More garden ideas

So I drew a plan of the garden I wanted to create and gave it Simon the landscape gardener. I seemed quite impressed by it and told me he doubted he could come up with anything better.

I hope it turns out something like I have in my head. These are some other photos I liked and the effect I really want to create.

My New Garden

Andrew did everything possible to the house and finished it the year he passed away. I asked him what he was going to do next and he said the garden. So the task I've set myself is to redesign the garden for him. Thought I'd start small so took the plants out of the borders in the front garden. Removed the shingle path (what a job that was!) and levelled the soil. I was going to leave 2 small borders under the window & porch and put more stones down. That was the plan but as always, it's a work in progress and I keep changing my mind.

For the last few weeks I've been trying to come up with a design for the back garden, read loads of stuff on the web and downloaded a couple of e-books to get some ideas. Found pinterest a great source of inspiration. Once I started "pinning" photos I liked it soon became obvious what kind of gardens I liked.

What drew me to this photo was the shape of the hedges in the middle of the garden. I loved the way they created a circle in the middle. The path lead from the patio up the garden which is very similar to what I have now. 2 patios, one at the top, one at the bottom with a lawn in the middle flanked by 2 borders.

Now it looks like this ... yikes!

I'm pulling it apart slowly so the landscape gardener can make it beautiful again and a lot easier to maintain.

The New Fence

Well today was supposed to be spent with Gemma, Elena & Ewan doing fun things but instead I decided to spend 30 minutes in the front garden removing the bricks so we could put membrane down and stones to make life easier. Andrew was the gardener in our house so it has to be made more manageable. Steve our next door neighbour is in the middle of putting up a new fence between our houses but the little raised garden was getting in the way. Earlier on in the year we removed the ivy from the fence which left a huge stump and now we've cut the jasmine down so that root had to come out too. Anyway the majority of it is done and bagged up ready for the tip. We still went to Bluebells cafe for lunch so all was not lost. Ewan made light work of one of their Strawberry milkshakes and then inspected the work we'd done afterwards. He's on a sleep over tonight sleeping in Auntie Rainy's bedroom.

My New Life Without ...

My new life without Andrew by my side.

I've blogged for years about the day to day life of my family but in October last year the unthinkable happened and I lost my husband, my best friend & my security. It's the hardest thing I've ever had to endure but here I am, still in one piece and although I miss him every single day, I'm enjoying all the good things life has to offer.

They say life begins at 40 and OMG it did. I had foreign holidays to places like the Jamaica, Florida & the Maldives. I became a grandma to the most adorable little boy whom I love with all my heart and my 3 wonderful daughters became my best friends.

Next year I'll be 50 so we've organised a big family holiday to Cuba for 10 days. Before that I'm off to America to tour round the Deep South, skiing in France and in 12 months time I'll be in Russia spending 4 nights in St Petersburg & 4 nights in Moscow. Two weekends ago I spent 9 hours stood in the same spot at the Isle of Wight Festival watching Newton Faulkner, the Boomtown Rats, Paloma Faith, The Script & Jon Bon Jovi and yesterday I bought tickets for the Isle of Wight Bestival to see (amongst others), the amazing Elton John!

I'm still part of the camera club and have been doing yoga for 8 weeks. I work in admin and love my job ... most of the time :) My best friend Tracey goes walking with me and so far we've been to the Ballet, The Ideal Home Show, the Reduced Shakespeare Company, an Hawaiian evening at Bluebells and to see the photographer Tim Allen. We've got tonnes lined up too, Riverdance, Cirque de Soliel, East Coast Boys to name but a few so although my life has changed considerably, it's not all bad.

Tomorrow would have been mine & Andrew's 29th wedding anniversary and I feel sad that Andrew won't be here to Share it with me. I'm sure we would have been married for twice as long as that had he still been here. I'm sad that he will miss out on such a lot, but I couldn't wish him back to suffer because I know he was doing. I'll try my best to live life for the both of us and I know in my heart, he isn't very far away. Love you Andy Pandy x