A Garden Makeover

Pegging the washing on the line for the first time this year, I glanced around the garden and was shocked. Shocked to see how in disrepair various bits of fencing were, how the shed needed a wood treatment, the amount of weeds that had swamped the flowerbeds over the Autumn and Winter. The bench seats need sanding and varnishing, the hanging baskets need replacing, the bushes need trimming, the bamboo needs hacking down to allow new growth.

I love the promise of Spring, the promise of outdoor play, sunshine and laughter, picnics and barbecues. However with all of that brings the realisation of how much work is needed in a garden to make it look a wonderful haven for a family to play and relax in. [Read more…]

The Best Playground (Country Kids)

Considering what an advocate of outdoor play I am, I've found it increasingly difficult since The Boy started school to get out and about more than once or twice a week on a school day. When he comes home from school he's utterly exhausted and collapses on the sofa for half an hour or so, vegetating in front of the television while chomping down on a snack. Invariably by the time he's recovered enough to do anything it's pitch-black outside.

I must try harder next half-term.

However, while we have managed to get down to the nature reserve to feed the swans once a week or popped to a park, we seem to have neglected the best playground around; our back garden. With a climbing frame and slide set, plus a swing, there's really not much more he needs to create some fun and games in his own time. Therefore on Christmas Eve morning, when things were becoming a little fraught in the house, I sent The Boy out with Mr. TBaM to rediscover how easy it is to get 15 minutes outdoors a day.

The Best Playground

Watching him through the kitchen window as I made our Christmas cake, it struck me how more physically aware and confident he is than six months ago when he first had the climbing frame. The Boy now scampers up the side of the frame easily and balances at the top with no problem. The swing seems to have become a challenge for him; how many acrobatic moves can he perform on it? Standing on it gave me a few palpitations, and then I saw him jump off the seat…

He ended the play with an attempt at flying. Because he's four and if he wants to believe he can then I'm not one to stop him!

country kidsOutdoor play party

Days 160-166 of Project 365

160-166 of 365

160. Ground Force! (Little did The Boy know that the groundwork that he and daddy were doing on Sunday was for the area that his climbing frame – his birthday present – is destined for. We've done some relocation work of some fairly permanent features to accommodate the frame, this area used to be a patio which housed his Little Tikes house.)

161. Retro (The four eyebrows and tongue of concentration make a reappearance in this photo. I'd bought him one of those snake twisty things (that could make telephones and balls and stuff) that were all the rage in the 80s and he was absolutely fascinated with it.)

162. Shadow (Today was one of those deceptive days where it seemed mild and cloudy, yet when the wind blew the clouds away, the heat was extradordinary. We had to do a lot of shopping for his birthday party and as he'd been such a good boy we went up to the clifftop park. It's very peaceful up there looking over the Bristol Channel, and the skies cleared to reveal a scorching heat and the most amazing late-afternoon shadows.)

163. Surprise! (The Boy's birthday! Unfortunately I had to work, as did Mr. TBaM. This is a new one for us on The Boy's birthday as I'm usually off work, Mr. TBaM takes the day off and we have a family treat day out somewhere, but not this year and it made me sad. However, I raised home from work and we led The Boy into the garden with his eyes covered by his woolly hat. This photo was taken the very moment that he whipped it off to reveal his birthday present; a climbing frame.)

164. Adventurer (The climbing frame is going to play a huge part in our play I suspect! His confidence has grown in just one day from slowly stumbling from one rung to another of the jungle run, to walking over and barely holding on!)

165. Monkey Boy (I wondered when he'd discover the monkey bar aspect to the jungle run, it seems it was to be today. He's swinging from a single bar, he can't move himself onto the next rung yet, but he is enjoying hooking his legs over the frame – to take the weight – and moving his hands along to the next rung. He's certainly building his technique though.)

166. Blow (Today was the big day, The Boy's Pirate Party. Up to goodness knows what time last night baking a cake, decorating it at 7.30 this morning, running around like a blue-arsed fly all morning, and it all paid off as the party went brilliantly. It did rain for the first hour, but stopped and brightened during lunch. They were able to get outside and play – on the climbing frame – once the birthday cake had happened.)

TheBoyandMe's 365 Linky
akiltandacamera.com

How To Make Pirate Bunting

How to make pirate bunting

We're fortunate enough to have a perfectly south-facing garden and a son born in the Summer. This tends to mean that we are able to utilise the garden for his parties and bedeck the trees and bushes with bunting and balloons.

(That's the theory anyway, but on his second birthday there was a near monsoon outside in south Wales, and his third was in a church hall because it had rained for the fortnight before and I wasn't taking any chances.)

However, one of the things that I adore in the Summer months is seeing brightly coloured bunting draped through trees, and although we have 50 metres of home-made Very Hungry Caterpillar bunting from his first birthday, I felt that we needed some new flags for his fourth birthday; a pirate-themed party.

I did some research and found a huge selection of red, white and black fabrics suitable for pirate bunting from a variety of online shops and Ikea.

How To Make Pirate Bunting

More specifically the fabrics I bought were:

Using this Pirate Bunting template, I traced out the triangles of fabric and cut them out using pinking shears (prevents the edges from fraying and saves time on stitching them too). For each 5 metre length of ribbon, I had nine different fabrics and used three of each. I laid them out in a pattern which meant there was a good contrast of red, white and black, along with alternating patterns and stripes.

Pirate Bunting flags

Next job was to pin them on to the ribbon. I used 5 metre lengths to make it more manageable with sewing and untaggling, and had a 15cm strip of ribbon free at either end for tying onto the tree or fence post. I left a 1cm gap in between the triangles and pinned three complete repetitions along the 5 metre length. After pinning the triangles into place, I used the sewing machine with red thread to stitch them into place.

How To Make Pirate Bunting

In total I made thirty metres of fabric to string around the garden for his pirate party, very jolly!

How To Make Pirate Bunting

Room For Improvement

When we moved into our house eight years ago, one of the things that appealed to use was the outbuildings which had been converted into a wet room, with back garden access. We had it changed into a utility room and toilet, and the 'back porch' (as I call it) was a vital pathway through from the garden to the 'washroom' after gardening. I also knew that once we had a child that it would be an essential as it would enable him to run through without worrying about getting the carpet dirty.

So we painted the back porch the same colour as the kitchen (a burnt terracotta), laid some tiles, hung up a row of coat hooks and that was the job done!

Until a month or so ago when a blogging friend came to visit for the first time and I realised what an absolute mess it was and how embarrassed I was of the dumping ground for wellies, macs, seed trays, frisbees, trowels, and general things to go down to the shed.

Room for Improvement

About a week ago, I received an e-mail from Money Supermarket asking me if I'd like to take part in their Room For Improvement competition, where they would give me £50 to improve a room or area of the house. The 'back porch' screamed at me, begging me to make it feel loved and not like the ugly sister to the rest of the house, so I accepted, received the £50 and set off to Ikea for some goodies.

I bought:

  • While on holiday I nabbed a chalkboard, a paper lampshade and some craft skeleton leaves from a cheap touristy shop, which totalled £7.75. And from the cheerful chappy at the market on Saturday I spent £5.00 on a door mat to help keep the floor a little cleaner!
  • 2 x photos = 24p

Total Spend = £49.87!

Room for improvement

Here it is, a before and after comparison:

room for improvement

What do you think?

The Bottom Of My Garden

This is the bottom of my garden…

20130505_184844

…and I am deeply unhappy with it.

In theory it's a great area; a decent sized patio, a fabulous triangular pergola (I'm still in awe of my husband for working out how to build this, and then doing so), a beautiful cherry blossom tree, sheltered from the wind which blows up the 'tunnel' created by living in a long street of parallel houses. All of these things should mean it's a perfect area and it's certainly what I had in mind when I designed it.

However, as you can see it's a dumping ground. The Boy is far too big to play with those toys and we have nowhere else to put them. And because I'd like to grant him the joy of a sibling at some point, I refuse to get rid of them. Therefore they stay cluttering up the bottom patio and being no good to anyone. Furthermore, it doesn't get any sun and as a result it's not the idyllic space I'd hoped for. And that cherry tree has pushed up the paving slabs around it.

So you can see that it's just a space which is. And it's a waste.

I am planning on changing the garden around (yet again) in light of the fact that The Boy now has no climbing equipment in it. Well he does, but I'm not entirely sure that climbing up the side of the slide is the correct use for it. Nor is that what a swing is for. And so I've been investigating climbing frames which might be suitable for him and not take up too much space in the garden, although the only problem is that they unfortunately do take up a lot of space because an allowance has to be given for 'fall space'.

explorer 2

If only you knew how many times I've stood in the garden trying to work out how to fit it all in without changing too much of the structure.

Mr. TBaM and I have come to the conclusion that the best place would be along the side of the garden (as he still needs lawn space to run around and play ball games in), which means that we need to relocate his Little Tikes house from the beautifully laid, year old patio in the same spot. It's going to go down to the bottom of the garden on half of the patio above, the other half of the patio has already been taken up to provide the tree with more space for its roots, and to relocate the compost bin.

I'm also looking to set up two more things down in newly reclaimed area of garden; a mud pie kitchen and a willow den (somehow incorporating the trunk of the cherry tree).

garden

Mr. TBaM has no idea that I want to build a willow den at the bottom of the garden, but I think it's a fun thing to have and I can just imagine The Boy sitting and reading his books in it in the future.

And did I mention that he's having a party in the garden for his fourth birthday in a month. And of course I want it finished by then.

Wouldn't you?

Tuesday 1st May 2012 – 'Contentment' (122/366)

I had it all sorted for today's 366. When the rain halted briefly at 11.30 this morning, I sent The Boy out onto the patio to splash around in the giant puddle that had accumulated. I took some fabulous shots on my dSLR of the water droplets flying up everywhere and I knew that my 366 would be one of those.

Then it turned out that the rain didn't start up again, and by 2pm the sun was blazing down turning all the water droplets on the plants into diamonds and helping the giant puddle to evaporate. By the time Mr. TBaM came in, it was glorious and the first bit of sunshine we'd had in well over a week and a half. I sent the boys outside to play while I prepared tea, watched them having fun and smiled to myself. I'd waited for this time of year to reappear for so many months and even if it only here for today, we were going to enjoy it. We ate our tea on the patio: me on the backstep, The Boy at his picnic table and Mr. TBaM sitting on the only dry grown-up seat. Both of them were splashing their welly-booted feet in the now rapidly-drying giant puddle.

If it rains again tomorrow and for the rest of the week, I can cope because we've had a glimpse of Summer.