If I Could Turn Back Time!

.....we'd go back to the work we did last summer, I'd write the appropriate post immediately (yeah, like that is SO going to happen!) and I wouldn't have to spend hours trawling through badly labelled photos to find the ones I want....but anyway, I digress!

Posts on progress on the tea house have been sadly lacking this year as I've got sidetracked onto other things again lately just for a change! But Bilbo Waggins at The View From Bag End has recently reminded me of my promise to do a post about the finishing off of last summer's pond extension, so I thought I'd better get on with it otherwise she'll have finished building her megapond before I've finished telling you about ours!(Go and have a read of her blog - it's great...she cracks me up!)

If you want to remind yourself what we got up to and how Himself did the edges of the pond extension, you can read about it here. I really do want to show you the finished pond, but I thought I ought to show you how Himself and the Wonderful Pete completed the tea house veranda first or it'll all be out of sorts and in the wrong order!

Himself carefully measured and cut all the supporting rails.

then he concreted in the two hand rail newel posts

before biscuit-jointing all the 45* angled joints and putting metal hangers on all the ordinary joints.

The first corner support in place

I insisted on a bit of arty-fartiness and decreed that the pebbles had to go under the veranda in front of the door so that if anyone looked down it would appear that the courtyard continued on under the veranda. Himself thought I'd lost the plot with that one, but I was right! :)

The decking was put in place for testing the spacings between the boards and then marked up for cutting - a precision job

...with magnificent results!

Fixing the supports on the side over the pond proved 'interesting'

but do-able

The long lengths were then spaced, marked, cut and fastened down

The end result was superb - as I think you'll agree!

The Wonderful Pete cleared and levelled the courtyard, then laid the step

and we all celebrated a quite momentous occasion with a glass or several of champagne on the veranda in the light of the setting sun - a happy day!

Finishing the veranda decking felt like a huge achievement and a great leap forward......it really did feel like we would actually get the tea house finished - a bit like some of my posts really then?!

*Happy Dance* Time

YAY! At last!
After one of the weirdest, mildest winters in ages - and a vastly different one to last year, we've finally got some snow! It was a bitterly cold minus 9 yesterday morning and the snow arrived bang on the time predicted by the weathermen....so they can get it right sometimes then!

Whilst my inner 8 year old was doing the Happy Dance, Nala the kitten was slightly less impressed with her first foray into the big white world!

Sedum heads

A splash of colour from the Cornus

My solar powered Japanese lanterns won't be doing a lot tonight :P

This red bush Acer seemed so much more vibrant this morning than it looks in the photo.

Ceefer cat (who's cool about the snow) inspecting the Acer in the Japanese Garden.

The Tea House and top pond

As I had recently spotted a couple of fish that the heron must have missed, Himself decided to gently break the ice on the pond for them. A fox had had a wander across the pond in the night!

Are you dancing happy?! :D