We apologise for the disruption to your service...

...but time just seems to be going at a million miles an hour at the moment - I can't believe its April! So, quite a few updates from me:

The garden is coming to life at last - we have loads of little daffs dotted around the garden and we have got some new willow edging - it was from the 99p store so it's not the best quality but once the grass has recovered from the wet winter and the plants have grown up I think it will look nice.




The veg has also started growing - peas an broad beans on the allotment and these super fast growing peas in the greenhouse. We have also put up a second mini-greenhouse so will be sowing lots more crops over the Easter weekend.



The front garden is also starting to look good:



The helebores that we planted last year have established and there are loads more flowers than last year. They look great:



I haven't managed to get to the allotment for a couple of weeks - we had a wedding last weekend and I have been working lots in between but the weekend before last I had a friend to visit so we took her down for some hard labour and we rustled up this bench:



The chickens are also doing well. the two new girls, who have now been with us for a couple of months, are much more like chickens now and are both laying. We think it was one of them that produced this monstrosity, poor love must have been in agony:



Blue, who we were so worried about when she first arrived, has really got bold and has developed an unhealthy obsession for corn. Here she is feeding from my hand:



The most exciting update though is in the house. After ripping off our wall cupboards we have FINALLY got around to putting in the shelves. The walls aren't quite finished in this photo but the shelves are up and they look brilliant. I don't think this photo does it justice but you'll just have to take me word for it - brilliant!



I think that's all for now but we're off to an auction tomorrow so I'm hoping we'll have more to post later in the weekend!

Spring has sprung at last!

To start us off today, I have some pretty spring flower pictures. Snowdrops on the allotment and some cute little narcissi in the garden. Spring at last!





I don't have any new photos from the allotment but it's all action down there! We went down on Sunday and it was a hive of activity - about 5/6 groups of people digging on their plots. I transplanted all of the strawberries from the garden into what will be the fruit cage, sowed some broad beans and some peas into the beds. I also sowed a load of things in the greenhouse at the house - cabbages, leeks, celery, chillis (2 types) and rocket. Our first early potatoes are well chitted now so are also ready to go in and we have a bed ready so that's for next weekend.

Back at the house, we have done a very typical Bex'n'Matt activity of suddenly ripping the cupboards off the walls in the kitchen. This happened just over a week ago and have only just had the opportunity to do anything about it so have spent the evening stripping wallpaper (Matt) and painting shelf brackets (Bex). But we still have a fair amount to do, as you can see:



The most striking difference in this photo from our kitchen a week ago is the lack of fridge freezer. We decided that we didn't need the big fridge freezer just for the two of us so we went and bought a small, cheap fridge with an ice box and it has really openend up the kitchen. Once the walls are painted and shelves up it'll look lovely I think!

Slacking blogger

I was told off by some of my blog followers today for not posting for a while so I'll try to catch-up with everything in this one. My studying means that the last couple of weeks haven't been particularly note-worthy, unless you want to hear about motivation theory, which I doubt, but I'll try my best to give you some interesting things...

The week before last I was part of a contingent from work who took a trip to over Trafalgar Square to welcome Eddie Izzard back from his mammoth 43 marathons in a row that he ran in aid of Sport Relief. Absolutely phenomenal I think you'll agree. It was absolutely bucketing it down but plenty of people still came out to cheer him on. I managed to sneak relatively close to him but the best photo I got was this one of his rather sweaty ear:



If you haven't done it yet (I'm sure just because you forgot!) you can still sponsor him here: http://www.comicrelief.com/donate/eddie

Closer to home we had some visitors the weekend before last in the shape of my mum, her partner Nick and my sister Katy. Katy hadn't seen the house for a while or met the girls so it was great to show her around and remember how much has changed in the past year (it's so easy to forget!). On the day of their visit the Tonbridge Medieval Fair was on in the castle, which was actually really good, if a little bit small. I forgot to take my camera but luckily mummy did so you can read about it on her blog, here.

On the house-front, we have finally managed to find a number for our front door that we like. We've only managed to find rip-off Parisian numbers until now but this is just what we wanted:



...now we just need to find a door for it to go on! We are thinking of getting a four-panelled wooden door which we'll probably paint a matt box-tree green with some nice door furniture. Knowing us it'll take us ages to find one we like but I'll keep you posted.

The garden is looking a bit straggly now but we are still enjoying some autumn flowers. The hollyhocks and anemone are absolutely beautiful and make lovely cut flowers (I just love these, I keep pausing as I wander past to look at them):



We are also still getting plenty of Rudbekia to brighten the living room but I think they might be coming to an end soon:



This weekend we took a trip over to Basingstoke to visit my mum and Nick. Mummy and I went to the fabric shop today to get the final bits for my handbag pattern so hopefully I'll have that to show you soon. I also got some felt, ready for Christmas decoration making (I know, I know, but I don't have a local fabric shop!) and to make a little needle purse which I hope to make this week. I sadly didn't have time to make either of these this evening but I tackled something much quicker - I saw a lovely flowery box file in Cath Kidston a few weeks ago for the extortionate price of £15 and I was inspired so I covered a plain box file with soem Cath Kidston wallpaper samples:



I'm going to use it to store my house-related magazine cuttings (I have a lot!).

Finally, the allotment. We popped down this evening to have a look and pulled up a few brambles. It's looking really good and we're meeting this week to talk about spending the money that we won in our bid so we should hopefully have a fence soon. At least we have a sign now:



I think that's everything for now. I promise I'll try to keep it up to date more often! Next weekend we are off to the Autumn woodland workshop day at Bore Place, a local organic farm, where I'm signed up for willow weaving and learning to make a besom broom...very exciting so hopefully I'll have more to say then.

Morris Dancing, Ostrich eating and plenty of potatoes

What a busy week we've had again so plenty to update on...

This weekend we went to "Puzzlebury" - which is a mini-festival run by my friend's mum in the Forest of Dean. We went last year and it really is so much fun. She has the most amazing house and garden - it's an old mining house and has a big plot of land with it - complete with lake!



She puts on such a good party - there's a big water slide down the hill, a swimming pool, lots of lovely food and drink (the cider was a little too potent and I had an unfortunate run in with a bramble patch and am still removing the splinters!). We had a visit from some morris dancers on the Saturday who taught us some moves. I don't have a photo of us dancing but this is the troupe (The Widders):



There were also bands and DJ's on the Saturday night as well as a bonfire and, although we were boring/hungover from Friday and went to bed early a good time was had by all! One of the highlights was the Ostrich which was roasted in a pit with hot rocks all night and served up for lunch on Sunday:



We also had 6 Ostrich eggs, which took two people with a drill to get into:



Sadly, we had to leave before the scrambled egg was ready but I'm told it was delicious!

We came home on Sunday afternoon because I had a job interview on Monday morning. I haven't actively been looking but this would be a part-time job which would make my PhD (which starts in a month - aaaah!) more do-able so I thought I would go for it. I now really want the job but have to wait until Wednesday to find out. I think they've got 2 other strong candidates so I'm not thatg hopeful but we'll see! Fingers crossed!

We had already booked Monday off it did mean that we got to spend the day doing house stuff. Matt dug up some potatoes, which Hythe very kindly decided to give him a hand with:



As well as their pesky garden antics the girls are also determined to get into the kitchen at every opportunity:



So, I have this afternoon ordered some temporary netting to fence them into a little area of the garden so that they can run out when we're at home without making a nuisance of themselves!

We also managed to do some things in the house today, including clearing the spare room to a be a sewing/craft room. It's a difficult room to photo but this shows the new mirror on the wall and furniture layout:



On the garden front, we are still getting a good crop of raspberries, and have just dug up our second lot of potatoes. The first harvest made a delicious cottage pie and this lot are doing to be fish cakes with plenty left over for the rest of the week and into next.

The allotment site, which we have now started clearing with a vengeance is also starting to take shape. The group are meeting on Wednesday to discuss next steps and I'm going to encourage them towards dividing up plots so that we can all get going in time for Spring!

So that was our week. I have all my fingers and toes crossed for this job so I really hope to have good news for my next post.