Finally, we've had time to make some changes....

[PhotoLady]

You may recall we moved back to UK from Cyprus a little over 12 months ago and sadly, most of our time between May to August was taken up with trying to reach a solution with assistance and care for my father - hence our need to return after 12 years in Cyprus. In August he was admitted to a nursing home due to him becoming a fall risk and making a dangerous situation for both of my parents when they were alone in the house. Towards the end of October, he went into palliative care and we lost him in the space of less than 48 hours. Since then, we've been dealing with the fallout of the paperwork, making sure my Mum is okay and just generally "being there" in case Mum needs us...

Things finally started to settle down come March and April this year, Mum is on an even keel, has a social life again now the crown green bowling season has started and we could turn our thoughts to getting our house sorted out a bit. We decided we wanted to concentrate on the side yard area and front garden & driveway first of all.

On the old CL forum, I posted some photos where everyone kept telling me our front lawn needed mowing - nah, that was never going to happen, the lawn simply had to go!

So, here's where we're at right now - we started off at the side yard.
The below photos are the front garden project and the photos are all with my Nokia mobile, mostly from my window seat!

Front Garden - 23 June 2016


Day 4 - The Day of the Digger:


Day 4 - drive is now wider and garden area smaller


Day 5 - defining wall is coming along and new drainage at the gate between the drive and side yard:




The finished wall is up:


Tarmac down - looking from front porch to front gate:


From front gate to front porch:


Now, we can finish the rest of the cream paintwork at the front of the house.

The garden will be transformed keeping just the one fir tree plus another tree which will be blue. There will be just one small planted area which will have the "wild" theme using the blue thistle variations and delphiniums and the remainder will have a bed of coloured 40mm slate pieces.

[PhotoLady]

Following on from above - the side yard project:

Side Yard - June 2017 before work commenced, badly laid paving stones, poor cement mixture, too large gaps at either side which stopped adequate drainage. We started to change the colour of the dark brown woodstain on the fence by painting it smoky grey:


Prior to the old paving stones being ripped up, we also painted the side of the bungalow in a cream colour to soften the grey of the fence:


End of Day 1 of the flooring going down and a "Ruby" barricade to keep her off the flags:


End of Day 2 - more paving stones and a new drainage pipe in place:


Lunchtime Day 3 - we've reached the gate to the front driveway:

A new addition to the side yard - the thistles and delphiniums are going in the front garden eventually:


Where the side yard meets the back garden - well, that's another project! New pathway, more paving stones and a bit of decking plus changing positon of the summer house and the shed at the other side of the garden..... ho, hum

[PhotoLady]

As an aside, a few of you may be aware my sister-in-law and her husband are moving into an apartment less than 500 steps away from us on the seafront today....

We popped round earlier to switch the fridge on and stick a bottle of champagne in it for them.

They're on the 1st floor so have totally unobstructed views across Morecambe Bay towards the Lake District, Lancaster and Barrow in Furness.

I grabbed these photos with my mobile from the front steps of the building as we were taking some bits of stuff round to the property prior to their arrival this afternoon:







We're both very much looking forward to them coming. Nice for my husband to have some of his family nearby.

[PhotoLady]

Thanks Lincoln - it's a start.....
We still have a fair bit to do, but we wanted to be able to enjoy the summer out the front and the side of the house. Now we will be spending time helping the "rellies" get acclimatised to their new surroundings, jobs done inside the property and general sorting of things that all come with moving house and area.

[Yorkie]

Hi lovely to see your update and the completed projects, so glad you are settling well and enjoying your life now back in the UK we moved back slightly ahead of you after spending just short of eleven years in Cyprus and it's almost like we are rediscovering our own country think it's something to do with this time we are retired and do what we want when we want which is a great plus. Enjoy helping your relatives settle in your area x

[PhotoLady]

Thanks Yorkie!

Strangely enough, we're enjoying life back in UK much more than we anticipated when we first put our relocation plans in place.

We have some great neighbours in our end of the cul-de-sac. Very friendly and our immediate neighbours were extremely helpful when we first arrived without a stick of furniture for 2 weeks until our container arrived. They helped us out a number of times then and since too. These people didn't know us and had never even met my Mum until she collected our house keys from the estate agent a week before our arrival.

We have just one neighbour who is a bit odd in that he doesn't really speak much to everyone. He keeps himself very much to himself but he's ok when you get to talk with him.

We can go out, just as we did in Cyprus leaving only the front door locked. The only thing we miss is knowing that it will be sunny every day from May to October (something we took very much for granted) and our friends we made there....

We're much more relaxed when taking our dog out in public too. Everyone in the village speaks to us as we pass by.... But that is of course, very much a "northern" trait and only something we realised we had missed when we started to come back to UK to visit my parents when my dad could no longer travel to see us in Cyprus.

In general, life is treating us pretty well now. Neither of us is working as we plan to eke our savings out as long as possible so we can still take the time to make new discoveries of places around us.

We still have to discover the delights of Scorton - on a sunny day. The workmen were here when we could have had the opportunity!

[PhotoLady]

Today, we gave our village Gala a miss, making the most of the nice weather after our supermarket shopping and made a start on laying the weed control membrane (double layered).
A bit of metal trellis around a blue Wisteria, dug in a blue Ceanothus shrub and a rather magnificent Zorro Blue Hydrangea.
Next job: putting down some lawn edging, cutting away the membrane ready to create a space for planting my little "wilderness" of blue grasses, thistles, delphiniums, a nice purple coloured Calla Lily, a blue lavender variety and a nice silver grey Eucalyptus, all before we arrange the delivery of the slate chippings.

This is where we're at today....
Two layers of membrane down before pegging it in:


Membrane opened up, curled back, plants in and watered before closing the cut membrane edges and laying another around each plant:


Here's a little of my "wilderness" collection:


To the right, where we adjoin the next doors' garden, we're going to add some traditional stone Victorian lawn edging that reminds me a little of the original "Dublin doorways" - watch this space.....

Meanwhile, the Delphiniums are blooming nicely in the side yard - they've been there now for almost 2 weeks:

[geoffreys]

Very sorry to read of your Dad's passing.
"Where the river meets the sea" doesn't tell us the location of your lovely home.
Anyway thanks for the photos etc, most interesting to see how it all progressed.
Geoff.

[trevnhil]

The Location Geoffrey is Knott End.. At the junction of the River Wyre and Morecambe bay

[geoffreys]

The Location Geoffrey is Knott End.. At the junction of the River Wyre and Morecambe bay

Thanks Trev.
Very nice location.
Geoff.

[PhotoLady]

Here we go Geoff.....

We live just one road back from where the river meets the sea:


This one is looking across the Knott End ferry jetty out to sea and over Morecambe Bay:


We're cracking on with the garden today but we've discovered we need some more topsoil - waiting for my hubby to come back with some bags

[PhotoLady]

We're just one ton of 40mm slate chippings away from completion.....
We've put 2 tons down and spread them around so far but the last delivery has not yet arrived at the builders' merchants yard from their supplier, so they can't get it to us.
We're a bit miffed about that part as it should have arrived yesterday

Changes since my last post:
The first ton of chippings arrived on Monday and the start of the wilderness garden at top left by the gates


Two Tons of Green Slate Chippings - Tuesday


On the opposite side - the Victorian style lawn edging is going in - yesterday (Wednesday)


Here's how the edging looks


Measuring up for where the cut will be on the last piece of edging


And as there was to be no delivery of chippings today (Thursday), we put the trellis up and the Delphiniums in


We're having a day off tomorrow, no matter what happens..... the cooker and hob is arriving at my sister-in-laws apartment and we need to be there for it. They are both away at the moment as SIL has a big birthday tomorrow! And tomorrow evening, we've got a 70s night rave up and a themed quiz at the local WM club with our friends. Fancy dress is optional

Here's the view from my sister-in-laws apartment (first floor) on Monday teatime - the bunting is there from the village Gala last weekend:

[PhotoLady]

The front garden is finished now, although there's one bit that I would still like a little "something" but as yet, I'm not quite certain what that particular item will be - until I've set my eyes on it!

Meanwhile, as we're spending a bit more time at home with Ruby because we can no longer take her out for walks whilst she's waiting the outcome of her x-rays on her ruptured cruciate ligament - we started another little project....

We've been looking for a few weeks now for a garden bench to put under the window at the front of the house. However, the prices of the ones we liked were extortionate but, we did spot one the other week in the Plant Place at a reasonable cost - a good sized one in pine that would have needed several coats of paint.

Then, last Tuesday morning whilst meeting up with Scottish friends in Cleveleys during their annual visit to Blackpool, this little cottage sofa caught my eye in one of the second hand shops just off the main shopping street:



These two photos below are after the first application of "Boathouse Blue" fence paint:




We're 3 coats of paint in as of today - and we're almost there! We won't be upcycling the cushions however.... I checked at a local upholsterers in Hambleton and from our measurements, he said it would cost around £80 for the main seat cushion alone to be covered in a vinyl waterproof fabric. We got the cost of the bench down from £45 to £35 including delivery!

Just found a blue striped bog standard bench cushion online for £11 plus postage and that will suffice. We may just use scatter cushions for the backrests. Myself, I would have preferred a nice lime green seat cushion but my husband was having none of it

[PhotoLady]

Thanks Lincoln!

We think we've got it sorted now.....

Four coats appears to have done the trick

[PhotoLady]

Here's a few more you haven't yet seen..... the finished front garden (with my missing bit of extra something, of course) and a few finishing touches at the side of the house.

From the side gate looking in the direction of the golf course:


Front window to the street:


French louvre window:


And our fireplace - somewhere for the socks at Christmas

[PhotoLady]

No more going in the slated area just yet..... we're planning to put a Clematis against the wall between the dining room window and the end of the front porch and that will be in a very large planter. That will be right in front of where you just mentioned but not in the garden. We were looking for a blue tree for the slated area but at the moment they're not in season so have to wait until early spring unless something else catches our eye. Meanwhile, we have that small blue shrub which will spread and can encourage it to grow taller by cutting away the bottom growth and that will fill part of the gap there.

We don't want to be opening up the weed membrane too much and we don't want stuff in pots because that means having to constantly water. Ideally, we won't always be around to be watering the garden My mum has to water hers every couple of days, that's far too much like hard work!

[PhotoLady]

The finished cottage sofa project with a little input in the choice of pillow cushions from a number of my facebook friends:

[LouiseCastricum]

I really enjoyed these lovely pictures. Thanks for sharing.

[PhotoLady]

Thanks Louise

On Friday we had to take some documents into our bank in Blackpool and took a different walking route from the car park. We came across a little shop we hadn't seen before and ended up purchasing a two piece display unit in dark wood again with the top part having glass leading.

It's not a deep unit so it was destined for the front porch but it won't quite work where hubby wanted it placed.... It's currently in the dining area and plans now under construction to transforming it into our very own Gin Palace.

I will add the photos of how it looks just now while I work out which is the best way to proceed. I awoke this morning with an idea in my head but need to do a little research first....

Will add the "now" photos when I am back at my laptop. Here they are below:

In the shop, we got it for £25


Two pieces as we took it out of the car - that was a bit of a squash and at the time of buying it had no idea if it would fit into the car or not!


Don't think this is original detailing


Gin Palace, eventually.....

[aphrodite]

Time to get that sloe gin going to fill your cabinet and to be ready for Christmas. Yum!