Hacking has left more brushwood than we can move off site. There are mounds of twigs and branches all over the garden. And still more chain sawing to be done get the hedge-line back. We are poised for a bonfire when the wind blows to the south. And for now a new relationship with the dog walkers in the meadow: we can join in with hunts for lost frisbees. Our hidden garden has become rather public. Alas for over-hasty coppicing of two hazel stands and woeful dislike for the Hansel and Gretel potting shed that used to be hidden in little wooded grove. The silver lining is that we now know exactly what we own and I can at last put a plan down on paper.
But she adores her new vocation. Getting down to business by the light of the sun from Blair’s old bedroom window is sheer pleasure, she says. Finding just the right colors and sizes, pieces with surfaces that will adhere, putting them all together, it’s relaxing and rewarding.
The delightful overgrown garden has been ours since last spring. Denuding had been gathering pace, with plans in full throttle over Christmas. Busting, itching to hack away at the spindly outgrown hedge overtaken by ivy and brambles. We stayed our hand for next doors approval for a level of destruction necessary to put proper chain link fencing in.
Clearing the line for the fencing contractors has been the main task. This week two or three will come and talk to us. It is a job that is bigger than it looks due to an unstable bank riddled with milk bottles, sizeable roots and the hoary trunks of two yews. A good deal of hedge has been cut back, pulled out, but not all. Some of the fencing will somehow have to wrap itself round what remains.
Mary hopes to grow her business, but Dino keeps warning her, “Don’t quit your day job” — she works two days a week as a bookkeeper. And he still won’t let her use his drill. (What is it about husbands and their drills?) Then there’s granddaughter Bella, her new love, whom she babysits. She has no plans to give that up!
It is now in residence at Lovell House at Manchester Technopark where it will occupy over 6,000 sq ft of office space – more than double the size of its previous facilities at Turing House.
