Nine months on...

We are back in the kitchen and I am loving it! We have had electricians, decorators, plumbers, heating engineers and plasterers here over the past couple of weeks. The coal shed now looks like a utility room, complete with shower room, a pulley for the washing and an internal door through to Quent’s workshop. The kitchen has funky ovens and even funkier lights. The dining room has a new woodburner and an amazing “thermal store”, which looks like an alien. It will manage the solid fuel, the solar (once we get it), the gas and the electricity. I admit we have quite a bit of “snagging” to do before the kitchen end is complete (think hot water, plastering the dining room etc), but the end is in sight.

The garden is starting to look a bit different too. I won’t say better yet, but it has less bindweed, ground elder, celandine and comfrey. The lilac, wisteria, fruit trees, kerria, broom and bluebells are all in bloom and the rhododendron won’t be far behind. I have put my pieris in the ground. It was given to me by a French nursery owner just before I acquired my first garden. It’s been in a series of pots ever since (13 years!) and now it finally gets to bury its roots as deep as it likes.

First thing in the morning, I put the kettle on and then lean over the stable door admiring the plants, the birdsong and the smell of the dew. Bliss.