I have wanted to make a start in the garden for a few weeks, there was just the small matter of waiting for all that snow to melt off. I know we started the parking hole but quite frankly I'm a girl and a huge muddy hole, though useful really isn't very inspiring or pretty!
So I decided to make a start on the flower bed I had planned for up by the cottage, it started off a juts another bit of enormous lawn (there is a crazy amount of lawn in our garden!) and seeing as we had all this luscious top soil (about 3 tons of at the moment!) it seemed a good way to use a little of that up.

I started off by laying out the size and shape of the bed with some lovely old recycled bricks we had lying around (I think the bricks where used in the front of houses as they are slightly shaped and glazed), I then forked the ground, it is too full of roots from the box hedging to dig properly. I then carried by hand the soil up the hill from where we dug it out of the huge hole, yep thats right by hand! I think my arms are now a foot longer than they where (this is what happens when the wheel barrow has a flat tyre and our bike pump has been nicked!) once this was finally done I could get on with the best bit, planting up a few plants we got on offer from the supermarket!

We have various coloured Primroses and purple foxgloves now it, also some perpetual Sweet-peas I had in a tub last year. I going to order the rest of my flowers from Victoriana Nursery Gardens in the next few days, so the bed should fill up for summer. As you can see I have also added our little bent metal fence along the edge, which looks so cute. I am really proud of my little bed (the first of many I hope!) Fingers crossed for our own home grow cut flowers for the summer.

We actually brought this kitchen before we brought the house to put it in (yes I am that crazy!) I managed to find it on good old ebay, it is an English Rose kitchen which is a Britishdesign classic! We have lusted after one of these for years so when I found this one for such a bargain price I couldn't resist!

It needs quite a bit of tlc as its been in a lovely ladies kitchen for the last 50 years, it will also need new work tops as the currant red ones have rotted in places. We are considering having an oak work top as I think this would look amazing with the 40's cupboard fronts.

A very quick bit of background for you, The first English Rose kitchen was made in Warwickshire in 1948, by CSA Industries, an engineering firm that originally made nose cones for Spitfires. After the war ended, CSA used stock-piles of aircraft-grade aluminium by diversifying into up-market kitchens. How cool is that!! This is the closest Rich will get to owning an actual Spitfire but thats fine with him, not bad for under £700!
I cant wait to get it installed, watch this space.

And what exactly is a parking pit you may ask, well its pretty much a huge hole in the mud where you one day plan to park your Landrover, actually! We spent last Sunday digging this rather massive hole (which is now filled with water and looks like a really rubbish pond!)
We need to build a little retaining wall to stop the garden sliding down the hill, we're also planning to use all the excess soil to fill out raised veg beds.

Ok admittedly its doesn't look very impressive at the moment but it will  (just please stop bloody raining!).

I LOVE managing to get my hands on free stuff, things that are considered junk, although it does sometimes astound me as to what most people seem to think is junk. Ok it's a little old and battered, a little unlove with maybe some odd peaces missing. So my questions to you is why, WHY would you throw something as cool as these out to be smashed up!?....

Yep thats right, these immensely cool vintage catalogue draws where on the large pile of stuff that was to be dragged off to the Tip and smashed up, luckily I work at the city Library part time and walked into our work room just as all this stuff was being collected. Needless to say most of my work colleagues now think I'm total potty for wanting an old oak 15 draw filing cabinet (with one draw missing), never the less I was given permission to take it away as long as I did it within the next 2 days.
So Rich and I drove to work the following morning and carried the most ridiculously heavy set of draws out to the Landrover (I have never pulled so many muscles in one go, I almost dropped my end twice!) so its now sitting in the living room until I get chance to make some room in the studio, I'm planning of keep my paints and brushes in it, much better than ending up on a pile of rubbish somewhere!

I meant to post before this but what with one thing and another I didn't get round to it. Christmas was a very strange affair this year as our little family was short by 2, my supremely cool sister was stuck on the other side of the world in a New Zealand hostel as she tried to get her Australian student visa sorted out and as getting a flight from Australia at this festive time of year is damn near impossible not the mention costing the same as a new car we had to manage without her. We where also missing Dad who died on December 27th last year, it was very strange to be without out him and in many ways no long feels much like Christmas, I suspect it will feel this way for many years to come but the 3 of us Rich, Me and Mum made the best of it.

A few of our Christmas decorations, its quite hard getting the house to look festive, as you are fighting against the overwhelmingly patterned carpet, which is terrible distraction (Our cat Stella was sick on it over Christmas and it took me 15 minuets to see it as it blended effortlessly with the damn pattern) Fingers crossed by next year we will have ripped it all out and burned it!

A small sample of our lovely presents, we did have more but as its a very grey day today I'm having trouble getting decent pics! We kept out spending to a tight budget this year as we are both pretty strapped right now, what with the purchase of shiny new cookers and all! The cooker by the way is fantastic, we only got it hooked up about 3 days before Christmas, so some rapid practise was in order, Rich did a brilliant job on the day and cooked the most wonderful Christmas dinner (despite the gas pressure being quite low as every man and his dog was cooking at the same time!)
On the present front we where lucky enough to finally get a second hand chicken coop from my Mum and Sister.... 

I am beyond excited by this! I have wanted chickens for at least 5 years but we never got round to it at the old house, we are going to have to build an enclosure to keep them in as we get a lot of foxes around here. We have a large concrete slab which used to have a greenhouse on it but has since rotted and been pulled down, the plan now is to build a fox and cat proof run by May as thats when my Birthday is!

So a fairly ok Christmas, we got to see quite a few friends and had some yummy eats and now suddenly we are into January and 2011, where does all the time go?!