Blossom and Beams

I love this time of year - the countryside just explodes with colour and the trees are all heavy with blossom. Neil thought our apple tree wasn't going to produce any blossom this year - two weeks later it spectacularly proved him wrong

Yesterday we had to get a beam in across the top of the doorway of the workshop. It had to be as straight as possible as Neil will be hanging garage doors into the opening. It also had to be as strong as possible to support the stone that will be sat on top of it.

The best beam Neil could find was an old oak beam. Great for the purpose as they are the strongest type of wood, but with that they are hugely dense and therefore really heavy (sounds like me!!!).

Neil and I decided to use the mini digger to take the majority of the weight, and used ropes and the arm of the digger to lift it.

It all went really well and with a bit of shoving and heaving it dropped down into place.

The last couple of days I have been busy in the garden. Everything is growing like it is on steroids and everywhere you go you can hear sit on mowers, chain saws and hedge trimmers in action. I probably should concentrate more on the house. My lack of ability in the housekeeping department was bought sharply into focus when I returned home after my night out in Limoges to find that the friend that Neil had been entertaining for the evening had written 'thank you' in the dust on the tv!! Oh well, you can't do everything!!!