Blue Lagoon

Well, I've picked a good time to have a few days off again weather-wise.  Actually, I didn't pick the time - it was my weekend off and I swapped today for tomorrow to cover a colleague's holiday and so ended up with a four-day-weekend which has been very nice indeed.  After sleet when I was driving home on Thursday and getting absolutely soaked walking home from the pub on Friday evening the rest of the time the weather has been absolutely lovely.  It's raining again now though, so time to go back to work tomorrow - perfect!

On Friday morning we went to pick up the Yew to make a coffee table for the people we spoke to at the Ludlow market a few weeks ago.  We sat with them with a cup of coffee and talked design options before going to pick out the timber we needed.  All very civilised and, I think, just how Bob would like his business to develop.  It's nice when the customer has some input into the design of their furniture.  We then had a nice lunch in Church Stretton and a mooch around the antiques market.  Luckily there wasn't anything we wanted to buy as we couldn't have got it home with the car full of Yew.  We had a flat tyre when we got home - good job it didn't happen (or we didn't notice) on the way home because we'd have had to unload all that wood on the side of the road to get at the spare tyre!

On Saturday we went for a lovely walk taking homemade pasties for lunch partway.  We sat high up on Llanymynech rock looking out over Wales to eat them in shirt sleeves and I think I might even have got a bit of a tan from it.  We haven't walked round our quarry for quite a while and this was the first part of our walk.

I think, if anything, the colour of the water is
even more turquoise in real life than in this picture

There were some huge fallen trees which have now been dealt with and are on someone's log pile.  We met the farmer on our way back and he said that one of the trees was so big that he got 57 logs out of one single slice of it!  Amazing.  He had just helped a sheep deliver three lambs and we had a peek at them on our way past - soooo cute.  Some time ago they stopped working at the far end of our quarry and so stopped pumping the water out.  Over the winter it has filled up and now the water has settled it is an amazing colour.  When the sun's shining on the lakes, they just don't look real, more like a touched-up holiday brochure.  Presumably, there must be copper in the rocks to make the water this colour.


Yesterday we had quite a busy day - the good weather makes you want to get on and do things.  So we started off by cutting half a tree down.  Just next to our beer bench is a large Ash tree and a Sycamore with five reasonable-size trunks.  This casts quite a shade over our bench so we cut down three of the Sycamore trunks.  We'll see what that's like when the leaves are out and maybe cut the rest of them next Winter.  The shade from the Ash is quite nice and dappled, so that can stay.  So, having had that huge bonfire a couple of weeks ago and got rid of all the brash from the hedge-laying, we now have another big pile!  We also have more firewood of course.  I think we may have a look at hiring a log-splitter when we have finished cutting up what we can of the Oak across the lane - it'll take us ages to sort out otherwise.

As you can see, the hedge is a bit sparse-looking just now.
Once the rabbits can't eat it we'll put some more plants in
and then it should start to look better.

Once we'd cleared up from that job, we started our mega rabbit fencing project.  The little bunnies are such a pest that we really need to keep them out - they have acres of woodland to play in, dig up and eat, so they really don't need our garden too!  I have tried to explain this to them, but they just don't seem to get it.  Hopefully this fence will also deter dogs as everyone lets their dogs off their leads as soon as they get to our lane and think it's fine for them to run all around our garden playing with the chickens.  I guess the garden just looks such a mess at the moment that they don't think it matters, but hopefully before too long it'll start to take shape and then we will mind.  So, we have knocked some stakes in along the hedge to start with ready for the rabbit wire which we've had ready to go for a couple of years!  We then have to go up the slope, behind the beer bench and along behind that hedge, put a gate in then somehow fence or gate between out top barns and Bob's workshop and then again between the workshop and the house and then put a gate in next to the lean-to.  It's not an easy garden to fence at all.  Once it's done though, we can take away the bits of individual fencing we have round borders, etc and let plants trail over walls, etc.  Hopefully too, the hedge will start to do something - it really has been hampered by nibbling bunnies.

Next job was to do another rise of the steps next to the house.  So, I cleaned the bricks up and Bob laid them.  Most of them were from around the range in the kitchen and had a really thick layer of very bright red paint to scrape off.  Most of them have the maker's name stamped on them and come from a just few miles down the road which is nice.

So, tree-felling, fencing and step-building - isn't that what everyone does on Mother's Day?!  We slept well last night I can tell you.