Breath of Life

Amazing how putting plants in any space suddenly gives the area an instant breath of life. You put life, you get life back. That's how it felt when we moved plants in to our newly built shed and suddenly it's become a very nice place to hang out in.

Our Shed O'Fun is almost finished with just the final connections for the electrics still needs doing as well as some painting on the door and exterior wood. Both can wait for awhile when weather is much more favourable. It is however finished enough that we have put in some fish over a week ago (to also help kick start the filtration) as well as moved in some plants last weekend.

Before I proceed further a quick recap on how we got there starting from where we left off from our last update:

Read More

Pre Christmas Tidbits

Time flies so fast, it'll be Christmas in ten days! Each year I tell colleagues at work that we should have our Christmas work party early in the month (which we did) as no matter how much preparation or psyching up one does, it always seems to get manic in the run up to the the big day.

Before I proceed further, first things first, many thanks again to the Telegraph for the little mention on their gardening section last Thursday!

Second, a couple of days late but lucky thirteen it was as we were featured on the thirteenth day of Cision's Advent Calendar, yay! There's a little q&a there so if you fancy a little glimpse of what we'll get up to during Christmas do check it out.

Now back to the preparation for Christmas, as an adult it was seems to take awhile for the season to sink in and it finally did last weekend which meant there are lots of preparation to do, which includes decorating and buying presents. We haven't even bought presents to each other yet. But there are the weekday evenings too to do things and I'm sure by end of the coming weekend we're all settled and fully ready for the day itself.

Relating this post to gardening, we still haven't made a decision yet whether to go for a real tree or a fake one this year. On previous years we go for a real one as the scent of it in the house is wonderful however they are so messy to get rid off after the festive season so practicality may reign supreme this time. Bringing up this topic in real life conversations, it still amazes me up to now how many people have strong feelings about using a real tree to decorate for Christmas,in that how unnecessary it is now to sacrifice a living tree just for decorative purposes that will only last for a few weeks. For that reason only fake ones are acceptable for those who feel that way. I understand the point and I'm still on two minds about it, seeming that trees coming from reputable sources are now farmed.

Real or not, that's the question...

I suppose a good fake tree is a one off purchase and will last for a long time. What about you, what are your thoughts about it?

Anyway, apart from Christmas the quarantine shed is finished (bar a few finishing touches) and the pond inside is now set up including the filtration. So it's something we're very excited about at the moment on top of everything else. Hopefully we'll move some fish in there soon!

How is your preparation for Christmas going? Whatever your plans are or what you're up to hopefully you're enjoying the process!

Mark :-)

Read More