Big Projects

We can have several projects going on at any one time some are quick finish in a day ones others can take a year or more! We've got a plan for our loft and the garden and I'm not sure which is going to get finished first but they will get there...I hope!

Since having the children our adult space has become smaller as the children and their stuff spreads out so we've had to have a rethink as we now sleep in a bedroom that is sharing that space with 3 computers a sewing machine and craft table! (plus all the extras that comes with those)








So steadily my wonderful handy man husband has been working on the loft with a view to us having our bedroom up there. We haven't a lot of money or time so it has been getting there bit by bit over the last 2 years and its getting closer.
Now the windows are in and the electrics aren't shorting the whole house out anymore!

Its looking like a cheap set from Red Dwarf but I can see my vision of a bed room with hopefully nothing else but a couple of wardobes and maybe a bed side table or two and room to do my yoga without knocking something over! Its so exciting

As for the garden this was prompted by a rat infestation in the shed.

After they ate through all the garden seed then took up residence in the compost ( I had to bang on the bin with a stick to scare them off before lifting the lid or get a nasty surprise!) The final straw came when I discovered a 'rat in mi kitchen'! So down came the shed and we talked about what we wanted for our 'bottom of the garden'. Hubby wants a nice new smaller shed for his tools, the kids want a trampoline and I want a patio with somewhere to hang my hammock for lazy Summer days and a glass of red!



So we attacked the rockery and are getting it down slowly to level it with the garden then we can pave it to make the patio to fit our 3 wishes on.

The kids all want their trampoline so its a massive incentive to keep having a go, it may take a little while and I know there are plenty of rocks to dig out but we'll get there.

UPDATE 24th April 2010
Yay its took a lot of hard work (mostly Lee!) and now the bottom of the garden is levelled off and most of the rocks and debris cleared. Several trips to the dump were needed and we did consider a skip at one point but it seems we've managed to do without. We had a great bonfire with the shed and bottom fence and now have a lovely view of our across neighbours which they were not too pleased about at first but once we explained we were tackling the rats not being nosy they were ok!
As you can probably see we have a lot of space to make our patio with and having removed some slabs in front of the old shed and levelled that a bit we'll have a bit more lawn as we add some more grass to the bottom left to even it out. So I think we will have plenty of room for our wishes.

 I am so pleased to be rid of the horrible old metal fence on this side of the garden although this opens our garden up to our next door nighbours garden too! Taking down the boundaries lol
We have got lots of paving slabs spare from taking the paths up at the bottom so we should have enough to do the patio.
It was interesting to discover the roof of an air raid shelter as we dug down! There was no way we could dig it out as it went down too far so we covered it back up and hopefully there will be enough slope for good drainage!

We are going to plant bush like the stranded one that grew through the fence here so we can have a nice hedge all the way down. That will take a while but I'm just so happy to be rid of the old fence it always looked so dangerous for the kids with bits of metal and wire holding it together.

Work has stopped a bit this week as the weather got so hot like Summer time we've been relaxing in the top garden with the hazel tree and playhouse obscuring the work in waiting!

Building dens in the woods

Do you remember doing that when you were a kid? Yes I spent most of my childhood in the woods near my house building dens, playing indians, swallows and amazons, jumping out on my friends with pretend machine gun herhehrheheherhe (can't get the sound in text but anyway you're dead!)
My kids are missing out in fact all our kids are missing out whether they're in school or not. I don't think there are many parents out there who would be ok with their children going off down the woods for the day with some friends to play.
Sometimes my kids get a small glimpse of that fun we had even if there is an adult or two close by. Once a month we meet at a local nature reserve and a Ranger absolutely brilliant at her job leads us all into adventures on the wild side and this month was den building, tree swings and anything else you fancy with a load of old rope.



Whoop! My kids started with monkey bars which turned into the best rope assault course that has ever been!

 I love a good rope swing, we had several attempts at it. 

The first one was just your basic rope swing with rope in the middle of a stick, it worked for me as a kid but this had to be comfy?

We tried again with rope at each end of the stick which was not quite right somehow it got shortened and we could only hang onto it to swing which was ok until someone had to go and make a proper swing!!
I don't remember any of mine being that good lol

It was great day that reminds me to take some rope to the woods next time we go.