Bonfire success at last!

I'm here on my tod at the moment while Bob is over in the east helping his sister to fit out her new shop.  They are putting timber cladding up on some of the walls and he just rang to say he drilled through a cable in the wall this morning which wasn't the best of starts.  He didn't get electrocuted or anything, but it limited what they could do as the shop's quite dark without the lights on.  So, the electrician is coming first thing tomorrow and they were out looking for a cable detector for tomorrow!  It's strange being on my own here as it doesn't happen very often . . . . must remember to lock the door when I go out (I don't usually need to think about that!).

Bob did the Shrewsbury market by himself last week as I was working.  He didn't sell a chair (just as well really as the new batch aren't finished yet!), but he did sell every single coat peg board we had.  He's going to call at our old woodyard again on his way back from his sister's to get some more interesting bits of wood - surely there must be somewhere nearer than Northamptonshire to get this wood from!  He has a couple of commissions from the two markets so I think he's made a really good start.  He is still doing the scaffold board furniture, but just not quite so much.  I found this picture of one of the table ends where he was having a bit of trouble with the wood splitting and it made me laugh because it does look a bit over-clamped doesn't it? 

I had a couple of days off last week using up bits and bobs of holiday before the end of March which meant that I had nearly a week off in total.  What a good week to pick too - apart from the fog on Wednesday it has been just lovely.  The daffodils are well and truly out and there are lots of primroses around and plenty of bluebell leaves.  Do you know, each year I collect the seeds from our bluebells and either sprinkle them in pots or just strew them over the garden.  Last year I hoed the bed where I'd thrown them the previous year forgetting what I'd done and it was only as I was finishing that I noticed new little bluebell leaves in one corner - darn!  This year though I have remembered and won't be hoeing and there are loads of tiny little plants.  They just look like twin grass stalks at the moment and it'll be a few years before they flower, but the ones I didn't hoe last year are quite sturdy little things.  Won't that be nice when we have an eye-achingly beautiful carpet of bluebells?  I did throw some around in our little wood, but they'll be far too tiny to notice among the leaf litter.  I guess in a few years I'll just have a nice surprise when they do their thing.  So, just now our garden doesn't look too bad (this is relatively speaking of course) if you stand back and fuzz your eyes up it almost looks cultivated.  I'm putting this on record because I know that in about three weeks the nettles will have taken over and everything will be waist-high.

This was right at the end, I didn't have time to take
a photo earlier

Finally, on the third attempt, we managed to have a good bonfire with all the brash from laying that little bit of hedge back in the Autumn.  Carol and Graham were here for a short visit so Graham could do a bit more to the rocking chair he's making.  So while he was doing that Carol and I had a go at the bonfire and once we got it going properly, we could hardly keep up with feeding it branches and we reduced two huge piles to one little, neat pile of ash in just over an hour - how satisfying.  In the process I singed my fringe when the wind changed direction just as I was trying to get a big branch right into the middle and both of us have arms covered in scratches. Oooh!  I nearly forgot to tell you, we finally own the piece of field Carol's standing on in the picture!  After almost 6 years of trying we've finally done it!  The sales details of this cottage said the land may be available by separate negotiation and we have been separately negotiating ever since.  This little bit of field will be really useful as we can park on one corner which will mean you can turn round and go out forwards (we have to reverse a surprising number of cars out for people), we will also plant some fruit trees, build a good-size log store and I think this bonfire patch will be a permanent feature so we might as well make it official with a stone boundary.  It's a real shame that, because the solicitor worked at a snail's pace taking 6 months to do the tiny bit of paperwork we hadn't already sorted, it is now too late in the season to lay the hedge and it wouldn't be a good idea to plant the new boundary hedge until we've finished dropping trees all over the place.  Hey, what's another year in the scheme of things?!  So anyway, we now own our surroundings which is a really nice feeling . . . . suppose we could try getting the quarry to let us have the wood across the lane next!