Planting trees

Hello there; Sunday early evening and I'm looking forward to a very short update so I can get an early night as I'm so rock 'n' roll, and I'm tired. It's been a lovely weekend all in all.

I dug the old tree out

New tree planted

Pictures on the wall of Room 13

I was up early on Saturday and by early I mean I woke at about 4.30 and then couldn't get back to sleep at all; I was thinking about what to do with the workmen over the next week and what materials to spend money on; a decision has been made which will save a chunk of cash now, leave us in a brilliant situation, and take the pressure off financially so that is good. At about 7am I got out of bed and went and did my chores, including emptying the humanure, and then I carried on with my energetic start and went to replace the broken silver birch with one of the new trees. It was a super quick process and only took about half an hour from beginning digging to filling in the whole, including getting manure from the village. The new tree was looking awesome and fit in very well indeed with the rest of the avenue. With this done the only chore left for the day was putting the pictures up in Room 13 and, together with A, this was achieved really quickly. Room 13 is an absolutely wonderful room now.

Tomato seedlings ready for planting into the raised beds

Pea plants climbing the frame

A single bean has germinated so far

A huge nasty storm approaches

The clouds cleared and the moon came out

The girls love fighting

A was also busy outside during the day and got the tomatoes which we have grown from seed planted into the raised bed. The pea plants are growing really well and are climbing up the frame I put in which is cool. Also one of the beans which A put in there a week or so ago has started to spout; I love this time of year. We had our friends Chaz and Ivan coming to see us in the afternoon so when they called us that they were close we headed down and met them at a restaurant for lunch then they came back with us and we sat and drank tea and chatted. The weather, which had been sunny for a while, made a sudden change for the terrible and the winds really picked up and soon it was like a gale outside. I headed out to check the reservoirs and again emptied one a bit to make sure it didn't over fill and I was struggling to walk into the wind. My concern was mostly for the new tree however when I checked it looked OK. As suddenly as it had blown in this storm disappeared southwards and we ended up with a lovely clear sky and the moon out. We spent the evening chatting upstairs, after eating a lovely curry, and the puppies were having a great time fighting and playing. It was a really nice evening and when it was time for bed I fell asleep pretty much immediately.

Blue sky, clouds, and day break

Sun glistens on a tiny patch of mist

Chaz laughing at the puppies

The tree which starved my silver birch of light

Cutting the tree down

Proud of my second tree of the weekend

The next morning dawned with some clouds which parted to show the sun as it rose; I was up doing the washing up and waking up when Chaz came down for a brew and later on we were joined by Ivan and also A. Sundays are for lazy starts and when everyone was around I made breakfast and then we played with the puppies, chatted and wandered around the garden before it was time for them to go. I was really pleased, on checking, to see that the huge winds had not damaged my first tree! We headed with them to the garden centre that I'd found with Bekir on Friday but it wasn't open on a Sunday which was a shame but never mind. When A and I got home again I got straight on with planting the second silver birch to replace the other original tree which hadn't made it; the tiny one from near the gate. The issue with that one was another tree that was massively shading it so I used the chainsaw to take this tree down and now the new on should have a chance. The only thing left to do on the driveway avenue of trees now is to cut down the quince tree on the corner and replace it with another silver birch. That will have to wait until we have a bagga machine in again.

Using the scenery I finished a few weeks ago

It becomes very cinematic

The end of the game, and Frodo is caught

Since then I've settled in Room 13 and done a load of painting of my miniatures while A has rested and then got a superb chicken roast dinner ready for us. After eating (and really enjoying Peter and the Wolf on record as our eating music) we got some scenery out and played a quick scenario game. It was a lot of fun but we haven't played for quite a while so we were both quite rusty. The scenery looked wicked and really helped build the tension and in the end I managed to win by killing Frodo before he could escape. History has thus been changed and nothing which happened in The Lord of The Rings now occurs. What fun.

And there you have it; a much more civilised update length (both in terms of you reading it and me sat at my desk typing it up). Time to go relax before the working week starts again tomorrow and I am working which is going to be a shock to the system! We have our first Bulgarian lesson tomorrow also. How exciting.