Brain freeze...

Bloody hell, over three months since my last blog, that's shameless that is. It's not like I've been overly busy, just lazy as far as this is concerned. Shocking really.

In the past three weeks I have been mainly up to my ankles in compost, digging it over and loading up wheel barrows full and transporting all round the four main gardens I work on. It's been a delight really, especially this week when it's actually been cold enough to be winter. However, I did give up on Monday afternoon, digging a vegetable plot in a blizzard (sort of), but back there tomorrow to finish it off.

Did I ever mention I like compost? Especially when I have made it - not literally of course, but from rotting leaves, grass cuttings and the like... 

It's been sooooo cold recently, but I have been able to keep up the work on the four major gardens in Berkhamsted (Pat's place), Quainton (Rebecca), Dancer's End Tring and Julie's at Buckland. And, just as a reminder, if only for myself, this is what they look like in nice weather!

Pat's place last Spring - remember Spring? Apparently it was
20 degrees warmer at this time last year

The kitchen view at Quainton. It looks very different this year, I've
managed to move even more plants into this bed and got rid of the arch,
it was intrusive and fell apart when I attempted to take it down! I
have moved 17 rose bushes from the driveway too - as soon as the
weather gets more conducive to nice photography I am going to take
new shots of the garden prior to a major re-vamp, ie getting the lawns back
from the builders!

Dancer's End House in Tring. This garden keeps me very trim (ish...) it's all hills and dales
and enormous. Been tidying all the beds recently after weeks of sorting out the compost and
chopping and trimming and pruning. Burnt a lot of stuff

...same at Buckland. Tidy, tidy, tidy... Dug over
the rockery around the pond in a vain attempt
at getting rid of the mare's tail. Watch this space!

Anyway, I aim to get back into regular blogging again. I think the weather has got to me in such a way as to freeze not only my fingers but also my brain.

Keep warm... Peace and love, Simon x

Coming soon...

...reality. Yes the real world has interrupted as usual and I really have to get cracking and get some new clients and fill the coming weeks up with lots of lovely work.


It's all very well sitting in doors looking at the snow, wind, rain and other stuff mother nature chooses to throw in our faces

- lovely girl that she is - not overly fond of green myself, but there you go - but there's a time to get back to where you once belonged; out there with your thermals, woolly hat, hoodie and steel toe caps, wielding clippers, trimmers, loppers, secateurs and every other sharp tool one has at one's disposal. Actually Friday was spent doing exactly that and I got rather hot wearing the aforementioned clobber.


I have the last dregs of photos from the cold snap - I truly hope I'm not tempting fate here - the first picture is from Monday last week:

Chicken prints on the roof of our rabbit run - I do believe that chicken shit on the right hand side, but I think we'll ignore that, eh?


Next is from Monday, when I peered into Pat's huge living room in her house at Berkhamsted, thought it was funny to see me staring back. Well mildly funny. Don't ask me what I was doing peering in there, I forget.

On Wednesday I completed the sorting of the compost at Julie and Andrew's place in Buckland, near Tring. I have managed to compost about a third of the flower beds with it. It's taken me about 8 weeks to finish it. This included the now famed "fire in the face" episode, you may remember (http://simonmurraygardenservices.blogspot.com/2012/02/happy-new-year-if-tad-late.html). Death defying, that's me. This is the final cleared bin. I had to grub out an old tree stump too, which was difficult because I don't have any tools anything like robust enough to do that, but there it is, gone!

And finally on Thursday, a visit to Quainton and the picture I took of the pond in the Autumn, all nice reflections and stuff, was like this:

Slightly distorted with ice. Just as beautiful though.


This is my design idea for my new one page website:

Alison's new website launched this week. I'm going to get her web designer to have a look and hopefully within the month mine should launch too. Here's a link to Alison's Crimsoncandy Cakes website:


http://www.crimsoncandy.co.uk/




There you have it! Onwards and upwards, probably over on the allotment for a while tomorrow, continue the tidy up for the oncoming beauties of Spring and the longer and longer daylight hours, so I can become something akin to human again...


Happy browing!

...and briefly...

Well, haven't worked all week. Frozen ground and snow and ice and slush and stuff. The new (to us) water butt looks like this:

I like icicles, they sort of freeze and hang down and this one is quite hilarious in a Frankie Howerd type way - ooo-er missus look at the dribble on that. Love the way it's hit the ground and kind of spread and then frozen again.


Every cupboard in the house has been tidied, stuff either chucked out or moved to the shed and I have started my first ever batch of cider. Approximately 2 gallons and at the moment it looks like this:

Smells amazing already, just hope it's as
drinkable as the apple wine!

Saturday night I picked Sophie up from a party, the snow was at it's height and I walked through an absolutely pristine, crrrrr-isp snow covered road. It was lovely.

My footprints to and fro, in the dark on our road. No other footprint in sight!

Should work Friday so that means just tomorrow, Thursday 9th, at home. Probably slip and slide down to the shed to continue the tidy up in there. Might even start my Big Project, turning my vinyl albums into MP3s... Anyhoo, this was the scene outside our dining room window on Saturday night...

Brrrr.


Laters!


Happy freezing I say.


Love and Peace...


Simon