Lunch today was intended to be earlier than usual due to my scheduled hair appointment at 1pm. Following my hair appointment, Mr C and I planned to visit a particular garden centre to track down (and see) a garden bench that we had in mind.

Whilst I was quietly reading before lunch, the phone rang… It was my FIL offering to bring his jet washer round to clean off our patio table and chairs, to spruce them up. Of course I accepted the offer but this put our plans off track a little, lunch in particular and I was worried about being late for my appointment.

We got back on track and after my hair appointment we went to the garden centre and although the garden centre stocked the range of garden benches we were looking for the bench we had in mind was not on display. We have one other place we can visit to see if they have the bench on display, this will involve a visit to Sugnall Walled Garden for lunch. What a hardship

Whilst we were out on our travels we bought a shrub for the newly dug border, then Mr C went in search of the missing ingredient for this evenings meal; Fennel seed. It was nowhere to be found. I had given up and was ready to go home so I searched on line (via my phone) for suitable alternatives, many of these we have in our cupboard. But Mr C was determined and we eventually found the illusive seeds in Holland & Barrett.

Eventually we returned home just in time to prepare dinner so that it could be enjoyed on the patio before the temperature got too chilly.

The Pork & Fennel meatballs were delicious

The garden plans are taking shape and whilst Mr C and I were at work today the two garden fairies had been at work cutting out new borders around the patio area.

The plan to continue the wall around the patio has now been put back until the end of the project. My current thinking is that the existing wall will be replaced with a different style of bricks and the line will continue around the corner but stop at the wide part of the patio. There are currently  similar walls to the one that borders the patio in other parts of the garden; In front of the shed and bordering the upper and lower parts of the lawn. In due course the plan is to replace all of these bricks.

The next part of the project is sorting out the bin area and then we will move onto the collapsed shed!

Although our tired tarmac driveway has needed replacing for a number of years we kept putting off replacing it until recently. A local builder was laying driveways in our area and we decided at long last that we would have ours replaced including the path up the side of our house. The path up the side of the house was less than ideal for getting the wheelie bins up and down. The slabs were too narrow and there were pebbles to either side of it causing the wheels to snag. As the pathway progressed we decided to extend it round the back of the house, enlarging our patio area slightly and replacing the the existing slabs.

Whilst the builders were laying the pavings at the back of the house they unearthed a drain access cover that we didn’t know was there!! It had been slabbed over by the previous occupants.

Now that the patio area is looking neat and tidy, two garden fairies have arrived and started  to give the garden a bit of TLC that has been long overdue…