More Serendipity

Kraft Dinner

My mother was good enough to send me two boxes of Kraft macaroni and cheese, which was my dinner of choice when I was six. I requested it because Anna had never had it, and she’s half Italian, and a bit of a foodie, so I thought for the sake of a rounded experience, she should witness what has become of Italian cuisine in a couple of hundred years of Americanification. Still as delicious as I remembered…

scaffolding

Elmo came out on Tuesday and put up a scaffolding tower in preparation for the guy coming to put in the telephone line because they said they couldn’t do it last time on account of the pole was too old and knackered to climb. Only the guy didn’t show up, so he spent several hours on the phone explaining over and over again that there was no line (the system insisted it was there) and that the guy hadn’t come (the system said he had) and that we had come there specially to meet him and we needed the guy to come today (“I’m sorry, sir, we can book you a new appointment, you should hear from us within 48 hours and the appointment will be within three weeks.) Elmo was not pleased. The issue persists.

Wood in the Trailer

Ryan sent me a heads up about some free “firewood” on Freecycle, which I thought would be good for campfires, but when I got there, there turned out to be not only a big pile of firewood, but some pretty good roof timbers as well. The whole lot had been woodwormed, so it’s probably not going in a building, but it’s pretty sound for the most part, the big stuff, so we piled it all on the trailer to take up to Boggart Hall. I have no idea why Anna is looking up or why Elmo is looking down in this photo. But I thought it was funny.

Anna the Sawmill

Anna became a human sawmill yesterday and today, sawing up all the bits we needed to knock together a basic shed to store long bits of wood in. She has ten times my stamina with a saw.

Lea the Clearer of Greenery

Lea, on the other hand, specialises in clearing greenery. She powered through tons of path and raised bed, with many years of weed growth and many-times-trimmed-and-re-sprouted hazel trees. That corner of the plot is absolutely transformed.

Albertine Rose

I finally planted the rose Michelle gave me, which was not in bad shape, having been put in a bigger pot than it came in when it first arrived. It’s put on a bit of growth this year and has one bud. Val said it would cover the whole corner of wall when it gets going. I can’t wait. I want tons of roses around the place.

Also, look carefully and spot the frog in the picture. I didn’t even notice it when I was taking it. They’re everywhere around the tank to the left (just visible) that catches rainwater. They’re probably a bit pissed off about the changes in the neigbourhood.

Woodshed under construction

Today we got enough of the path clear to start building the woodshed.

anna and her woodshedAnna, leaning on her handiwork. Unfortunately, I believed the guy at the shop when he said the roofing stuff worked out at a meter wide when overlapped properly. Turns out it was just shy of. Need to buy another piece.

woodshed completed

Here you can see the transformation of the corner of ancient garden. The path is flagstoned, charmingly. You can see in the background what it looked like before we started. You couldn’t even tell there was a path.

Grace on the rope swingI’m on a twice-a-day prescription of rope-swinging, trying to get a bit more strength after not doing anything requiring strength for a really long time. There are worse ways to get exercise.

Candle lanternsThe last couple of evenings were quiet and we all went to bed fairly early in order to be ready to work all day, but we took the trouble to light the lovely lanterns. A little more beauty never hurts at the end of a day.

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