Welcome to Melanie’s July Jottings and what a month it has been! As some of our readers are aware, Nicholas was pretty poorly with Covid before any lockdowns began in March 2020. Now still living with Long Covid, the last 4 years for Nicholas have been a mostly about resting, healing, learning to live with his symptoms and of course artwork. In a way it stopped us from doing any cottage and garden maintenance as we weren’t in a position to tackle anything unnecessary.
However this year has been different. With the chaotic winter we had with all the storms bringing trees down, blowing off our log shed rooves, and in general causing a lot of chaos, I had declared… this was the year to get ourselves organised.
If you have been following our blog this year you will have already read that May was all about tidying the garden, giving things away that we didn’t need and putting up new fencing. Both May and June were also all about the logs!! This month…. well…. I’m not sure this blog post is going to be big enough for us to fit everything in!
It Started With Painting….
It all started on the first weekend of June when I painted the cottage. I haven’t painted our poor cottage since before Covid and it was gradually getting more green and discoloured. I really enjoy painting the cottage, it is actually very satisfying….
The front was done in a day. I washed all the windows and scrubbed some of the green off of the walls at the base of the cottage and got myself sopping wet! Then started painting. As you can see I have a pile of rubble on the right hand side. This is ready for a front garden project in September, so watch this space!
The following day was to paint the gable end. It’s pretty high and I managed to get to this level with my small ladder.
Thankfully Nicholas took over after he had finished painting portraits for the day. He managed to get to the base of the chimney with the longer ladders. Although I have banned Nicholas from painting the chimneys anymore, we have a lovely painter and decorator coming to help paint them for us.
Painting the Back, Moving The Greenhouse and Maintenance
So the back of the cottage has looked like this for the last 5 years. We had been given the greenhouse by my father a few years ago and it used to be situated down near the studio, however we moved it up by the cottage when we had the fencing done between us and our adjoining neighbour. It was really only a temporary place and it always looked a bit messy. It ended up being a dumping ground for things without a home. So it was time it was moved!!
Once the greenhouse was out of the way, we could start on the much needed maintenance around the doors and windows. The render has been coming loose for quite a long time. I could also start painting. It took us a good couple of days to complete, you can see the back of the cottage was pretty green at this stage.
Ta Da! The back of the cottage complete. The rendering around the doors and windows redone and painted and the greenhouse gone. It not only looks tidier, but it all feels larger too. We are delighted. So where did we move the greenhouse to? Scroll down!
The Greenhouse and It’s New Home
The greenhouse has moved to where the lovely trees came down this winter. To move it, Nicholas coded every pane of glass and laid them all out carefully in order and we put them all back without breaking anything. This area used to be a very overgrow area which I often referred to as ‘The Jungle’ as the trees and ivy were so big they towered over the garden and really made a dappled area. It feels quite open now and its sad to have lost that, but the climbing plants will grow eventually. On the plus side, we have been able to utilise the space and it is so much easier to use and maintain now.
This photo is of myself and Lily towards the end of the day when we had been working outside all day. If you could zoom in, my face would probably look tired! I must have walked miles around our garden this year and we haven’t finished yet!
Melanie’s July Jottings – Moving the Slate
As we are having a large project starting in September in the front garden. We will be removing one of the beds that is currently covered in slate. This area below was originally slated years ago and it was getting very thread bare. So it was very satisfying to bring the slate from the front to the back and really tidy it up. It was hard and heavy work but it was worth it. I do love sitting on the railway sleeper bench that I positioned there earlier this year. If you sit there first thing in the morning, really early, before people are busting for the day, with a cup of coffee its quite bliss.
And finally I think Lily approves of the greenhouse position. All I need to do now is to start growing things in it. Might be a little late in the year this year but I would definitely like to grow some lettuce or spinach. If not this year, definitely next!
Cladding the Tool Shed
So the next big job….and I knew this would take up quite a bit of space on Melanie’s July Jottings this month…was to clad the tool shed. The shed down the bottom of the garden has been used for a mix of things over the years. It was bought as storage for our kitchen and furniture when we were renovating the cottage and had to dig all the floors up. It has been a storage shed for tools and garden equipment.
Then before Covid for many years it was Nicholas’s gym. Sadly we have been selling all of the gym equipment over the last few months as Nicholas is unable to use all the heavy weight lifting equipment anymore. We have kept some quality chosen pieces of equipment that are now in the studio. It’ will be great to workout in a dry and warm studio through the winter!
So now it is back to being a storage shed and even has the overflow logs and kindling in there at the moment.. as you can see in the photo below. But the outside of the shed has been rotting for a number of years. Parts of it were repaired by Nicholas about 6 or 7 years ago, but the rain really soaks in on this gable end and on the front. This is where the weather mainly hits, and the paint we used never really seemed to keep it all waterproof. So before I knew it, Nicholas had dismantled this end and started to repair a rotten end post of the shed too!
The Cladding
Once the end post was repaired, we could start cladding it. We chose to opt for tanalised feather edge. We have been through all of the options from corrugated tin to composite boards, but the feather edge won being the cheapest and easiest option.
It was starting to look amazing and the offcuts worked perfectly for the side between the end of the shed and the door. We replaced the double doors as they were too narrow and swelled in the winter. So we wanted one normal sized door which Nicholas made using parts of old doors we already had for the structure and then added feather edge on top. Extremely clever.
You can see the door was coming together, so the next job was to continue cladding the front. We decided not to remove the wood on this side, it wasn’t as bad as the gable end, plus we didn’t want all the logs falling out!
Here Nicholas has made the right side of the door frame and is starting to clad. This was the part I was looking forward to the most as I knew it would start going up fast.
We were on a roll! Once measured and cut, I was drilling holes, Nicholas screwing the screws. Teamwork!!
Melanie’s July Jottings – The finishing Touches
The front finished, we moved around to the other gable end.
The gable end went up within a few hours. Of course for carpenters or builders this would have been a two day job. But we aren’t builders, we are artists and we were learning as we went along. Well… I say we. Nicholas mainly. I was just chief helper!
So the next job was to add the guttering back, add the guttering over the corners to stop the rain soaking into the edges of the wood. Also put the waterbutt on the back of the shed and add a solar light and bolts to the door.
Of course we still have the pile of wood and mess that has come from the shed. But the next project later this month is a new compost area so we can utilise some of the wood for that. Hopefully a before and after will be coming in Septembers blog of that too.
Melanie’s July Jottings Chickens….
This years list of jobs to do outside was pretty long, and one of them was to pressure wash the tarpaulin for the chickens. It had been cleaned about a year ago but only by hand and it was getting green. As soon as I got the pressure washer out, nothing was safe. I pressure washed the entire chicken house, collected up all the slabs I could find to make a path for winter around the pen, pressure washed the slabs.
I then pressure washed the picnic table, the railway sleepers around the garden as they get slippery. Plus the bird bath. Their pen is finished now. They have quite a large area and part is under trees and shrubs which is great as they have shelter. They haven’t been able to have this side of the garden before. Previously all the big log rounds were stored here. So it is just so nice to not have them all in the garden anymore.
…and Electric fences
The perimeter of the garden is half fenced. However the half that can’t really be fenced is three lines of electric fence and a non electrified netting. One reason for this is to stop foxes and the second is to stop cattle in the fields below us. This works great, until weeds grow. Because we haven’t been doing a lot outside and Nicholas hasn’t been able to strim the area. Its just got more and more overgrown.
So I tackled it by hand pulling up as many of the weeds as possible and cutting back overgrown branches. Weeds and stinging nettles grow in between the netting so it was hard work. All of the line is now clear and the chickens are safe again! A lot of work and aching knees and arms but well worth it. I just need to keep on top of it now.
So that’s just about our garden and cottage work for this month. Among mowing the lawn, chopping back shrubs, tidying up, which is never ending, the garden is looking pretty good at the moment. Probably the best its been for years. So not bad for just under 4 weeks work. The good days are the dry days when you get up and know its going to be a nice day. However, when you get an early morning mist, it makes everything eerie….
Love the big trees in the mist!
And you also have to love a good sunset too. Nothing done to this photo, a straight iPhone photo zoomed in.
Lily’s 11th Birthday and Grooming
I can’t actually believe the years have gone by so fast. It doesn’t seem real that Lily was 11 years old this month. Where has the time gone? So much has happened in 11 years too and she has been with us every step of the way. She is an older lady now and just like me after a hard workout, often walks up the stairs a lot slower than she used to. But that’s ok. She is allowed to. And so am I!! The photo below was taken when she had just come home from the Groomers.
Her birthday was marked with an early morning walk, a yummy breakfast and then presents. She had a really lovely birthday and my friends daughter bought her a wonderful bone with her name on it and sent her a fabulous hand drawn card too.
She loves opening presents, somehow knows there is something inside for her. I guess all dogs do, they aren’t daft are they. I often joke that one day I am going to wrap up all of Lily’s toys. She would have a field day!!
The final photo is from the groomer when she was groomed this month. She looked amazingly tidy for about an hour!!
Melanie’s July Jottings – Swansea Air Show
I have never been to an air show before and had seen Swansea Air Show advertised last year. My running buddy Harvey used to fly light aircraft and loves anything plane related like I do, so I asked if he would like to go. Yes was the reply! So off we went. It was absolutely amazing.
We started by going in a Red Arrows simulator which was brilliant. We went into a Tank and I got to sit where the gunner sits and was shown all the equipment. Harvey and I sat in a huge army truck, saw a Sea King helicopter demonstration and a Tornado whooshing across the sky which was incredible. Plus of course The Red Arrows. I tried to take as many photos as I could and I think they have come out pretty well considering.
Two of the red arrows created a heart with an arrow, simply amazing skill above. Plus the red, white and blue smoke is such classic red arrows, I remember this as a child and it was so good to see it again.
You can really see the Red Arrows below, even with a highly zoomed in photo. It was definitely worth a visit, especially for a free event, we only paid for parking!
Harvey’s 80th Birthday
And it was Harvey’s 80th Birthday! To celebrate I took him to a little town called Llandeilo about 45 minutes drive where they have a café solely selling doughnuts. We had a savoury doughnut with egg base, bacon and maple syrup. It was absolutely delicious!
They do so many amazing doughnuts. From Cherry Bakewell, Twix with an actual Twix on top, to Oreo and apple and cream doughnuts. We had arrived there for breakfast and then headed up to the Castle for a 5k round trip walk. Then back to a chocolate shop for a cup of tea and a brownie. It was my treat for being a lovely friend and an excellent walking / running and workout buddy.
And finally in Melanie’s July Jottings ….Colby Gardens
Its been such a busy month, Nicholas and myself needed a bit of a break together. So spent one Saturday at Colby Gardens. It was a lovely day, Lily enjoyed herself so much. At the end of the walk there were two deck chairs to have a bit of a rest before walking up the hill to the car park.
The café is exceptional. These were the selection of cakes for the day. We didn’t actually have cake, we opted for a salad lunch instead, but we definitely want to go back. It’s most probably really busy at the moment with school holidays, but well worth a visit if you are heading this way.
The Gardens
The walk around the woodland and gardens was really lovely with Lily leading the way!
And here she is still leading the way over a little bridge.
The hydrangeas were beautiful in the gardens. We had timed it when they were all out in flower and they really did brighten up the gardens.
Here is a close up of the blue flowers. Ours at home are pink, I believe they turn blue if there is more iron in the soil. I’m unsure if these varieties planted were once pink, or they are a blue variety. However I am pretty sure the soil needs to be acidic to keep them this colour.
There was also an amazing tree with pink flowers which I have no clue as to what it was, but it was stunning. It was more impressive in real life, however hopefully the photo goes some way to describing how beautiful it was.
And Finally in Melanie’s July Jottings
If you have got to the end of Melanie’s July Jottings I applaud you as it was pretty epic. It has been a very busy month, if you missed last months, take a look at Melanie’s May Moments. I really am looking forward to getting back to work now that most things are done. We still have a list of jobs, but those are mainly towards the end of August and September. Keep well wherever you are and see you all later in August!
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