We've never lived in a house before that has a private parking area. All of our previous properties have had on-road parking, and because we lived in busy Mancunian suburbs, parking could be tricky. Often, our car would be parked away from the house as you basically...
Ever since I saw this photo, I knew exactly what the garden at the rear of the house needed to look like. And, luckily, our builder was totally on board and could see the vision we had. Now, four months on, I couldn't be happier with the way it has turned out. For six...
We decided this summer, with the garden revamp and everything, to replace the wooden sun loungers. Bought when we first moved in, we committed the initial rookie error of never oiling them, and then after the first year, left them outside over each winter. I did try...
So, finally, the whole of the front garden area - the piece we don't actually own, but care for and improve - and the concrete patio, are now covered in a thick layer of beautiful white pea gravel. Six cubic metres have been wheel-barrowed and distributed and raked...
Way back in 2016, we viewed our house fro the first time, and this was the garden. Although "garden" is a bit of a stretch, looking back. A mucky, concrete patio and a patch of scrubby land, full of rubble and stones - proper ankle-breakers - and vines attached to an...
Although it seems like no time since the long, heady days of summer, we're well into October now and only a week away from the clocks going back an hour. Usually, we've had the wood-burner lit by now, and our logs delivered. But not this year. Since early April, we've...
Whilst we've spent the best part of the last four and a half years, fully renovating our Istrian stone-house and creating beautiful gardens to the front and side of the property, the rear has been woefully neglected. We've tried to titivate it up, but it's never...
After over a year of lockdown and travel restrictions, we've finally been double jabbed and now that we can access the EU vaccination certificate, the prospect of travel is on the horizon. Not immediately, but the prospect is there. In the meantime however, we're...
We knew we had to tackle this part of the garden, because it was overgrown, messy, full of stones and rubble from previous renovation works and the trees were literally being strangled by vines and brambles.The little stone wall was falling down in places, and in...
I finally feel we're coming to the end of a very long winter. Although we've still got to see February out - and this is month when for the past four years, we've had snowfall in Istria - there are signs of spring. The bulbs we planted around the base of a big tree...