Run down

Feeling happy after a couple of lovely evenings with family and friends but also run down. As work also mounts up I think I might have to take it easy for the rest of the week. It doesn't help that the weather has really taken a turn for the cold plus we're now operating on only two radiators in the house. Luckily I'm mainly working in my garden studio, which is mainly heated by a greenhouse heater. The warmth is also helping to germinate the seedlings although Tom will kill me if he realises just how high i've got the setting on in here!

Outside the windows, the magnolia has pretty much lost all her petals now and everything is starting to look green and lush. The climbers are also racing up the walls and along fences including my beautiful Generous Gardener rose and the wisteria, which will hopefully cover our studios in blooms this year. Looking forward to creating a couple of pergolas here and there so we can start to section off some rooms. Not like before, as Tom always says, as that left a really dark corner that no one ever ventured into. But just a gentle screening with easy to manage plants.

The old pergola does bring back memories though. First when there was decking from the house to the lawn. We had part of our second wedding reception up there. Then when we put a sandpit in the space that used to be a door for Syl to play in. Sadly the foxes and their bad habits put paid to that. Then the time I tried to make it more colourful while pregnant with Iggy and planted a riot of bright red crocosmia that I could use to make my pressings with.

There are lots of lovely images from that time when I launched The Herbarium Project, complete with my first Victorian style press and my year-long pressings that resulted in my first exhibition in 2014. Finally we pulled it down as it was dark and scratchy thanks to a rambling rose that didn't quite melt my heart enough to keep (it did make good wedding confetti though). Now it's lovely to have the lawn more open but it would benefit from a shrub or too at the bottom of the path to break it up.

Anyway, work to do and kids back from tennis shortly, so signing off for now.