "more crisps"!!  We did but there was also salads, rolls for burgers and sausages, ice - and plenty of it, cakes and desserts and much more besides. For the first time in a very long time we went shopping together, and he didn't ram me with the trolley through boredom on the way round - result! We left with two trolleys as somehow the last few aisles contained the bulky things - like ice and beer - and he knows how much I dislike my rolls squished (not a euphemism!)

There was obviously not enough room in the fridge for everything we'd bought. Or two fridges in fact.

While we want to get rid of the conservatory fridge, the week before the party with the weather forecast as it was, well, that wasn't the weekend to do it. So the fridge enjoyed a reprieve and it's reward? It was loaded up, and up. And it was oh so useful, I think the seven or so bags of ice were one of the most popular items we had.

The garden was primped even more than before. A last minute dash to the garden centre to fill some empty pots left MOH rolling his eyes. But I was pleased with the gazanias and pelargoniums I left with, and being big plants, one plant per pot meant they were easy and effective ways to add some colour and fill some empty pots I had.

Handy really as the miniature bedding plants I'd bought back in April/May were still just that. Although the giant fuchsias had put on loads and were timing their flowering just right. They're still not beanstalk-like, but the flowers really are giant for the size of the plant. I'll settle for that.

Tables and chairs were dotted around the garden, picnic blankets and seat cushions were also on hand. Bunting, banners and garden lights were hung, and the hastily sewn bunting did its job, and looked great alongside both mum's patriotic bunting and my ship-shape shop-bought bunting. It's quite addictive to make though, and I ended up with two long strings with about twenty flags on each. I'll share a post on making it soon.

Above the table hung a banner of lexicon cards saying "Happy Birthday Anniversary" which sort of summed it all up, and it wasn't until I hung it up that it reminded me of those name badges mum used to sew into our school uniform. She only ever ordered ones that would do us both, which makes sense as why spend more than you need to on these, and the unwanted initial would be tucked underneath so each of us had our own name in our clothes.  

Looking at the lexicon banner when it was up my first thought was how I could reuse this for future birthdays and anniversaries by flipping over the cards not needed. Not what I planned from the outset, but clever hey?  And doesn't it look great?

I'd ordered some balloons because, well it's not a party without balloons is it? I'd be tempted to buy a glitter pen and do the writing myself next time though, because it shouldn't be that hard should it?  And now you can see why my list kept growing can't you...

The 110 balloons were great - and huge - and I'm taking bets on how long the balloons last...

Did I mention it was hot?

I planned my outfit, orange linen three-quarter trousers and one of those batwing-style tops with open shoulders, but on the day that was changed for a simple white vest top, as staying cool seemed more of a priority. I failed by the way, but I don't think I was the only one.  MOH went for the shorts and short sleeved shirt, came downstairs, decided he was too blue and matchy and headed off to change his shorts.

The plan was to cook pizzas in our new pizza oven and there was plenty of dough ready in the fridge. We'd tested the oven the night before and were pleased with the results, but still hadn't worked out how we were going to cook pizzas for fifty people. Turned out we didn't need to, as it became clear that it was just too warm. I was glad when MOH said he was going to put the BBQ on earlier, and while that's still pretty warm, it's gas and more controllable than a wood-fired oven.

And that goes to show how we've grown up over the years. Ten years ago on our mini-honeymoon to Marrakech MOH quite literally conked out in forty degrees heat. As you would when you'd been marched around the sights, got lost and walked for far too long and despite drinking water, not quite managing to replenish his system. So for him to stand in front of a four hundred degrees oven for the time it'd take to cook pizzas didn't really sound do-able. 

We were disappointed and I'm sure our guests were too, but there'll be plenty more times to try out the oven, hopefully when the weather is a little more normal looking. A fireworks party with pizzas has already been mooted, but I'm hoping there'll be pizza with friends before that.

I'd been expecting it to get hot and frantic by the pizza oven so had hung this picture there to quell that somewhat. Turns out it wasn't needed after all.

It's strange how a party starts isn't it? We'd said from midday and for people to pop in when they wanted to and to stay for as long as they could. That meant there were people arriving and leaving throughout the afternoon and evening and it was lovely to see so many friends to help us celebrate. I'm sure neither of us spoke to everyone as much as we wanted too, and I think everyone will understand.  

The family arrived first, all within around thirty minutes or so and then the best man from our wedding a decade ago. A decade, now that sounds like a long time. We even had an Amazon delivery mid-party and I can't help but wonder what he thought!  Our guests were generous, naughtily so, with flowers, fizz and chocolates and more and as is so often the case I think we've ended up with more booze than before.  

And lots of pretty flowers.

As the light started to fade in the garden, the solar lights started springing into life and a few of those bitey bugs started to make their appearance. Somehow though time merged into a blur and then it was just after midnight and it was just him and me. After such a busy, and fun afternoon we took some time to recap and recall the stories, the moments and more, before doing a quick tidy up and heading off to bed.

And so, we're a 110. The party we've planned for so long is done. Looking back there's nothing like a deadline to focus the mind but deep down we know our guests were there to help us celebrate, not to inspect our house (although if they checked in the bathroom cabinet, it was gleaming!!)

Dad's already looking forward to our 115th or 120th whichever we decide, who knows which it'll be, but I know we'll have fun and I know we won't ever get to the bottom of the to do list either!

Starting our gabion basket journey

We've made great progress with our gabion basket 'installation' - and that's probably the right word for it, as it's become a bit of a work of art. But let's start at the beginning and our half-metre cubes arrived promptly, but flat-packed. Which makes sense but meant an extra job.  The helicoils were strange things, spring-like looking but not spring-like in their nature; they're an alternative way of constructing the baskets, although we found that they're not as tightly fitting as the hand tied wire rings, or lacing, which we improved our technique the more we did.

The helicoils looked good though. We've used them on the corners of each basket to ensure neither of us scrape our legs on the corners. To start with I wasn't sure about their whirly-whirly look, but it's growing on me.

Assembling the baskets took longer than we expected, but I'm pretty sure we sped up as we got into a rhythm. It was definitely a 'gloves on' job, although I'm not sure why MOH has two odd, but still yellow gloves, on. I don't have yellow gloves, and yet he's two pairs...

We found it tricky to keep the basket assembled while we were assembling, and I thought I had just the thing - and I did - freezer bag ties!

They were super helpful and meant we needed many less pairs of hands.

The 'lacing' was very much like sewing with wire. Harder than it looks, but definitely do-able. Especially after watching a few videos on YouTube!

One down, twelve to go. Or at least I think it's twelve, it depends on how many we'll use. And if I get any other bright ideas along the way. Our next challenge was how to fill them, and I'd a plan for that

We're a little way off filling the baskets here, but we have made good progress - the least interesting part, but essential, was levelling the area for the larger baskets which will house the Pizza oven.  

Not the most glamorous of posts, especially the last phtoo, but an essential one as no one needs a wonky pizza oven!