1st May 2005:

Planted out carrots and Spring Onions and hollyhocks. I'm not sure if it is good to plant out hollyhocks this early, but I have a heap of seeds, and so am planting at intervals to make sure I give them the best possible chance. The jasmine covering half of the potting shed has decided to go for a late autumn flowering - what value! A specialist landscape contractor/designer is coming early next week. There are signs the garden has, in centuries past, been terraced - I'd like to go for terracing again, preferably in sandstone. And maybe a sandstone gothic folly. I've seen something in a graveyard I quite like ...

Oh, the wind here! Washing is dried within minutes!

Snow on the mountain yesterday.

6th May 2005:

Have had the most glorious series of sunrises and sunsets over Nonsuch this past week - unusually warm weather ... no wonder so many of the spring flowering plants are having another go in autumn. Painters are here to touch up the some of the rooms; cabinet makers coming soon to put in my cabinets. Still no sign of the landscape contractor.

11th May 2005:

Several hundred spring bulbs now potted out. No sign of the landscaper. The front rooms of the house have had their lick of paint. Very, very windy, and hardly any rain since I've moved down here. I think I may have brought the drought with me. Jack Cade and Cromwell still not with me, should be arriving in early June.

27th May 2005:

Digger's sent me their catalogue last week. Even though I shouldn't be planting, I just can't not order something! So I settled for several robinias (deep coral flowers) for screening the house two doors down (imagine, Victorian sandstone and they rendered it and painted it purple), comfrey shrubs for composting, a few hundred lilies, propagation trays, containers etc. Something to get started with.

Much fuss. I have discovered that the house next door is actually built around a core, that core being the stable block which belongs to my house. I want my stable block back. And, may I add, the parcel of land it sits on.

That darn landscaper. Must hunt him down. Why can't he ring back?????

Cabinet makers arriving tomorrow (all the way from the mother country - Victoria) to put in book cases and cabinets. Am waiting for the quote to re-roof the house. Much angst.