happy nostalgia for us, and happy dog time for him…..

Blog 5 / February 2016

 

 

The little daffs in a basket have finally shown their heads and today we heard the clatter of the Storks for the first time. I mentioned to my friend in the village that the storks had not yet arrived and in her worldly way, sucked on her teeth and declared that they are late and should be in their nests by now. I am putting the delay down to the daft amount of wind we have had this winter but all fear that the world is at an end is over because the dafs are up and the storks are back.

 

With the arrival of brighter weather Mike donned his work togs and went out to continue the epic camper parking project.  Before Christmas he made a good start and then it all ground to a halt.  As we poked and picked our way through the to-do-list I just said ….. glibly ….wouldn’t be great to get a big job done and dusted, so we decided to move the pepper shed to make way for the camper.

 

 

 

 

A job like this can seem really daunting, moving a shelter that has sat there since 2008 doing a great job as a pepper and chilly growing place but it had to be moved. Mike, as always, put his appliance of science head on and we pushed and pulled along wooden runners using iron rods as fulcrums and within an hour the job was completed with very little industrial language.

 

 

 

 

All that is left is the clear up and then Mike can seriously start putting in the gradient and start planning his next moves.

 

 

 

 

 

I spent a couple of hours clearing out the poly tunnel to prepare for our growing season. This time last year we were preparing for our trip to Canada and were still putting things to bed for our return in June, but this year it is all action packed prep and we are looking forward to the happy growing and harvesting of our crops.  I will give the chickens one more month in here and then they are history, I will give them the garden to enjoy their retirement in and we will not replace them …. We have done with chicken keeping and look forward to buying our eggs from a neighbour and believe me, it will be far cheaper in the long run.

 

 

 

A few days of bright clear sky and we are up up and away. Mike is knocking down a redundant garden wall and I have come out to prune the buddleia. I must have 30 buddleias all over the garden and at this time of year they all need a good meaningful prune to give them the message that the time has come to get set and put new growth on for this season.

 

 

HOSS is never far away when I am in the garden and Mike always knows where I am working because HOSS is always very close by.  Once I get going on spring pruning it becomes totally consuming and it is only the late afternoon freshening breeze and my grumbling stomach that encourages me to clear up and get back to the house.  I probably have another 2 or 3 afternoons to get the buddleia prune finished and then there is the dahlia garden to dig over and the rose garden to kick start ect ect ect..

 

 

 

 

Well,  we really know how to celebrate and Mike mentioned it was the 19^th February and reminded me that it was 46 years since he asked me out after a school valentines disco.   We opened yet another bottle of champers and had a little reminisce

 

 

 

 

 

We drank Champaign out of the glasses my Belgian great grandmother had on her wedding table. We are lucky to have two complete settings and a few champagne glasses and Mike always says we should use them and enjoy the historic connection we have with our family. This  portrait has been on the  lounge wall in all our homes  since we inherited her from my great Uncle in the late 70’s.

 

 

 
 

 

The camper park is really taking shape and every time Mike gets onto his mini digger I am amazed how much work he gets through. Each bucket of mud represents a barrow full of hard manual work. Before we know it the hole is dug, and the hard core put in and voila we have an entrance, magic. Mike is now seriously looking to purchase a dumper as the pile of displaced mud gets higher and higher and will at some point need to be transported into the garden.  We need to find a stress free and physically easier way to get that next epic part of the job completed.

 

 

Our dear old HOSS is getting slower and slower and although he looks like a puppy jumping about at walk time, his enthusiasm is over quickly and he pulls up to heel and walks home like a gentle old fella.  The other day I found the cat in HOSS’s cage.  I wanted to put him away to keep dry whilst we were out but the cat would not budge and he just climbed in and gave me one of his… so what… looks. The cat got the message in the end and left him in peace but for a moment there it looked so sweet and not very cat and dog.

 

 

 

It is a year this week that we purchased Monty and brought him home, and in the process of this acquisition we made friends with his previous owners and to celebrate the occasion of one year in Brevands we all met up for a spot of lunch around our kitchen table. 

 

 

 

We sat down to lunch with John and Lynn at 1:00 and got up again at 6:30 and had a jolly good day in good company. I did want Mike to get Monty out so I could take a commemorative photo but he looked up at the sky and raised a finger in the air and declared that the weather was inclement and Monty should stay in the garage…..I did want to exclaim…it’s a car…. but to Mike it is not just any old car, it is Monty, and we only get him out when the sun shines.

 

 

 

 
 
 

And finally, the ground around us is so very waterlogged that in order to get Mike out in the fresh air we have started our trips to the beach again. HOSS loves the soft sand and Mike also prefers to walk on sand as well so it is win win all around. The wind was up and the sea reminded me of our holiday home at Selsey in the UK and I had forgotten just how much I miss the sound of a big sea crashing on the beach. We will need to time these visits to coincide with a fresh onshore breeze at mid tide to get a walk in, that is  full of  happy nostalgia for us,  and happy dog time for him…..