A little bit of bricklaying

Now that the tank had arrived it was time to get the roof back on. Before that though, there was a little bit of repair work to do...

An old and battered window needed our attention:

We had intended on replacing it but, after some advice from Hendys (the treatments that we will be using in the pumphouse are light sensitive and so may not work if we expose them to daylight), we decided to block it up. Mike got very excited by this as this meant he could put to practice some of the skills he had picked up from his bricklaying course

Good job we'd salvaged those bricks from the front of the house:

After a chisel and a scrub with the wire brush they came up good as new:

Ideal for what Mike needed to build up the surround:

We also removed the old door frame and reinstated a new one:

After using up the last of the cement and a bit more patching up, 
we were all done for the day:

    

Whilst we'd been repairing the pumphouse, 

Steve and his team had been filling in the pipe trench, cementing the floor of the plant room and finishing off that entrance to the walled garden:

Another good day's work!

Inspiration for the Garden

We decided a trip out of the house today would be good, so we took a walk down the road to the lovely Walled Gardens of Cannington. It is fantastic to have such an attraction 20 minutes walk from our house! Great for some inspiration for the garden too. The students from Bridgwater College have a series of show gardens that they have designed. We really liked the look of this one:

The use of reclaimed wood is great and very pleasing on the eye. This is definitely the kind of look I think we will be going for once we tackle the garden. Really liked this insect house too - great use of old pallets:

The planting scheme here is interesting, very Mediterranean looking:

And who knew Eucalyptus could grow in the UK?! We bought ourselves a small plant so we'll see how it takes...

There was a lovely greenhouse in the gardens too:

Check out the size of the lemons!!!

 Healthy looking cacti too: 

Even though the gardens weren't at their most floral it was still great to go - we'll be back to check on progress as the year carries on. It is only down the road after all....