'A February face; so full of frost, of storm, and cloudiness' Shakespeare, 'Much Ado About Nothing'.

Temporarily diverted from building compost bays by the freezing frosts we have had - it might prevent the cement setting properly - Iain has turned his attention to the old wash house at the bottom of the garden. This is how it looked when we moved in...The ivy engulfing and coming through the roof, the ground elder along the north side as well as the bindweed in the gravel that is charging up one of the defunct fruit trees give a bit of a clue as to the general state of things pretty much everywhere at the time. This place had been much loved (though not always as it really needed to be) but not for well over a decade and it showed (there's Henry happily investigating his new home!)

This area is now part of the vegetable patch and my battle with the aforementioned weeds is now reduced to a light skirmish now and again (usually in late Spring), thanks to chickens, old carpet, lots of digging, ripping out almost every bush, shrub, border and even the odd tree, and sheer bloodymindedness. We have the Romans to thank for ground elder apparently - they brought it to these shores as a vegetable I'm told and as we live on a very well known Roman road route(long since a drovers track, now foot and bridle path) perhaps that's why there's so much of it here??

Looking at the south side of the wash-house another potential problem presented itself. This lean to. It really should not be here leaning on a Listed building - but it nevertheless has been for over twenty years, slowly rotting and leaking and being an eyesore. There is a huge amount of work to do on this 'bottom store' but not much can be done until the 'lean to' is removed. Let's just say it is going to be a work in slow progress on a shoestring budget.....

We did have the roof timbers and structure

checked that first summer and they are OK thankfully, but there are the remains of an original chimney stack that has made the north wall bow in the centre because someone in their wisdom removed the bricks beneath it some time back......and all kinds of woodwork to be attended too. Not to mention bricks to be replaced and a whole 'door' to be rebuilt as a wall...By the end of summer we will have spent the big money on the main house (this year is the 'big T' - the thatch on the north side and

the ridge!)and that includes doing the labouring jobs ourselves so the stores (and to be honest any other job needing to be done on anything here for the foreseeable future) are going to be even more of a testing ground for our skills. Here Iain demonstrates his demolition abilities - cleaning the bricks for the repairs and all the other things bricks are always useful for.

Me? I spent a while ordering seeds and sets for the vegetable garden - each year I try to grow something I have not grown before plus everything else. This year I'm going to try cabbage! We are still eating our own potatoes, garlic and red onions from last summer.

I had a chiro appointment on Friday and Nellie and Archie went to Amanda for their 3 monthly check. Apart from a skinned pad which Nellie did last Monday on the

heath (where I took the above picture)and which has necessitated several quiet days with her being allowed any freedom on short grassy walks only, Nellie was perfectly balanced and in tip top condition. Amanda couldn't find anything wrong at all. Archie meanwhile had a slight compensation issue from his stitches and staples. So we are all taking things easy for a few days! That's my excuse for not heaving bricks about anyway...

There's a communal field at the bottom of

the garden and one of our neighbours allows his chickens to roam over it. This has meant that some have been killed by the odd local or walkers' dog so it is not something I want to do with mine on a daily basis. But this weekend with our lawn looking quite sad after the little bit of snow we had I thought I would give it a try. Iain would be at the bottom of the garden anyway. I opened the gate and called 'chooks!' and down they came. Herb marched out towards me though the gate and promptly crowed which brought all but Edna out to investigate.
Geoff next door was busy building his new shed base at the bottom of his garden. As he drily observed - 'one up (his shed) one down (our lean to)- all part of the rich cycle of life'. Which made me chuckle. One morning just after we moved in here all along we could hear sounds of industry: banging, sawing, hammering, clanking and so forth. Iain's observation that 'it would be impossible to be lazy here' has proved uncannily true.

Anyway, the chickens are not backwards in coming forwards where people are concerned as Fliss demonstrated so well with Simon on the other side last year when she 'helped' him clean up around the bricks he was moving and stacking, so they very quickly moved in on Geoff, chatting in their friendly way. Maggie was last seen heading off to the spoils of his apple tree....though not until she and the other Black Rocks had enjoyed an adventure on the edge of the copse.

They all spent a very happy few hours scratching about in this new treasure trove of bugs, grubs and grass :-)