Living Local - Day 1

So on reflection, a bank holiday is not the best time to start Living Local as all the shops are closed except of course Sainsbury's. After spending an hour or so walking round town hoping to find at least one store open, D said "Why don't we just start this whole buying from Independent shops thing tomorrow and go buy something from Sainsburys for tea?", "NO!" was my response. "This is all part of the experience" So in the end we went to the garage, which is independently owned and bought some frozen chicken nuggets, chips and a tin of baked beans. Not quite what I had in mind but I did not back down, I am determined to do this right! On the plus side we had a lovely conversation with the owner of the garage and I bought milk...in a glass bottle! I didn't know they even did those anymore. This has however given me the opportunity to make a proper list of things we need and...tomorrow is Market Day!! #Excited.

 In other news today, I have been meaning to tackle our front garden for the longest time and the longer I left it, the worse it became. I suppose part of the problem was that I knew it was too big a job for me and D isn't the green fingered type so I avoided it and used the back entrance to the house. It It was massively overgrown with dead Ivy still stuck to the house (that had been there when we moved in), Trailing Jenny was covering most of the paved area the bushes were so overgrown that you could barely see out the front window and and  was only when I noticed the Postman struggling with his heavy bag past the biggest dandelions I have ever seen that I thought I need to do something about this.

 So when I next saw our Tree Surgeon/Garden Guru next door neighbour I asked for his advice. This morning he popped round to help cut back the bushes and by midday he had chopped everything down leaving us with a blank canvas while D and I stood by awkwardly watching, offering to make a cup of tea, occasionally offering to help sweep or pull out roots. Here are the results...

I am so pleased with this garden, I have been complaining for ages that I wanted outdoor space and we already had it but it was too covered in weeds and bushes that we couldn't see it. I plan to put a Peony in the part next to the dog some lovely, colourful trailing plans in the border to the left and a  Hydrangea in that bit that you can't quite see in the picture.

We have a step! I can't tell you how delighted I am that we found this!

We also unearthed this beautiful bird bath, it's no use to birds but I like it anyway.

Happy Bank Holiday Monday!!

Kirsty x