Not fit to turn the dog out........

............ if we had one that is!

The Bank Holiday weekend weather here in Somerset has been disgusting!

There's no other way to describe it.

Blustery squally rain the whole of Sunday and Monday - Saturday was a little better so we went for a drive on the top of the Quantocks and I foolishly forgot to pick up the camera on leaving the house.

We had a beautiful cream tea out in the gardens of a tea room overlooking the hills and then called in to the adjacent nursery picking up a beautiful yellow rose called 'Golden Wedding' for my parents in law's namesake in two weeks time.

I had thought about making something for them, but to be honest everything I've ever made has disappeared out of sight on receipt never to be seen again - so I thought, why bother? They love their garden so will probably appreciate the rose bush much more.

Nigel did manage to sort out quite a bit of the back garden and get most of my new plants planted in between spells of rain on Sunday.

In the corner of the garden we did have a little cherry tree. It had been planted by the initial owners of the house who weren't great gardeners and when we moved in (after another set of owners) we found it had been somewhat neglected, growing bushlike and forlorn.

We've spent the past two plus years trying to give it a bit of TLC with gentle pruning etc but this spring the promise of new leaves never materialised - the buds just came through all curled up and dead looking, so we took the decision to remove it this weekend.

Good job too - when Nigel started to pull it up (after cutting through the roots) it snapped clean in half about 2ft up from the ground to reveal the original wire tie that had been used to fasten it to the stake. It had become incorporated deep into the trunk and gradually killed it - the poor tree.

At first that corner of the garden looked rather bare without it - I know we're only talking a tiny garden here folks so the little tree was quite a big feature - but now Nigel has dug a proper bed in that corner and put all my new plants in it's looking so much better. Fortunately they haven't all been completely drowned yesterday.

As for the front of the house - that's quite a different story.

Originally we had a silly little lawn which never grew anything but moss as it faces north and gets pretty soggy. As we're in the corner of the cul-de-sac with limited on-street parking to supplement the drive in front of the garage we decided it would be far more use as an extra parking area.

When we had a half empty skip from the builder doing the conservatory Nigel decided to demolish part of the wall and then fill the rest of the skip with some of the earth from this lawned area leaving a new flower border around the wall edge.

This was 18 months ago.

This is the view as you open our front door - mmmmm. The paving slabs are temporary so I don't have to trek out onto the mud and admittedly we've let the flower border go somewhat until after the resurfacing is done but it is a bit of an eyesore and I find it quite depressing each time I open the door.

Finally this morning the contractor came to measure up to tarmac the new driveway.

This is the before photo!

He had arranged with Nigel to call in here fairly early before Nigel headed off for work.

We were laid in bed listening to the 7 o clock news when the house phone rang downstairs - we really ought to get an extension in up in our bedroom - another little job to get round to eventually.

We are never ever rung at that time of day so Nigel immediately shot out of bed in his night attire - which I might add doesn't actually consist of any fabric, if you get my drift - and flew down the stairs not even pausing to grab his dressing gown thinking it might be some emergency about the health of one or other set of aged parents.

We have a partially glazed front door so anyone outside would have precious little left to the imagination as the Lord of the House shot down the staircase in all his glory to catch the phone before the answerphone cut in.

It so happened that the contractor had arrived early and seeing the curtains all closed thought it prudent to telephone us first rather than knock on the door. Fortunately he was sitting in his car and not standing on the doorstep or he might have seen more than he bargained for!

Of course I could do absolutely nothing for falling about in giggles!

Hopefully we can get the work done pretty soon and get the front of the house into some semblance of order

I had some more lovely post on Saturday - my Lucy Locket Quilt Swap arrived from Suzie Sews along with some sweet little additional bits and bobs. I would never think to buy this sort of fabric but I just love the end result so much - maybe I should broaden my fabric purchasing horizons.

It will join Hedgehog's little quilt shown here on the wall above my cutting table.

I also managed to get my ALQS offering top completed and quilted this weekend - and the binding's been machined on this morning ready for handstitching down - after all, the hilarious early start to the morning did give me a bit of a head start on the day.

Nigel is back at work today, Sarah is revising (still), Nick has gone round the corner to play with a friend and Louise is occupying herself as normal - so who knows I might get a bit more stitching done today :o)))

However in all that rain yesterday, Nigel, who doesn't do sitting on the sofa chilling in front of The Sound of Music on the tv at all well decided that the understairs cloaks cupboard needed a coat of paint.

Hence this is the state of my conservatory this morning (and this is only about a third of the floor area which is all filled with coats and shoes) as the paint was too wet last night to return it all to the cupboard again - how does a family of five amass so much outerwear???

Maybe the sewing might have to wait! Or maybe I'll leave the cupboard contents for him to put back again this evening!