So Weary . . .

Right now, were I to shut my eyes, I should be asleep. Straight away. No hanging about. So I daren't shut my eyes. We are STILL painting. Getting towards the end, and tidying up as we go along, but it's like being on a particularly energetic roundabout and you can't get off . . . Everything will come together at once. It's just the bit inbetween which is difficult. I am currently up in the attic, where the two end walls badly need painting. Rather than limewash, we are using "earthborn" clay paint, which goes on like thick emulsion and covers very well. I am delighted with it, and the price, whilst a good bit dearer than ordinary emulsion, is a worthwhile investment. With an old house like this you just have to use breathable paints. Of course, this paint is eco-friendly too - no nasty chemicals in it, just completely natural.

Corner by the yard.


OH dabbing the last bits on the front of the house where lime-wash was needed. It goes on turmeric colour, and then calms down . . .


Just the three sash windows above the bay to paint. Getting up to them should be fun - last time we had scaffolding.

A rather beautiful Allium in the long border.

Left a bit along the same border.

The garden is coming together too, though I have made a rod for my own back and created two new planted areas in the paddock. They are mainly planted with my own plants - self-seeded or divided - from the garden here, with a few cheap ones from the car boot sale.

Next week we are house- and animal-sitting for friends for a few days, and viewing properties in Devon on the journeys down and back . . .

It's bluebell time . . .

Yes, it's bluebell time here. These photos were taken a couple of years back, on the way up to the Smallholders' Show at Builth. Our local woods are mistily purpley blue and smell divine . . .



I'm surprized I'm still awake - I feel literally asleep on my feet, and everything above waist height is aching from painting bits just out of reach, or from coopying down to get rid of the moss on the bit of the wall at ground level. OH is doing the high bits and I am doing the bits I can reach from the ground/on a step ladder. Yesterday we cracked on with the back of the house. The far end, beyond OH, gets all the weather and there was hardly any lime-wash left on it, so we have thought long and hard and decided the wall would be painted with masonry paint this time, to try and protect it, as there is crumbly shale in amongst the stone, which is why the top half of the wall is slated up.



I did as much as I could do today, before running out of limewash and then bits I could reach, so I have been indoors painting down in what was mum's bedroom. I can now almost count the number of indoor walls left to paint on the fingers of both hands . . .

I would love to be able to crack on in the garden, but the nearest I got to that today was mowing the lawn before it came on to rain. Ah well. I managed to prick out some seedlings the other day and have some good Hollyhocks and Giant Stocks growing on well. Need to do the same with some Nicotiana and Double Blue Cornflowers in the next couple of days.

My Aquilegias are about to start flowering. I think I lost some over the winter - the nesh kind which of course were the more unusual colours or petals, but I took plenty of seeds last year so I will sow a couple of trayfulls and see what comes up. I have lots of good seedlings from the seeds I bought from the nursery on the Gower last year, ones with golden or splashed foliage, and unusual colours. I can't wait for them to flower. They will be coming with me to the new garden in some shape or form (plants or seeds or both).