Creative Construction

 I was feeling a bit under the weather this morning (overdose on the gardening front catching up with me, maybe?) so it was a slow start to the day. Instead of my usual Monday morning housework blitz, then, I spent time tiddling around making a name plaque for my shepherd’s hut which shall henceforth and hereafter be known as…

I’d been looking at shed signs on Etsy but then remembered I had this slate heart (I think it cost me £5 goodness knows how long ago) so I whipped out my acrylic paint pens and my spontaneous creative skills (!) et voila! Very happy with this! 

And then the Big Thing for the garden arrived this morning. It should have arrived last Friday but for some reason it was collected from the vendor promptly but then sat languishing in the delivery depot. I was keeping an eye on the tracking details but, nope, nothing was shifting so I took Nell for her usual morning walk safe in the knowledge that as there had been no delivery notifications via email, text or phone call then surely it wouldn’t arrive whilst I was out for an hour or so, would it? 

Of course it would 🙄. Nell and I arrived home and there it was, propped up against the front door for any passing thieving opportunist to remove and have away with. Fortunately, we a) live in a nice area where passing thieves are a rarity and b) it was a very heavy parcel so anyone thinking they might purloin it might think twice when faced with the possible risk of inflicting a hernia upon their person. 

Of course, because it was very heavy, and not wanting to risk a hernia myself, I unpacked it on the driveway so I could carry it in its smaller and, therefore, lighter component parts up to the top of the garden. I had to wrangle a LOT of very sticky packaging tape from the large cardboard box but I was also thinking the large cardboard box would be good to start my grass suppressing battle in the Great Raspberry Bed Reset project, so a bit of a win there.

In hindsight, the construction of the Large Thing was a two-man job and not an O.A.P and useless small dog job BUT once I got started I wasn’t going to be beaten and, two hours later…

Ta-dah! A bronzed iron tree bench for the plum tree in the orchard where every year for the last umpteen years we’ve said, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to have one of those tree bench things to sit on under this nice plum tree?’

I almost, but only almost, made the mistake of forgetting to construct it around the tree trunk, but caught myself just in time, saving myself a lot of cursing and swearing and feeling a bit dim witted. It was a tricky job - one of those that looks easier on paper and in my mind’s eye, but I am pleased with how it has turned out. It’ll make a nice resting place when the tree is in full blossom.