Hackney is lush

The civil unrest and looting in Hackney had a lot of New Zealand friends and family texting and emailing the last couple of days. They had a vision of the whole of East London burning to the ground. Well, these are friends etc who weren't on social media, so I guess it proves that traditional media over there is reporting way behind 'real time' events. As a rampant user of Twitter I felt as though I was on top of the slew of information, until some numpties started to spread untrue rumours about the state of various local places.

This article from Vice on the battle of Mare Street shows some graphic images as it all kicked off - Mare Street is a few minutes walk from our house. We were none the wiser, having cycled through Victoria Park to get home. The only clue was the helicopters overhead and the anxious people walking towards Victoria Park warning me to 'not go that way'.

Looking out from our kitchen was the view above - hardly any other buildings visible, just a mess of gardens and trees, which is the Hackney I prefer to think of rather than the broken mess that was left behind on Tuesday.

Fake dog

I had some great feedback about owning a dog on my Facebook page, mostly from friends who are dog owners. It has definitely put me off: Everything from the cost of replacing damaged furniture to hiring dog walkers and finding time to take it to the vet, through to some of the more colourful medical conditions they get (swollen anal glands, anyone?)

I bought Marlo a life-size Dalmation for her birthday and I have to say it's pretty convincing. A neighbour saw me arrive home with it on the back of my bike a couple of months ago, but even she did a double take from her garden when she saw it propped up against the window. I'm hoping that potential burglars will see it when they poke their faces over the fence and think it's real. Regardless, the neighbours on the other side are chipping in to buy a security gate for our communal alleyway this summer so no-one will be able to get to our garden gate once that goes in.

But it's not all gloom and doom and dwelling on burglars - I found a wall mounted bottle opener at Oliver Bonas for £8.50 and it's been useful to have in the garden when there are beers to be drunk.

Spring in Hackney

April in Southern England usually doesn't get warmer than the high teens (that's celcius kids) so you can imagine how delicious it's been the last two sun-saturated weekends with the temperature going as high as 27 degrees. It's like June, in Spain. The Bluebells were out two weeks early in the Ashdown Forest in Sussex (Winnie the Pooh territory FYI) and back in London the view in all directions was suddenly heaving with greenery.

We did a lot of garden related tidying up, well, Rob did it mostly as it involved sorting out the wooden furniture with it's annual weather proofing facelift, fixing the sun umbrella, mowing the lawn, trimming plants and filling sacks with weeds and stuff. I managed to sit on a sun lounger and read a magazine cover-to-cover in between making marinades for BBQ items.



The best bit was getting two rolls of copper tape in the post (£8 from eBay) which means this years lettuce project is off to a flying start. Or maybe my reputation as a snail assassin has reached the corners of our garden. Either way, the snails are being shy.

Lettuce despair

We've just gotten back from two weeks in Northern Croatia where it was in the high 20s (celcius that is) most days. On two days there was the most severe thunder and lightning storms right over the Istrian villa, and monsoons would dump down for a few hours. It was pretty crazy weather.

Turns out it had been raining in London too, which was great for our lawn which is now a lovely bright green colour (pictured top, this morning - even the bamboo looks happy). Unfortunately, rain also means snails get their groove on. One evening last month I managed to slay 36 of them who were giddy from their spoils after a heavy shower. They must have had relatives because as you can see from the photo below, there's not a shred of leaf on any of my lettuces. I didn't get to eat one bite. All that plant food and sunshine and constant watering and for what?

Next summer it's war. I'll be collecting coffee grinds, egg shells and yoghurt containers (to make beer traps) for my amory, until then, I'm on the lookout for a hobby which doesn't involve gardening.

Lettuce joy

So the seeds I planted a few months back didn't get up to much, and there were so many weeds I gave up. Fortunately a few weeks ago the local primary school had a fete, where I picked up four teensy lettuces for 20p each. A few litres of miracle plant grow, daily watering and nightly snail squashing has resulted in these enormous lettuces.

I was going to tear off a few leaves to make a salad at the weekend but friends arrived with a gourmet version, so we've yet to taste them. We've been enjoying the spoils of next door's raspberries, blackberries and cherries. Their apples aren't quite ripe yet though. (I should mention that the neighbours are in Singapore for the forseeable future so they don't mind us eating their fruit).

It's a nice feeling living in central London but eating as if we're living in the countryside. If these lettuces survive throughout August I'll be extremely chuffed.

Foxy

Foxes in Hackney have had justifiably bad press lately, thanks to the awful incident with the baby twins being mauled in their cot while they slept (not far from where we live, actually).

We've noticed an increase in fox presence the last few months. Twice we've had a cub on the roof of the glass extension, which I can assure you, is incredibly freaky when you're looking up at a hairy belly and the doors are wide open.

Lately there's been a sunbathing fox over the fence from us. (Pictured - photo taken from the top floor, she's that brown smudge next to the hedge. Excuse the parched lawn). She's there in the morning, the evening and whenever it's sunny. I thought foxes were nocturnal? One of my neighbours bought a sonic sensor which is meant to keep foxes and cats out of his garden, but I've seen the local tough cat sauntering straight past it without so much as a twitch.

Lounghead

Still no splashback to report. The second company assure me that I'll have a quote soon. I gave up on the first company, as they just wouldn't show up. There hasn't been a whole lot of of progress regarding any part of the renovation really.

Last month we spent a week at the same French holiday villa we stayed at last year. The owners had taken my advice and bought a set of really good chef's knives (joy) and had replaced the sun loungers with new ones (pictured top). Our garden gets the sun until 6pm during the summer and it's a bit of waste to watch the lawn from the house. I decided to go to Habitat and get my own lounger, which are on sale right now for £31.50. I got mine in hot pink, and saved another 15% off the sale price due to some promotion they were running at the weekend. Unfortunately, since buying it, it's been raining in London so there hasn't been a whole lot of lounging going on.

Sunny outlook

This photo was taken on a cloudy afternoon to show how quickly the outlook has changed. From a few spindly, naked trees it's now a lush green mess. As far as the eye can see we're looking across other people's gardens. Pretty much all other properties are obscured by foliage. And no-one can see into the glass extension, which is just as well given how exposed it is.

The photo doesn't really do it justice, but trust me, living this close to urban London life and having the feeling that you're in the countryside is a bonus we hadn't considered when we bought this house. It's not even proper summer yet so the trees will only get denser in the next few weeks.

Green fingered fun

This little plastic addition to our garden was a birthday present from some Dutch friends. It's called a cold frame and is meant to assist seedlings burst into something useful, whilst keeping creepy crawlies out.

I've managed to sprout a selection of chives and lettuces, as well as some weeds, but I can't quite tell what's a weed vs lettuce at this point. Slugs and snails have managed to bypass the corrigated plastic and infiltrate the frame. I've poured table salt around the edges to deter them and if that doesn't work will try sinking a plastic cup of beer into the ground as that's supposed to kill them (or at least make them tipsy and lose their motivation?)

Am hoping that we'll end up with a selection of healthy lettuces soon as it tastes so much better to eat fresh leaves than something that's been kept in a plastic bag and washed in bleach. I've never had much luck with plants (now down to just one house plant indoors actually) so I'm not holding out much hope. Plan B if the lettuces don't survive is to buy some ready sprouted seedlings and plant those out.

(Tips on keeping them alive would be gratefully received!)

Office, boiler & outdoor furniture

This is the office nook with the desk and computer back in place. As you can see the boiler is kind of... dominant, and while a lovely bit of kit, it does make some odd noises. We've had a quote in from the Polish builder to house it in a cupboard with shelving underneath. This solution will muffle some of the gurgles and clicks. Not sure exactly when that's going to happen - we need to have the discussion about whether hiding the boiler in a cupboard will add value to the house in the first instance (to get through the mortgage valuation). If not, it can wait for a couple of months.

We arrived back in London on Sunday at 5am and got home a couple of hours later to find our garden was covered in snow. We knew it'd been snowing thanks to the panicked round-the-clock news coverage, but as it happens, the snow was beautiful and despite coming from a tropical climate, we didn't think it was particularly cold.

Annoyingly now that the snow has melted, I can see that three coats of Ronseal hasn't saved the wood on the table (which we only bought this summer) - the wood looks absolutely knackered and swollen with moisture. I'd think about swapping it with our lovely neighbour's identical table but I suspect they might notice. Or worse, be reading this blog!

Outdoor furniture sorted

Our new neighbours have great taste. Aside from the numerous coincidences that have sprung up since we've got to know each other, they saved us several hundred pounds by sourcing the perfect outside dining table and chairs from the end of line department at... yup, Ikea. Despite frequent visits to Ikea and hours perusing the catalogue in the last couple of years, we'd never seen either this table nor the chairs.

Our mission to find an identical set involved a trip to the Edmonton branch for the table and then a couple of phone calls and a 40 mile round trip to the Croydon branch for the chairs. They look like they match but are from two different lines, and being discontinued were a little difficult to track down. Still, at £75 for the table and £15 for each chair we didn't mind the time involved as the alternative was a similar set from John Lewis which would've cost £1,108 vs the £165 we ended up shelling out.



Coincidentally one of the weekend newspaper supplements had an advert for Ronseal Perfect Finish Garden Furniture Oil and for £15 including delivery it seemed a sensible investment. I managed to do all three coats myself - as indeed it was extremely easy to apply (just like the ad promised). Each coat took about 20 minutes (to do six chairs and a table), which was touch dry within an hour and totally dry after four hours. The furniture now has a slightly darker, glossier sheen which should make it weather proof for the next few years.

Hot stuff

Oh no it's finally happened. I've fallen off the wagon and instead of staring with barely contained politeness at people who wax lyrical about their gardens, I have to own up to having a mild interest. It didn't take much. Basically a visit to B&Q on a particularly warm day a few months back saw the impromptu purchase of a selection of baby lettuces, a container to grow them in and a massive bag of compost. Within weeks the lettuces were getting quite large and they've supplied the leaves for numerous salads ever since. Until last week when some kind of animal (a vegetarian fox perhaps?) interfered with the soil and the snails moved in shortly thereafter. I am going to have to dispose of these lettuce remains and the soil as I'm too paranoid to eat them now. I'll do it properly next time, with salt and beer sunk into the soil or maybe some kind of netting system.



In other gardening news (!) we were away for five nights and it was fairly warm in SE England for a few days, topping 30 degrees on Tuesday. The girls had planted a handful of wildflower seeds which were beginning to shoot skywards last week. It turns out they flowered while we were away and them promptly died due to lack of water. I am the greenfinger of death.

At least the chillies seem to like being ignored.

House warming party

We just had the first May Bank Holiday weekend in England, and it was a significant weekend for us as we had a few reasons to celebrate. Firstly, 10 years of marriage (no-one thought we'd last this long, least of all me!), our eldest just turned six and our youngest is about to turn three, and sod it, despite the house not being completely finished we decided to have a house warming BBQ too. I only sent out the invitations a few weeks ago to try and keep the numbers down, and fortunately loads of people had booked trips away or had other engagements. As it happened we ended up with 18 kids and 40+ adults throughout the day, which was plenty.

As you can see from the photos, the weather was cracking - perfectly sunny and completely still, which was lucky as later in the evening we set off 10 Chinese night sky lanterns over Hackney. Even more incredible was that some late arrivals got a bit lost, but found our house by following their noses to the source of the lanterns. The same couple were trekking around Victoria Park the next afternoon and found one of our lanterns still pretty much intact in the park! Amazing co-incidence! (And quite frankly I'm impressed that they were able to leave the house at all, we took two days to surface after the party...)

Lighting up

I'm a regular purchaser of items from The Glow Company - I can't keep track of how many glow in the dark bracelets we go through. The girls use them as night lights, and for a while I had them on the pram for night outings, and of course they were useful for lighting up the gazebo at The Big Chill. I think we must go through a tube of 100 every few months. I was about to order some more when I spied on the website these solar powered garden lights. Excellent idea as we hadn't wired up any lights in the bottom of the garden. This photo doesn't do them justice, they look tiny here whereas in real life they're the size of large grapefruit. About 45 minutes after the sun goes down, these four lights come on and gently phase through the colour spectrum. When we came home in the small hours last weekend I'd forgotten they'd be charged up and it was like walking into a surreal garden disco. Absolutely hypnotic. All four lights come in a pack called "Solar Sphere Stick" and cost £29.99 - which is a bargain when one Mathmos ball costs £40.

On Sunday morning when my drag queen friend Rhys hauled himself out of the spare room I said to the girls "See I told you those magic lights would attract fairies" - Rhys and I fell about laughing while the kids looked completely blank.

Spring sunshine

A visitor from Bethnal Green supplied this photo of our BBQ lunch a couple of weekends ago, and as it shows the house looking sort of finished it seemed a shame not to use it. (Notice how half the deck is missing). Can't understand how the previous owners of this property just didn't make it easy to get out to the garden. The back door was off a tiny utility room, through two sets of doors from the stairs, and a whole floor below the kitchen. Bonkers.

Even though the garden is east facing, it gets the sun from sun up until the middle of the afternoon. We're hoping that as summer kicks in the sun will last even longer as it'll be higher in the sky and should peep over the rooftops. The neighbours said previous occupants had painted the entire middle floor black. Maybe they just don't like sunlight, and hence didn't see the appeal of a garden? Weirdos.

Fantastic Mr Fox

The Easter weekend meant four days of eating, drinking and more drinking
finishing on Monday with a BBQ. During this time we saw a lot of our
friendly neighbourhood fox. I was about to throw away a chicken carcass
and decided that the fox would benefit from some remnants of the plump
organic bird, so tossed it onto the deck. Sure enough, the fox came back
and disposed of the carcass. Rob had been drinking - a lot - and said he
was going to make the fox "work a bit harder". He tied a length of blue
string to a chicken wing and chucked it onto the deck, holding the other
end of the string. Our dinner guests laughed politely but I could tell
they thought it was a bit odd (one of them is a vegetarian!). We turned
out the lights, and lay in wait, camera poised. I felt a bit like Bill
Oddie bird watching, waiting for the money shot.

The fox came back, and took the wing and unfortunately ran round the
side of the house and not out onto the lawn. The string became taut then
the fox let go, so we reeled the wing back in. A few minutes later, the
fox was back, cautiously peering over the deck. It went for a second
strike and this time ran onto the lawn - hoorah! It tussled with the
string for about a minute, before it succeeded and ran off with its
prize. Strangely satisfying.

The next night, we tried piling some past-their-best sausages onto an
upturned bucket. This wasn't so successful as the deck was covered in
stinky sausies the next morning. We won't be putting out food for the
fox any more.

Postscript. By popular demand here's a video of that first visit, when Mr Fox snaffled the wing, only to run off round the side of the house...

First BBQ of the year!

I always enjoy a BBQ. Mainly it means that Rob has to cook which is relatively rare. Case in point, he got made redundant in November (the day we moved in was his last day of paid employment) and for the last four and a half months he's cooked exactly twice. And one of those was heating pasta sauce from a jar when I felt poorly. I was expecting him to get bored and forage for recipes, ingredients and condiments, but it turns out he's able to amuse himself all day long.

Anyway, with the deck half built and friends coming over for lunch it was time to wheel out the Weber. I marinated enough meat to feed a pack of starving wolves, threw together some salads and then kicked back while Rob suffered through the heat and smoke. It was a joy to behold and I look forward to many more BBQs in the coming months.

Progress on the deck

Earlier this week Teia showed up bright and early with this two Antipodean helpers and started digging up the back garden. Before long they'd started building the frame to support our deck. By the time I got home from work they'd built half of it - but unfortunately the lumbar yard (aka timber merchant?) had damaged some of the stock before despatching it, and this particular plank was out of stock in London. The reason it's so popular is that it's wide and extremely long, which means no joins in the middle. The rest of the wood should arrive early next week. We've ordered some oil based stain off the internet (sight unseen) as the wood weathers better if it's been treated. We've gone for light mahogony, which looks pretty dark on screen but I guess it'll fade in the sun.

I'm hoping the wood does arrive next week as we're having people over for lunch and it would be super to have our very first BBQ in the new house before Easter.

Spring has sprung

Yep, those are daffodils - persistent aren't they? The previous owners obviously planted them, and despite masses of dirt, mud, snow and trampling there they are. I feel slightly bad that this time next year (though hopefully sooner) there'll be a wooden deck blocking the light and therefore these hardy little flowers will be nipped in the bud. (Apologies for the lame pun, I am tired.)

The outlook is starting to look quite incredible, the neighbours tree is thick with pale pink blossom, and further along our fence is the densest jasmine I've ever seen. The smell is intoxicating (which is lucky, given how many cats and foxes roam around here). I'm not sure if it's old age or life in Zone 2 but I've become enamoured with all the wildlife, every day we see different species of birds in the garden. We've lived in London for nearly ten years and this is the first time we've seen Jays and Finches. Good job The Guardian gave a free bird guide a few months back or I'd have no idea what the birds were called.

In other good news, Teia was back yesterday for a few hours to do some snagging - he's finished his other jobs and is planning on coming back to finish ours next week. I'm pretty sure I've said that before, so let's wait and see... with fingers and toes crossed.

Feeling blue... and green

Still twiddling our thumbs while waiting for the last bit of phase one to happen. Apparently we should see some action next week. In the meantime, here are a couple of pics to show how we're slumming it on the top floor. This our bedroom. I feel like I should say something like "... this is where the magic happens" as per Cribs, but uh, I won't. Our king size bed at least has matching drawers now (pictured top), so that's a bit of an improvement on our last bedroom. We have Kartell bedside tables (and bigger versions for storage in the TV room) and a cheap Ikea rug is keeping us off the laminate flooring until it's time to lay some carpet. I guess it doesn't look too bad in the photo, but you can't see the ye olde panel cut doors, linen curtains and awful light shade.

I've just borrowed a couple of books on how to design a garden which will be really useful as neither Rob nor I has ever got to grips with anything garden related. We haven't even mown the lawn yet. It feels like spring is here - the weather's been mild, the sky is blue - so it's definitely time to start thinking about planting something.