21 August, 2024 21:09

Oh. Mein Mann hat offensichtlich angefangen, hier wieder etwas zu posten. Haben wir denn noch follower?

Sorry for the lack of updates

It’s not as if we haven’t being doing things on, in and around the garden, but first, Tumblr became unusable for a while, then forced shitty ads on everyone and then the need to login to read. 🤮 For anyone using Android I can recommend using one of the

Josefine’s Hidden Path

While I was digging up an old yew tree root at the end of the garden, I noticed there was some stone there. So I decided to dig a little and found a paving stone. Then some more! There must have been a path here at some point. We can

They’re back! And this time it’s war!

Hello bramble my old friend I’ve come to slaughter you again! The drought is already causing problems for the grass around the base of the pine tree. But the brambles are fine. At least they’re easier to spot! Can’t really dig them out anymore so just going

A rose by any other name

We were given some lovely roses for our wedding and got round to planting them at the weekend. A bit late in the year but, now that it’s getting hotter and drier, the only thing to do. If you look carefully you’ll see that they have pipes. The

Garden Update

I know we’ve been very remiss if late. Things have been going on but, fortunately, just not as much! But, now that spring has finally arrived, we’ve been able to work in, and enjoy, the garden. And it’s really starting to look like one! The photos are

Mirrors, mirrors on the wall

Towards the end of the year, we finally got round to choosing mirrors for the bathrooms. They had been one of the many items we’d been able to postpone. Important but difficult to get right. We’d had some discussions in the summer, with Astrid keen on frames and

I simply cannot be bothered!

This really ought to be my motto. Shortly before Christmas the beer was ready. It’s a bock style beer and the label is a German play on words with bock also meaning desire or enthusiasm. So, it’s the beer you can’t be bothered to drink. I haven’

Bottle up and go

I finally got round to bottling the beer. This should have happened weeks ago but I just never got a round tuit. I’ll just pretend it was getting extra matured. The alcohol in the beer will prevent anything growing in it and that air trap should prevent it going

Remember, remember the fifth of November…

We used Bonfire Night as an excuse to invite over some of our friends who helped us with house last year. While we did have a little fire in a brazier, we didn’t have a guy to burn, fireworks, parkin, toffee apples or treacle toffee*, the weather held and

Stepping out

This was the patio just a few months ago Ivan relaid the flagstones but there weren’t enough for the whole area so initially we covered the rest with some gravel. With the subterranean window removed it was possible to fill the shaft and make steps from the living room.

From Design to Reality

Given that removing the tiles from the old kitchen was one of the first things we did, it’s kind of surprising that we never got round to getting walls straight. We weren’t sure whether we would increase the size of the kitchen, we didn’t know it was

30 October, 2022 18:32

Grand Designs Although we’d decided against herbs for the North wall we thought that fruit and vegetables could work. These are the designs we worked through. The first one was really little more than an attempt to see how many motifs would we need, and I think it does

From little nectarines do mighty plum trees grow

I don’t think this is the actual stone, but this is how my plum tree started life. My first flat in Düsseldorf on Helmholtz Str. was on the fifth floor and the previous tenant had left some empty window boxes on the balcony. I was too lazy to want

What’s in the box?

The tiles for the kitchen have finally arrived! These were one of the many things that we decided last year, we couldn’t deal with “just right now”. So, while we did discuss things, we weren’t forced into any decisions. I’ve always liked “Delft” tiles, which you still

Picking Mushrooms

For a while now Ivan has been getting photos from his friends who’ve been out picking mushrooms in the woods. And he asked us whether we do it, and if not, why not? Our answer, of course, was that as bona fide (very bona indeed!) city slickers we wouldn’

5 October, 2022 23:19

🤓

LESEBRILLEN

Ich bin ja viel belächelt worden beim Ausmisten des Hauses meiner Mama. Aber es hat sich wieder einmal gezeigt, dass Aufbewahren auch seine Berechtigung hat. So konnte ich Ivan sage und schreibe vier Lesebrillen von meiner Mama präsentieren. Kommentar Charlie, nachdem wir eine für Ivan Passende gefunden haben: “die anderen

Die Eibe

Nun ist die Wurzel fort und ich bin ein bisschen traurig. Sie lag so lange im Vorgarten und sah aus wie ein grosses Herz. Sie war auch blutrot. Und sehr kräftig. Die alte Eibe war sicherlich schon über 90 Jahre alt. Man sagt der Eibe viel Mystisches nach und ich

Like watching paint dry

Carbon dioxide is the most visible evidence of the yeast converting dextrose (C10) into ethanol (C2). Carbon dioxide also acts to sterilise the process by forming a blanket over the beer which effectively stops bacteria from getting to it. Yeah, maybe I should get out more! 🤯

Going…

… going… Gone! It’s taken a long time but we finally were able to get of the yew tree root. Sad to see such a magnificent tree go, but it was sadder for the garden to be neglected for so long. And there are still yew trees in the garden.

A Baptism of Beer

Over the last few years I’ve done a couple of home brews. It’s a lot of standing around and waiting and at the end you’ll only get about four litres. But, like cooking or baking, it’s a welcome distraction and a good way to spend an

2 October, 2022 15:18

When the war comes into your living room I’ve been trying set up the TV so that Ivan can watch the news on something other than his phone. It’s pretty easy to do on a Raspberry Pi but the devil is always in the detail. Basically, you just

A Good Day’s Work

Yesterday, and this morning I finished removing the gloss paint with the heat gun. Underneath the gloss are two layers of extremely tough undercoat with the consistency of chewing gum. In some places I got quite good at removing several layers at once, but inevitably not everywhere. But I’m