Excitement and clarity, but still work in progress

Well yesterday was new-table-Tuesday and I can't tell you how excited that made me!

We knew our new table was about due, but the call on Saturday afternoon to arrange delivery took us by surprise. By chance MOH was already planning to be at home yesterday so I added a task to his workload for the day - wait in for the new table!

It arrived within its timeslot and it wasn't long before it was assembled and I received this photo from MOH. 

PARTIALLY EXTENDED - IT EXTENDS A FURTHER 0.5M

As I said, it's still a work in progress. As while yesterday was new-table-Tuesday we're still waiting for a delivery date for our new chairs. They're due in the next couple of weeks so until then we'll be using the reproduction-style chairs because at least that way we can use our new table!

Already it's brought our dining area bang up-to-date (well if you ignore the chairs) and MOH who saw it in full daylight, said it's amazing how much lighter it is in that part of our house. Which is good as that's what we hoped would happen with a white glass table.

And I'm so impressed that he texted me a photo of it without prompting!  

Clearly my new table excitement was obvious.

SUNDAY IT LOOKED LIKE THIS...

THEN THE NIGHT BEFORE...

Now I'm super-excited for the chairs to be here.

Pinpointing the issue with our study (aka my craft room)

We've made other progress too this week, quite unexpectedly as it turns out.  As we now have a "spare" pigeon shelf to find a home for - as we decided against hanging them both in the porch - clearly not really a problem as I quite quickly knew it would be ideal in my craft room, or the room MOH still calls the study.

It's a room in the eaves so only has two straight walls, and one of those is covered with bookcases. This means there's really only one wall it can go on which we measured and of course it fits. What MOH didn't know was that I was really measuring to see if I could fit a pinboard in alongside it, but I'll let him know that nearer the time. 

So with its final location agreed (well the wall, if not the actual placement) we needed to decide on the colour. I'm loathed to have another pot of paint to store, which we'll never use again but the eggshell colours we have didn't go with the cream walls. I've written before that I wasn't sure about the cream being the right colour, and now rather than ignore it I had to face it head on.

MOH agreed. But each of us knew there's quite a bit of painting ahead. So our plan is to decorate half of our top floor, replacing the cream colour with something from the cooler palette.  MOH is keen for a pale green that we used to have up there, and I'm tending to agree.

And you know what, with that decision has come clarity. And renewed vigour to get the study in particular sorted out as it's the place that is storing the things we're not quite sure what to do with.

A revised to do list

1.  Finish painting the "spare" pigeon shelf to hang in the study

2. Repaint the cream in the study and the top bedroom a cooler colour (including the built in floor to ceiling open shelving unit)

3. Dejunk both of those rooms (probably before we start painting)

4. Find new homes for our reproduction table, chairs, corner unit and sideboard so that we can reclaim the conservatory before we want to use the conservatory as it was intended.

5. Finally hang the picture wall I've been planning in my head on the study wall.

Simple hey? There is, I fear much more to it than these five simple steps - I'll keep you posted...

Planning our plot

So far this year I haven't purchased any seeds. I probably should have by now I suspect. But all is not lost.

Well I don't think so anyway as this year my gardening bug is showing signs of appearing earlier than normal though, so I think it bodes well - last year it didn't start to twitch until early March.

What I have done though is sat down and started to plan where things might go. From that, I hope I'll have a concentrated seed spend. 

Despite plenty of digging only part of our plot is functional; that's the large band at the bottom of my plan above - which currently is hosting the purple sprouting broccoli, some cabbages, a single cavolo nero, onions, garlic, some optimistic potatoes and some more promising broad beans.

We've already planted lavender, sage and mint (in a pot) at the far end of our plot, along with the pink flowering plant which we split into three. As they grow they'll start to form a plant border to stop the foxes running through the crops that we've planted.

The other section that's almost functional is the section just in front of the new compost bins, where we moved the small apple tree to last October. As you can see from the artichoke picture below, the grass has grown back in that section...

BROAD BEANS

ARTICHOKES, ERM IN GRASS...

My plan

• I'm hoping that once the onions and garlic are done I can replace them with my usual "farm" of tomatoes.
• Where the purple sprouting broccoli is, I'm planning to plant a row of rosemary cuttings I've cultivated from the large plant I have in my garden.
• In the middle right-hand section, as a border I plan to plant some chrysanthemums from my dad's garden, but I'll need to clear some space for those - as well as dig over the rest of that section.
• I want to use the far side of the middle left-hand section for my beans this year. This may be a tad too optimistic as there's some large branches from who knows where there, and a grassy mound from some of our first digging attempts there. In its favour there is a metal "goal post" in place which will be ideal for the beans. And to hang some bunting from if I get my act together.
• The plan for the bed in front of the new compost bins is for plants we won't need to move. The small apple tree is already there, so are the artichokes. I've got some more strawberries and some rhubarb to move over there once we've re-dug this whole section.

For now, I think that's enough. 

What I'll grow

This year I want to grow: tomatoes (of course!), sweetcorn, enough salad to keep us in lettuce, spring onions, pumpkins, spinach and potatoes. I want to grow some flowers too and last September at the Geffrye Museum I left with seeds for Nasturtium and Heartsease - I love their alternative name of Love-in-idleness! 

I've also got some Poached Egg Plant (Limnanthes douglasii) seeds which I plan to grow to attract the bees over to my plot. The flowers are supposed to look like poached eggs, but I'm guessing not so good on toast...

GEFFRYE SEEDS

Fox-like visitors

On our last visit to the plot we checked, as we always do the state of the compost bins. The old ones hadn't got any worse and it seems the foxes hadn't been in them again. Good we thought, that was until we saw the new compost bins. 

The foxes it seems have found the new compost bins and have had great fun gnawing and ripping out the cardboard I'd stuffed down the gaps in the pallets.  So when I visit next with some time to do some work, my job will be to try to beat the wildlife again. And clear up the mess they've made, if the wind hasn't distributed the cardboard stuffing too far and wide! 

I'd thought the foxes had given up with our plot and moved elsewhere. I think they've sensed (or smelt) we've not been around much and so our plot has once again become their playground. I've made a mental note to walk around the plot more often next winter just to discourage them. I hope just being there will dissuade them...

OLD - AND BROKEN - COMPOST BINS

WHAT THE NEW COMPOST BINS SHOULD LOOK LIKE

So that's the start of my gardening bug re-awakening. I know with my north-facing garden I can have a slower start than some of you, but this year I think that'll leave some time to get ahead on the digging. 

Have you started to plan what you'll grow this year yet?

I fell in love with a house I'd never seen...

I mean, how is that even possible? I'm not sure I really know but it was definitely love at first internet search, let me tell you more. It started in Devon, which is odd as the house - the one I fell for - was in Norfolk, but I guess distance doesn't matter on the internet so much. 

It was - and still is - a Grade II listed building, built in Norfolk's traditional carrstone and an unusual choice for a confirmed townie as it was a fair way out of a smallish village. It needed a lot of work, that much was clear from the pictures but it also captured my imagination.

It had potential. It was a doer-upper and would have made a fantastic forever home. I know the lingo, I watch Kirsty and Phil. 

I even showed it to MOH and his interest too was piqued. So now it was less of a pipe dream, or was it?

We talked about it, considered when the viewings were - it was for sale by auction and the viewings were set for three week days between 9:30 and 10:00am, and of course they started the first week I went back to work. Hmmnn. We wrote a list of questions we wanted answered and thought about asking my parents to go and check it out on our behalf. 

In my head I remodelled the rooms, and made plans for the yet unconverted space. There was room for a large kitchen diner, a hi-fi room for MOH - something that's high on his wish list, a boot room and craft room, which are high on mine and much more. 

I even thought about how I could furnish the space. And I thought I might get to revamp some furniture and use some chalk paint, that is if I could persuade MOH that this house needed that kind of furniture. But even I knew furniture was a long way off.  

In the end after much discussion, thinking and mulling it over we decided that it was a lot of work, and while it might have been right for us at some stage that time wasn't now. So we didn't go and see it and the list of questions we'd carefully composed weren't used either. But even though that was that I couldn't resist registering on the auction site, just in case...

So what did we learn from all this? 

Well, apart from learning how much a dream can capture your heart and falling in love just a little bit with this house, we learnt that moving to the country would be countenanced by this confirmed townie, and for the right place we'd take on a "project."  

More surprisingly, well it surprised me, was the realisation that most likely in the next ten or so years we'll sell this house.  I mean, I knew we'd sell it at some point, and I couldn't see us selling it to buy another house in this area (and I still can't) but even so putting a number on it, and being comfortable with that was something I hadn't expected. That doesn't mean I don't still love this house, but more that we've worked through an outline for a longer-term plan and that puts lots of things into perspective. 

Nothing's fixed but I'm a firm believer in having a plan to help ensure you get there. And now we have that, and that's strangely satisfying. 

Oh, and the house that started all this? 

Well, it sold at auction - I checked, and it sold for some 40% over the guide price.  There's a learning in there about guide prices and buying property at auctions, which isn't something we'd done before. It's something I'd consider though, but I'd want to do more research first. 

We were in Norfolk the weekend after the auction and I was keen to see the house in person, even if that was just from the outside and just from a drive-by. We managed two drive-bys, which was pretty impressive as it was in a cul-de-sac! From those we learnt we were right it did have lots of potential, and also that it did need a lot of work. Even from the outside that much was clear.

I suspect too, that it'll be a house I'll keep my eye on through the property sites, maybe stalking it just a little bit that way to see how it's changed if it comes back on the market and to see how the price is affected, because even though it's not mine I'm not quite ready to give up on it completely.

Sometimes life throws things at you to help you grow, don't you think?