The gliders are snoozing in the garage but time flies...

A year ago today the builders were laying the oak flooring and tiling the utility room, and we were worrying about whether or not we really WOULD be in for Christmas.  Now our worry is about whether the pond will dry out enough to line and fill before next summer...
Today I've harvested the first of the jerusalem artichokes (thanks to JP) and continued to plant up the shrubbery behind the greenhouse after a very successful raid on the 'reduced' section at Longstock nurseries yesterday...

Tidy!

Well, that bit of design worked then😊

Both gliders tidy and snug pending the next flying day or CofA.  I might post a time-lapse series of them coming out and going back into the trailers, it was a bit wolf/sheep/cabbage at times...

 


 

And the trailers are tidily tucked next to the hedges in the veg garden.

Like buses!!...

...you wait three weeks for a blog post and then two come along all at once.  For the answer to 'how long will the weather hold?' see below. 


 While I've been working on the pond, Alan's been busy making a path from the patio down past the greenhouse so we can get down to the stableyard on hard standing.
<<Here is is finished


 

So... - the answer is 'not quite long enough'.

We bought the pond liner yesterday but there's still a small amount of setting out to do - the left-hand top edge isn't quite in the right place yet. And this is what happened today:

Ah well!

How long will the weather hold?

Since our return from hols I've been frantically working on the pond to try to get it done before the weather breaks.  You've previously seen the roughed-out hole in the ground, but of course when it comes to where the edges need to be and sorting out the levels, there turns out to be a lot of work in getting it from rough to fine!  This is exacerbated by the fact that we have designed a pond-and-bog-garden combo with flagstoned edges round the pond - so there's a mid-rib in the whole thing which needs to be set exactly at the top water level all along.  See levelling device:

Happily the until yesterday we'd not had a frost and so I've been doing this with the flowerbed looking lovely.  The cosmos was very late coming into flower - you can just see one dark plant with one flower which opened on 1 Nov...



This is what it all looked like on the afternoon of 2 Nov, but sadly overnight the frost took out the cosmos and the nasturtiums. 

The candytuft (I think that's what the white stuff is!) and other hardy stuff is carrying on - and still smells delicious.

Good Gourd!

JP who came to visit last week pronounced himself rather disappointed by the size of my melons, so instead here is a picture of my delicious Potimarron chestnut squashes...

Meanwhile external works are continuing apace - Alan has excavated the footings for the path from the house past the greenhouse towards the stables; I have built two of the three bays of the main compost heap.  The third awaits my clearing several hundredweight of flints and slate pieces.  The slate was reclaimed from the broken bits left over after roofing and doesn't yet have a home/use, but hopefully most of [this pile of] the flint will vanish under the new path - if any reader needs any flint, we are prepared to sell at very reasonable prices.

 

Ginger Spice

Well done Tim - it is indeed part of the Ginger harvest - obvious in the pic here - never done ginger before, it didn't do much above ground but was yummy in last night's stir-fry:
Below is the start of Chateau Cumulus thanks to Kristina. 

And here we have some of the Mara des Bois which are like alpine strawberries but 2" across and are everbearers, along with some of the Badsey peaches which having lived in the same pot for the last 15 years are not 2" across any more.  I at the raspberry (there was just the one) before I took the pic.  Delicious on our morning muesli.  I think the new year plans will include a new peach so if any of the Badsey contingent are watching, please note the hopeful request...

Quiz of the day

What's this then?

Looks like something that might be crawling around somewhere nasty in Dr Who, I reckon.  Guesses?