One Year Out!! - and practically complete...

This post is a couple of days late - I should have posted on 11 May which was one year since the building works started.  As it happens, that's the day that the architect came round to do a final inspection and pronounced 'practical completion'.  This is official recognition that it's fundamentally finished, although there's still a short list of stuff to deal with, not necessarily now.  We also have the building inspector's completion certificate, and now we have to pay the just-about-final bill.  For those who don't know the process, there's a retention of part of the contract cost to cover any works that arise during the following year, so there's a small bucket of fixing-money for anything else that pops up.  Milestone!

Voting for the Greens

Finally it's got hot.  Here is the evidence - the first time we have opened both bifold doors:

And it IS very good.
And talking of very good, here's the greenhouse yesterday - no planties...









...and today, going Green with added cucumber and tomato:
 

Such a relief to have it done - if only because we can now get around the house without being attacked by cucurbits - it was a bit like a benign version of the Triffids.

Meccano for grown-ups

4 boxes of bits, a stack of glass and a set of instructions and it goes like this:

Ta da! 
Next step is to dig the hard-as-iron earth inside and make beds I can plant stuff into, then the poor dears who are living in tiny pots next to the kitchen island at present will get their luxurious new home.

Just my imagination...

Each day the lawn gets a little greener, but it's still got quite a way to go before you could call it 'luxuriant' in most places.
To help you imagine how it will look in the end, here are my design sketches of the north view:

The grasses, shrubs and trees on the left and the beech columns are all there - but somewhat smaller than drawn; the pond and bog garden are as yet just holes in the ground.

And the terrace:
Several clematis are now planted as well as the wisteria, but we haven't quite achieved the welding of the obelisks yet, so they have some poles to comfort them in the short term.

Yesterday Alan completed the blockwork for the greenhouse foundation, and we assembled the sides and ends.  There's probably another day's worth of work to complete it, which needs a non-gliding, non-pouring-with-rain-or-blowing-a-gale day so probably not over bank holiday weekend...

Fruity!

To add to the raspberries, we now have strawberries and a fig.  I ache too much to get up and get the camera to download a pic of the fig - but you won't be too surprised to know it looks like a stick.  I've also attached some rabbit-proof (!??? I hope) fencing across the access to the vegetable plot and started to lay the reclaimed paviours on the pathways.  Planted shrubs - pyracantha and mahonia out the front, and pittosporum at the back.  And did I mention having bought some cute alpines? - Installed on the gabion wall.  Meanwhile Alan has been levelling the space for the greenhouse and putting some concrete into a trench to make a small retaining wall on the down side.  Pics will follow, as, hopefully, will the greenhouse.

Our lovely neighbours

Our lovely former neighbours Wendy and Frank came to view and dine last night, bringing with them a huge row's worth of raspberry canes.  Thank you Wendy!  Here is their provisional* new home:
Looking forward to the first harvest - these are autumn raspberries but with any luck they'll get their skates on and be a-fruiting by late summer.
* this is where soft fruit is planned to be, but I haven't actually set any beds out yet, so they may end up moving.  Meanwhile, they do at least have a home for this year.

Open sesame!

For the first time a couple of days ago, it was warm enough to open the west-facing bifolds.  And it looks like this:

Yesterday we ate our first lunch on the patio.  Looking forward to a lot more of this!  (Today, mind you, we were back in coats, hats, wetsuits and flippers - no chance of gardening :( )