A bit of all sorts!

Just a late night post before bed time. It's been a busy day here one way and another. This morning I had the final dental appointment to fit my second replacement crown. This should have been done almost two weeks ago but the new crown had a fault so it had to be made all over again. It's nice to have a decent smile back, though it will take me a while to realise that everything's normal again I think! As my homegrown sweetcorn are very nearly ripe for harvesting, I asked the dentist if my new choppers would withstand biting into the cobs....apparently yes, so I shall look forward to that!

The sweetcorn have been very interesting as I've never grown them before and didn't really know exactly where the cobs grew. I foolishly thought that the yellow spikes growing at the top were going to magically turn into corn and was a bit disappointed at the idea of only one ear of corn per plant! As it turns out, the male flower is at the top and the female flowers that shoot out from the sides are what become the edible cobs - at least three or four on each plant...can't wait!

Talking of things horticultural, I was pretty miffed a couple of weeks ago when my new neighbours decided to cut back the shrubs that are between our front gardens. The shrubs are growing from my neighbour's side and they said they'd like to trim them a bit. The plants have come over onto my side and I said I was fine with them being trimmed as long as it wasn't too drastic as the birds like to perch in them. It was agreed that we'd do the trimming when I was at home so that we could all agree on what got cut back.

Unfortunately, when I was out one morning, my neighbour decided to get busy with the saw and hacked away at everything. Worst of all, he came into my garden and cut back the foliage that was hanging over my low wall as well as breaking one of my solar lamps in the process! I was quite annoyed to say the least. However, nothing has been mentioned and I don't want to fall out with new neighbours who are, otherwise, very pleasant. I'm sure they thought they were doing me a favour, but it has left my garden looking very bare at one side and with no privacy from next door...gggrrrr!!!

To make things worse, there's very little soil on my side in this area so I have been puzzling over what to do next. So, after visiting our mum this morning, Heather and I went to the garden centre and I got some bags of topsoil, compost and grit with a view to creating an area that I can plant up. Last night I found some large rocks that were hidden from view by overgrown Heathers, so I heaved them out and split them with a hammer and chisel. This is as far as I got this afternoon......

.....I've moved a few things around and now I need some new plants!

The gaps above the wall used to be full of lovely shrubbery with blossoms and berries : (  

I've moved some of my pots to fill the gravelly areas that have no soil at all and I've put some new plants into the deeper soil that will, hopefully, grow and create some privacy once more....

...it's not that I'm antisocial, but I don't like having an uninterrupted view into next door's garden! I've planted a lovely fern that I dug out of Heather's garden....she did give me permission! Next to it are a couple of Sunflowers that should flower nicely now that they're in open ground and, to the left of the fern is my bargain of the day..... 

....it's a "Magical Four Seasons" Hydrangea which, apparently, goes through four colour changes through the year. Heather and I loved the vintage look of it and I've wanted a Hydrangea for ages.This one was a steal in the special offers section!

Well, from gardens back to festive makes and here are one or two more examples of what I've been up to with my new stamps. This one is using my Zendoodle ready to go Angel set and the words are from my Inspirational Quotes set. The strip down the side features the Tsukineko Irresisible spray in Lulu Lavender which I then blended over with Shaded Lilac Distress ink.

Here's another card featuring my Peaceful Christmas set. I used a background from my selection that I have ready to use...it was created with Dylusions ink sprays onto damp 300 gsm white card which I then spritzed with white Dyusions through one of Tim's stencils. Not an especially festive stencil, but the colours worked really well and give a Northern Lights glow to the card. For this scene I simply added torn strips of white card with some shading of course....Distress ink applied with a waterbrush.

I'll be making more examples with the new Christmas stamps tomorrow, so will share them as and when!

I thought you might like to see a couple of new spots that Thomas has decided are great places to be. The last couple of days have seen him enjoying being in my company in the garden, but he soon gets bored of me taking more notice of plants than of him! His latest sleeping bed is here......

...curled up on top of the Heathers which make a very springy, if slightly prickly, cushion. If I pat him he goes up and down as if he's on a trampoline!

This morning I couldn't find him in any of his usual places until I went into the bathroom and discovered that his newest resting place is here.....

.....in the bath! Who knows what goes on in the feline mind!

Well, a bit of an eclectic mix of piccies tonight, but I'll be back with more Christmas creations in the next day or two. Nighty night all.