Category Archives: Garden

Man cave brewery

It’s funny how quickly the weather changes isn’t it. I was sitting in the garden early yesterday afternoon, thinking how green the grass looked in the sunshine (and how it needed cutting).

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And, pretty much at the same time today (after cutting the grass and potting stuff), it’s so dull. Ok, so it’s still quite warm and certainly pleasant enough to sit outside with a beer, but it doesn’t feel the same.

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Anyway, I’ve been sitting looking at the shed (it’s not really a shed, you can just make it out behind green things), thinking that I really need to make use of it. It’s empty apart from an old wheelbarrow with a wobbly wheel, a bag of compost and a couple of chimney pots. The intention was always to make use of it, since it’s a decent size and actually a pretty cool building, but I’d not originally appreciated its damp issues (the garden of the house behind ours reaches halfway up the back wall of the shed). So, if I want to use it, it’ll need tanking (since parts of the walls are covered in soil). And that’s what I plan to do. After I finish the bathroom. And the spare bedroom(s) – we’re considering knocking the two together, as they were when the house was built.

For some time, I’ve thought that the shed would be an excellent place to make beer. From scratch. It’s ideal; easily heated, but cool even in the summertime. Which naturally makes it the perfect man cave (perhaps with the addition of a TV and beer fridge). I do love a good project.

Another bee

I just had a failed attempt at taking a picture of a bee in the garden with my second in command’s (posh but complicated) camera. While I’m sure the camera is far superior in the right hands, my phone hasn’t done so badly.

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Bee

Bees are incredibly cool creatures you know. This particular bee was in our garden this afternoon.

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Home

It’s seriously good to be home. The hire van has been returned (and will be missed), some shopping’s been done and then some gardening. Birds are singing in the trees tree and bees are doing their stuff. Time to unwind.

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Butterfly

While not as colourful as our last generation of butterflies a few weeks ago (I forget what they’re called – they have a large eye pattern on their wings – and had just come out of hibernation), the newborn spotted variety (I’ve no idea of their name) are nice to have around too.

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Festival lights

It was so nice to come home this evening to festival lights (from Reading a couple of years ago). They’d not lit-up in a while, so the sunshine is obviously a good thing.

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Autumn jobs

It’s that time of year when jobs have to be done before the weather changes. A few weeks ago, I’d noticed that the paint on the shed window frame was peeling; well, it’s been around seven years since it was last painted. So I made some time to repaint it today; the door too. The old red paint had looked great at the time, but it was looking pretty dated. I read a while back on the Internet that the houses in our street would’ve had cream painted window frames and doors, so I thought I’d test that on the shed. Works pretty well too.

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Tired

I’m currently sitting in the garden, cooling down after a hard day’s work. Almost everything aches and I’m wondering whether I’ll actually die from exhaustion rather than as a result of falling from a great height.

Still, the garden’s a nice place to be.

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While my bath’s running.