My little pond!

Or should I say my really little pond?! After some more work this evening I'm fairly happy with the results, although I still have a lot of weeding, digging and planting to do in the surrounding bed.

Heather and I went to visit our mum this morning and then went to the garden centre for a few supplies. I ended up getting another bale of bark, more compost - neither of which seem to go very far - and a real bargain of a bag of cobbles for just £2.00!

I also plumped for some herbs...Thyme, Hyssop and Dill as well as a lovely Alpine plant whose name escapes me! A tray of Sugar Snap Pea plants and a Tumbling Tom cherry tomato plant completed the trolley load! However, we then ventured into the Aquatic section and I chose a tallish grass and something with pronounced leaves, both of which are marginal plants and were recommended for the teeny space they will live in. 

Heather got some bunches of weed for her much larger pond and I pursuaded her to get a tomato plant too!

It was really grey and rainy and I felt cold all day but it brightened up after we got back and this evening brought the warmest few hours. So I decided to crack on and began by placing the two pond plants into the washing up bowl in their "ready to go" pots and securing a strand of pond weed (nicked from Heather's bunches!) into the gravel at the bottom.

Still looks like a washing up bowl though!

However, once I had added the cobbles around the perimeter and planted the herbs and the Alpine, it started to look more natural.

I added a couple more little plants lifted from elsewhere in the garden and moved the fairies into their new positions......

I've also planted some Foxgloves that I grew from seed last year. They should provide some shade as they grow - in case we have a red hot Summer! I'm really happy with how it looks now, though I still have the daunting task of getting the surrounding bed sorted. Surely a little frog might find it appealing? I hope so anyway.

I think I'm going more towards little rockeries dotted about to try and make keeping the garden tidy a little more achievable.

When Heather and I had got back this afternoon there was a little visitor waiting by the front door for us! He's a gift from my neighbour who looks after Thomas and Tara when I'm away. I think he looks very sweet sitting beneath the Rowan tree where the fairies used to reside. Once the Bluebells come fully into bloom he'll look even cuter. Not sure what my two will make of him though!

Well, all of that kept me busy for a couple of hours this evening!

On Saturday I was at the Leigh show - hello to everyone that I saw there and apologies to those of you who missed out on the stamps...again! I don't have much to share with you, picture wise, as I left my camera at home- duh! Everyone liked this tag that I made using my "Dreams Have Wings" stamp set and a drippy, Distress inked background.

I used my black Archival ink pad swooshed up from the base of the tag to create some tufty effects and then added more fine grasses using a black pen. I painted a circle of water for the moon which I blotted with tissue to bleach the colour out before emphasising it with a white gel pen. I added white highlights to all the stamped images which completely transforms the look.

I'm still having some much needed "me time" though yesterday I was pretty busy in the morning. A phone message when I got home on Saturday evening was a request for me to do a reading in Church next morning which I was happy to do. I was also puppeteering along with Lynne. Our little production was for the story of Lazarus being raised from the dead...the twist being that I was playing the funeral director who Lazarus calls on to ask for his money back! 

It went down very well although it could have been a disaster as I got quite dizzy when I stepped on to one of the slightly squashy kneelers that I have to stand on (being such a short house!). For a moment I feared I was going to go crashing through the screen and I had to hold on to it to stop the whole thing from tippling over - oh dear! Thankfully, both Lynne and I managed to retain our composure and all was okay.

I think there was something in the air yesterday though as none of the microphones in Church were working, our organist forgot that we were omitting a couple of verses from one hymn and carried on playing after the Curate had started the next part of the service and the wrong service sheets went out! 

Watching the University boat race just confirmed that the stars were misaligned, the moon was waning or some such astronomical effect was creating negative vibrations....I'm sure that Cambridge thought so anyway! Then there was the marathon in Sheffield that was stopped before it started due to the water not turning up.....definitely a strange day all round!

Time for a coffee now I think. I've had my dinner courtesy of Heather who made a chilli last night and brought me a portion round today...delicious! I still feel chilly though (no pun intended) so a cuppa is definitely what's needed and then it'll be a fairly early night as I'm up first thing tomorrow for a Doctor's appointment - just a medication review so I hope it's less pills rather than more on the menu!