On the hottest day of the year so far, Colin is determined to finish off riddling the soil in the back garden, but not before he has cleaned out the stinky water butt that has been festering for a couple of years.
He has emptied the black water and bloody hell it is stinky! I had to pour bleach down the outside drain…
Jasper’s walks now include a dip in a duck pond, cooling him down but also making him rather stinky.
Jasper and one of his favourite stuffed ducks.
Colin has dug up the membrane that encases the soak away for the guttering that was dug into the garden last year. There is a little bit too much of it and it was poking through the lawn.
Ooo! This was dug out of the garden by Colin and appears to be a very old pewter button, similar to the one we dug up in the study floor a year ago (that we like to believe is from a soldier’s uniform from The Battle of Edgehill in 1642).
You can see the loop on the back which has folded over. The historical oracle (our older sister, Lucy) believes it could certainly be mid 1600’s!
Jasper trying to help.
Dreaming of duck ponds.
Trimming the excess membrane. There just needs to be enough to cover the top of the hole.
There are literally metres to spare!
The membrane gets buried again, this time there is room for the lawn to grow over the top.
The skip is rapidly filling up.
Back to riddling.
It does look like he’s mining for gold.
Colin the engineer moving the (really bloody) heavy old railway sleepers. He slides and pivots the larger ones on the smaller ones, rather than lift them.
The new flower bed border. Suitably rustic.
The ever increasing soil mountain.
Removing the last of the overgrown grass and weeds.
Thank god for the parasol, it’s roasting today!
An amazing display from the rambling roses this year.
The soil mountain is finished! Now to dismantle the (now partially buried) riddling contraption and spread the soil around.
Amazing, this soil is like sand it is so fine!
A flat garden again! Yay! We will reseed this and it will be as good as new.
A tiny bunny rabbit has moved in to the front garden and is winding Jasper up. He can see it from the windows (he is NOT going out there) and it’s driving him crazy!
It’s poppy season and the most incredible multi-headed purple poppy (the opium variety I think) has ‘popped’ up across the road.
Colin is a bloody marvel!
Isn’t he just! He’s an instant expert at everything!