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...
We've never had a garden big enough to accommodate our cars. In every house we've lived in, parking has always been outside, on the street. Apart from having to usually fight for parking space outside our house in West Didsbury, we've never really considered parking....
It was back in May that we finally bought a shed and started the job of building it. We made the initial mistake of thinking we'd bought just a shed, like the B&Q one we used to have in our garden back in West Didsbury, which was functional, but a bit on the cheap...
For the first time this year, we made the trip to Pula. Normally, we'd by now, be making fairly regular trips to the airport to pick up and drop off visitors, but this is no normal year. Our first trip, done with a bit of trepidation, was to Bauhaus and Pevex, our...
The garden area at the front of the house has not really been renovated, as such. It's certainly been tidied up and areas of it do look a whole lot better, but apart from the addition of garden furniture and potted plants, that's about it. But, as we'll be going...
Although the weather is still not *perfect*, we’ve definitely come out of winter and hibernation. The woodburner is on less these days, our heaters are only switched on to get rid of the early morning chill, and we’ve even had a window or two open. The garden, which...
To the front of the house, we have an area which is mix of concrete paving and grass. The grassed area, in particular, is a bit of a mess, as it’s where we currently park the cars. We’ve used bamboo plants to screen the garden as much as possible from the road –...
We’ve never had huge outdoor spaces anywhere that we’ve lived previously. In our last house in West Didsbury, we managed to create quite a funky little haven, out of scaffold planks. But it was still a bit of a tight squeeze and although we loved it, we never had a...