Never Do Anything By Halves

That's certainly been our moto for the last few days.

Yesterday John put another 5 spot lights up in the kitchen. Crystal Palace comes to mind but in fact that is not the case. I have been mentioning (some would say complaining) that it is rather dark at the oven end of the kitchen so we decided to mirror the lighting over the hob. I must admit that I was worried that the kitchen would look as though it was flood lit, but no, it's fine.

As you know we cut down some overhanging branches from the trees in the alley. Well now we have logs everywhere. John started before nine this morning cutting up and clearing the branches which he hadn't cleared a couple of days ago. He staggered in at 5 o'clock, healthily tired he says, others would say "kna-----d". Not only did he cut up this year's prunings but we had piles left from last year. A couple more days and we should have log piles all over the place. We plan to have a wood burning stove in the salon eventually!!

Not to be out done I have been planting loads of seeds in trays to give them a head start. To be honest I planted some in the Autumn and some in January with very little success, so I will have wasted a lot of time and money if this lot are no more productive. As we have underfloor heating and lots of patio doors I figured that it would be great for seed propagation. However French seed packets do not quote ideal germination temperatures and conditions, so its pot luck. Meantime, if we had a fire it would be impossible to get out of most exits as they are seed growing factories. It has eventually dawned on me that I am preparing these enormous flower beds and that I need to create a "show" on a very tight budget. I am therefore begging, borrowing and stealing (yes I did that yesterday - I am hoping that at my age they will view it as eccentricity) any plants I can, to fill in.