Cleaning up

The cool weather is perfect for gardening at the moment, and He Who Can Fix Anything decided to take a hand in my apparently insufficient attempts to tidy up and remodel same. Sleeper benches were moved, paving lifted and re-laid, unruly growth chopped back relentlessly and branches removed to ensure a perfect umbrella-shaped canopy under the milkwood in my little zen garden. A trip to the local nursery yielded a bird bath, cunningly styled in the form of an old tree trunk, and a few extra pavers to complete the look.

While all this was going on, I disappeared to the back garden and re-planted some lavender from pots into the ground and put new flowers in, put in rows of spinach and then snuck inside for a cup of tea.My friend arrived with Cedric the Tortoise in a box to install him in his new home for the next week - our old chicken run - while she is away. We fed him another red hibiscus flower and there is no doubt that this ranks up there with caviar on a tortoise's food list! Biggles was fascinated by this new and strange creature and lay next to the cage for a long time before eventually losing interest and setting off for pastures new.

Meanwhile, HWCFA had brought out his favourite toy, the high-pressure cleaner, and was blasting away at the brick paving, walls, sleepers, my legs, basically anything that could withstand the pressure, with the result that everything looks like new again.

A job well done, and even better, I didn't have to do it!