282 days till christmas

It's all happening around here! Neil has truly got the bit between his teeth and things are getting bashed down and constructed in this new spurt of action. The staircase will be started next week fingers crossed, and now all the openings are in place for it to go into.

I got home from work yesterday to find a Christmas tree propped up outside the house which was a birthday present from my friend who owns the horses I ride. She was obviously fed up of me going on every time we passed one whilst we were out in the woods.
Some time ago I dug up and acquired one from a local wood (the farmer said I could), but after being in the ground for several months it suddenly took a turn for the worse, went brown and died. I was gutted.
I had positioned it so that I could see it from my window and so that you could also see it as you drove up the road to the house. I had visions of it being festooned with lights at Christmas and being a lovely feature. As it was no more than a twig by Christmas I resisted the temptation to put lights on it, but by then I had realised that the lights wouldn't have reached it any way.
I'm not getting caught out this time. I have lovingly planted it in a large pot in mole hill soil (there are loads of bloody mole hills about at the moment) and watered it in thoroughly. The pot has good holes for drainage and I have made sure it is straight. For once I am going to be vigilant and make sure it is in prime condition for this Noel. Well I hope so anyway.

I have also been busy in the garden, putting up a fence to keep the chickens and ducks on the field side of the fence. I am fed up with chickens on my raised beds (and in the kitchen actually)and ducks that do the biggest cackas (I have never asked a french person how they would spell that but they mean poos!!) on the doorstep and all over the lawn. Lawn! thats a joke.
I drove a mini digger across my 'lawn' the other day and then tried to replace all the divets that the tracks had made with my feet. The marks were quite randomly spaced around the garden as I had been trying to avoid the daffodils I had planted in various locations last autumn, so had been zig zagging around the garden.
I'm so glad there aren't people watching the ridiculous goings on at this house sometimes!!