Baa humbug

It has been such an exciting day.

If you look at the picture you can see the very first of the opulent arches in the conservatory.

Mark made it today out of some bits that he saved from an old trampoline. He saved them because he thought they would come in useful and I was cross about it at the time, but I take it all back. It is the most magnificent arch.

He is going to make some more arches. He can do this because it turns out that he has got another old trampoline that he has saved which he thought it would be wiser not to tell me about.

There is going to be an arch over the back of the sofa and another one by the door.

Of course it is not finished yet. The next thing that we need to do is to make it into a Living Arch, so that beautiful climbing plants and also tomato plants can wrap themselves around it.

We are going to put a tube of chicken wire around it. This was generously donated by our friend Kevin, who hardly laughed at all. We are going to fill the tube with bark and moss, and then wrap fairy lights around it.

It is going to be the most wonderful, stunning archway, every bit as opulent as the Burj Khalifa Hotel that we were looking at in Dubai. I am very glad we did not waste ten thousand pounds going there for an opulent night. We shall be having opulent nights of our very own, here in Windermere.

I know it looks as though the shed is on fire in the background, but it isn’t. It is Mark cutting a scaffolding tube up and welding it to a pickaxe. This is to make a sharp stick for bashing into the ground at the farm. It will make holes into which we can put fence posts.

We are going to fence the wretched sheep out of the top part of the field where our garden is. Then we are going to plant things there as well. We are going to grow some trees, and vegetables, and one day we will chuck the sheep out altogether and sow wildflowers in the rest of the field so that we can keep bees again.

There is no point in keeping bees at the moment. They would starve to death, since bees do not eat sheep, regrettably.

We have been up at the field today. We went to collect some sacks of muck and soil for filling in the new flower bed, and to weed out some more stinging nettles.

I weeded loads of them out the other day. I chucked them onto a plastic sheet so that they would dry out in the sun, but the sheep have eaten them all and dug holes in the newly-cleared soil.

Sheep are a menace.

Mark went to fill sacks from the muck heap whilst I weeded the garden. The sheep saw him going down the field, and went belting after him, presumably in case he turned out to be edible. They made such a racket that every sheep for miles stopped what they were doing and rushed over to the muck heap. I have added a picture of that as well, because I thought it was so funny.

When we came home I filled the flower beds whilst he built the arch. I chucked in lots of compost from the compost bin, with a good sprinkling of lime on the top, and some sheep muck, and then bags and bags of top soil from the farm, which will probably start sprouting stinging nettles as soon as I turn my back on it. You will be pleased to hear that I have not found any more of the horrible vine weevils, although I looked very hard.

I am going to stop writing this and go away to drink wine. I think we have earned this because of all the digging and fresh air.

It has been the happiest day. Mark is going to go back to work tomorrow, but we have done so many things that it does not matter at all, and will give me a chance to tidy up some of the mess he has left behind.

Have some pictures.