Tuesday 30 June 2009

Beautiful things and beautiful people!

I know that I am very lucky to live in a wonderful place and be surrounded by both beautiful people and beautiful things! My family and friends are very dear to me and hold a special place in my heart, but I also consider many bloggers to be amongst my friends too.

One such blogger friend is Carolynn at A Glowing Ember. Back in early May I got an email from her saying that she was sending me a belated birthday present (I think I'd been having a moan about feeling old - must have been a Monday morning after overdoing the gardening!!!) The present was coming by sea, so I knew it'd be a couple of months, but the excitement mounted in the Gnome household as the weeks progressed .......with first-Born and Last-Born being as bad as me but with Himself maintaining his usual cool, calm manner about our giddyness!

At last the day came when I arrived home from work to be greeted by two teenage tornados bellowing "it's here mum, it's arrived, open it, open it!!". Carefully tearing open the parcel I found a lovely card and the most gorgeous little faerie door I've ever seen! Carolynn reckons that every garden should have its own resident faerie - and who am I to argue with that?!

The problem now is where to put it to attract the faeries to this wonderous portal?
I've had a wander round the garden and looked at many likely places, but would value your opinions on the best site!

1. The pine tree?


2. In the wood pile with the giant? (I'm really not sure if faeries and giants get on that well....!)


3. On the Norwegian Spruce amongst the ivy?


(This is our faerie ring up in the copse - it'll make the next photo more understandable!)


4. Under the faerie ring table?

Or
5. On the blast wall? (this is left over from the 2nd World War, when our 'potting shed' was an air raid shelter for two families. The blast wall protected the door. Nowadays there's a flower bed on the far side of it and teenagers climb onto the blast wall to jump onto the trampoline!!! - I know, I know.... Health and Safety would have a field day, but I just don't look any more!)
What do you think? Where should it be placed to best attract the faeries?
So..... Carolynn officially classes as one of the beautiful people because she so kindly and generously sent me this lovely, lovely gift totally out of the blue (- and I just adore suprise presents!) just because she saw it and thought I'd like it. That woman is a star. I LOVE it! Thanks you SO much Carolynn, me and the faeries will treasure it!
One of my other beautiful people is Last-Born Gnomelet!
She has just turned 16, has finished all her GCSE exams and, last Friday night, had her school Prom. Proms didn't exist in the UK when I left school - we got a 'leavers disco', which was exactly the same as all the other school discos I ever went to! I would have LOVED to have gone to a Prom when I was 16!
Anyway, I got to go vicariously through Last-Born and we did the whole, dress, taira, shoes, bag shopping bit and I helped her get ready for her big night!
Here she is in all her 16 year old beauty and glory!

Last-Born, her 3 best friends and the lads they shared the Limo with!

Last-Born and her Prom Date - Jamie. Don't they look sweet?! (she'll kill me for saying that, but .....hey, they do!)
Last-Born enjoying "the best night of my life!"

She fair brought a tear to my eye and a lump to my throat!

Monday 8 June 2009

The wood has arrived ......!

The arrival of some wood may seem to be a fairly trivial thing to be getting so excited about .......but it has taken nearly 3 years of hard work to get to this point where suddenly the vision of the tea house is turning into the reality of the tea house (possibly)!

But first the wood has to be housed somewhere nice and dry - so it doesn't warp, and protected from the sun - so it doesn't warp! Can't have a warped wood tea house now can we?!
So we built a wood store from our wide and varied collection of random bits of wood, old pallets and the old back door that got ousted when we put the new back door in a different place! It may look wonky, but not even a Force Ten gale would shift it - I'm sure Himself was a Victorian engineer in a former existence!
The photo below is the wood store frame. The garage door is (fortuitously) a stable door - from when the previous owners kept a pony and grazed it up the garden!

The woodstore with its waterproof tarpaulin cover. The long pieces of wood protrude into the garage, but Himself screwed a plywood sheet over the gap to stop anyone getting in.

Looking from the garage into the woodstore past Himself's new toy (oops, sorry love!) erm, new
cross-arm saw.


Cross-arm saw and pillar drill set up ready for use!
Himself happy in his work!
He 'tested' the tools by making a new sawing horse - bless!
The first tea house joint - a simple dovetail apparently!
So, I have hope - I really do think that the tea house may finally be built this summer .......if it ever stops raining for long enough for us to put it up!