Every picture tells a story

I feel the photo with this blog just sums up my life completely at the moment. Let's just breakdown the different items.

1 x kids sunglasses

1 x box of lego

1 x candle food heater

1 x mens sun hat

1 x box of COVID tests

1 x dirty great drink ring on dining table

And with every photograph there comes a story. 

I mentioned in my last post that my garden is built into a hill and you need crampons to get to the lawn. Last year when things were really quiet we used our front garden when entertaining. This is flat and accessible, but literally only just big enough for a group of 6 to socially distance.

At the bottom of our patio at the back there is a sizeable (not quite as sizeable as I thought it turns out) patio. This usually looks like a bomb site, so I decided to sort this out.

Our new gardener turned up last week and I asked him to have a stab at the patio area, which was bordering on jungle. Unfortunately, despite the fact I told him to have a light touch on the wisteria that's covering the wall - he decided to go at it with a frenzy. The end result is that I don't think it's ever going to come back. If it does it's going to take years. 

Double unfortunately under the Wisteria is a very ugly wall that's essentially stopping the rest of the garden from sliding into the house. This wall doesn't get much sun and so it takes a long time for growth.

So...... much to the accepting horror of husband I spent a small fortune on fake plants. I now have fake wisteria and greenery hanging off the otherwise dead real wisteria. To top it off I purchased little fake green and purple bushes to go into the beds that run along the bottom of the wall. 

I have to be honest I'm quietly proud of my wonderful tacky patio. I just need to make sure my mother doesn't see it. As a member of the Royal Horticultural Society, she'll freak! I hate gardening though, there's nothing about it I like. Hence the gardener. I'd rather not eat for 2 days than have to garden.

Patio was all ready for when friend came over for supper with her son. I had set patio up into 2 areas 'dining room' and 'sitting room'. It was a really lovely day - sunny but cold. To deal with the cold I put our log burner in the outside 'sitting room' with some smokeless logs.

First thing friend said to me was 'can't we sit in the front - you're actually in the sun there'. Having gone to so much trouble I put my foot down (we'll go in front next week) and then just had to put up with her moaning about how cold and dark it was. From now on we'll just use the back for eating. Also wasn't quite big enough for sitting. One of us had to sit in the house with the french doors open. This meant that the stink from the fire pit filled the house.

So back to items in photo. 

1 x kids sunglasses - friend always hates the boring colours of boys clothes so insists on buying her son girls clothes - not a bad idea actually - he had a lovely pair of trousers on you'd never have guessed they were not boys. And as ever, friends son left something behind. Last week it was a winter hat - so perhaps this is a sign the weather is getting better.

1 x box of lego - to entertain friends son, my son just needs his mobile phone. Though actually my son and friends son ended up having a massive nerf battle in garden. I suspect we'll be picking up nerf bullets for the next 10 years.

1 x candle food heater - because it's still far too cold to be entertaining outside.

1 x mens sun hat - because husband will sit in the sun even if it's -10.

1 x box of COVID tests - because we're good and one person in family does one twice a week. I did one before friend turned up, just in case. These blue boxes are becoming a familiar part of our life.

1 x dirty great drink ring on dining table - because we've all been in the house far too much over last year. The carpets are trashed, the walls are marked, the bathroom is falling apart - I'm beginning to think it would just be easier to walk out the front door, lock it and go and find somewhere else to live. Clearly I need the lottery win first.

Still it's nice to be able to actually see people again. Doesn't make me any less sick of all that's going on. However, with all that's going on in India with COVID right now - I'm far from complaining. Though it said on radio this morning that numbers were stabalising. So let's keep everything crossed that they are over the hump. Scary stuff.

I hope that whoever/whatever started this whole COVID thing knows that they are a mass murderer and that it keeps them awake at night.... and more.

Husband has his jab today, I didn't care what happened to me after mine, but I'm nervous for him. What does that say!