A short blog this week despite the last 6 days being another productive period with lots of tasks started, progressed or completed. Thankfully too the weather has broken and today we have had the first day of rain in as long as we can remember which, while not ideal for our guests, is perfect for the garden and our newly planted shrubs.
Knowing that wet weather was on the way, I wanted to plant some more of our long-suffering shrubs which we couldn’t put in the orchard with the others last week. I wanted to put them in the bed we created behind Granary in autumn 2015 which used to be solid bramble, knot weed and bracken but before I could I needed to clear it again to some degree. While we appear to have managed to beat the knot weed (hooray) we hadn’t quite beaten the bracken war which continued to sprout.
Comparing the pictures I shared on the blog at the time (at the hyperlink above) and the bed now shows how much it has changed and how much space we have gained. The small hollies we had planted appears to have taken but, as a slow grower (and too small to see on the pics), having cleared the edge we added a number of our lonicera cuttings too in the hope that we will have a hedge a little sooner.
Where we have already got hedges they too are in a much better state than they were when we arrived. To make sure they continue to thicken out and stay in good shape I gave a couple their first haircut of the year which also improved the look of the entrance a bit as we still have the apple trees we cut up stacked in front of Dairy. As you can see from the right hand picture, while we have managed to plant the orchard flower beds and, despite me saying that the jungle bed was a project we wanted to start while our builder was out of action, I haven’t quite got around to starting it and may not now for a while as our builder is back and fit for work.
He joined us again on Thursday and on his first day back with us rather than continue with Grange, we asked him to build the dwarf walls behind Priory where I will build the new fences (while I could have had a go at building the walls myself I thought that our builder would do a better job in less time – he did!)
Thankfully, we got back to working on Grange on Friday and managed to complete the boarding on the back of the roof so we can start the slating next week as the forecast suggests, at least from Tuesday, we will be back with dry weather.
Looking ahead, it continues to amaze us how active Saint Cadou is as a small, rural village. In previous blogs I have spoken about the Assomniak Association who have arranged concerts and activities in and around Saint Cadou for the last 10 years including their anniversary festival on the beach of Lac du Drennec last year.
Following the success of that event they have planned a village festival for Saint Cadou for 27 / 28 May. There are various activities planned in the heart of the village including outdoor theatre, film screenings and, of course, music. Should be a fantastic weekend.
Finally, a massive Happy Birthday to Garratt who is 2 (in human years) today – becoming an old dog so no more new tricks!
Salut.