How Does Our Garden Grow?

Even though it's Winter here in Ireland, it's been really mild so far, in sharp contrast to last year when it reached -16 and killed off quite a number of our plants.

This year we have, in January, daffodils out!


We also have some crocus and narcissus blooming - how strange it all is:



In fact, this narcissus was out at the end of December and several more have since joined it.

We have had a lot of rain and wind. One morning we headed off to Ennis and the bottom of our drive had been washed away and turned into a stream! We had to bump across it. During the next couple of days I barrowed some stones down and it's now all filled in - until the next deluge I expect.#

Our drive goes off to the left.

Back to the garden..


Here is our poly tunnel with the evening sun shining through it. We have had wonderful produce from inside. For our Christmas dinner we had home grown carrots, chard and a few brussels - gorgeous.



Here's the chef Jim with the carrots and chard.


And Buster with his new Christmas tiger! His friend Max, a local Labrador, came and called for him and they went off to play! Here's Max:


You can see how fast his tail is wagging - it's a blur.



Nasturtiums tumbled over the wall in our front garden - this was in October before they became too straggly and I pulled them out.

Just to remind me what the garden looked like in the Summer:


All lush and green.

Birds

We have been feeding the birds as usual throughout the Winter and there seem to be dozens of them permanently in our back garden. I took a bit of video yesterday so I'll see if I can download it for you.

It's been dowloading for about half an hour and still not worked so I'm afraid I've had to give up on it. Maybe it was too long. I'll try again next time. Suffice it to say there were goldfinch, chaffinch, great tits, siskin, coal tits and greenfinch. We also have 2 very large resident magpies.

Home Improvements

Jim has finished the new staircase and banister which leads up to his new office. It's quite small but it's warm and cosy up there.



New stairs and banisters. My doorway is on the left.


As you go up the stairs this is what you see. Jim's office chair on the right.


The cupboard contains the hot water tank and is a great airing cupboard, or hot press as they call it in Ireland. Jim has made all this - what a clever boy he is! He also raised the centre of the ceiling as prior to that, he couldn't stand up in there. You can see it in this photo.


Downstairs again and we now have a new kitchen cupboard. I can at last put my hoover away! It's also the store for cat and dog food, which used to hang about all over the place. We recycled these doors from our old shower room.


Our 'flying ducks' are a bit of a joke! I used to buy boxes of china and odd things from the Worthing auctions and sell them on ebay. These ducks were in one box and got badly broken. Jim stuck them back together and they became part of our 'bad taste' collection! They look rather good flying up the stairs!

The last room to do in the cottage is Jim's old office at the opposite end. It has always been damp and dingy in there so we have new, larger windows to go in. It has an upstairs too, which was reached by a ladder, so another staircase to build! The walls will be dry lined and the floor will be laminated wooden boards, in keeping with the rest of the cottage. It would make a marvellous room for a teenager with the upstairs for a bed and downstairs with a settee maybe.

Right, that's it for today I think. I have some papier mache on the go, so am going to give the pieces another coat. Have a great weekend everyone.