56. It's starting to make sense.

Well, here we are at the last day of January. It's seemed like quite a long month, the dark days don't help. We've made a good start though. We've continued to chop gorse up to add to our log store and I've been clearing brambles in the garden while Rich shreds all the debris. I decided the clearing of the pond in the front garden (which has never been done and is completely overgrown with brambles, reeds, moss etc) ought to be a joint venture. So every day for the past week Rich has joined me sitting by the pond and pulling as much as possible out of it. It's not very pleasant as it's been quite wintry and it's rather smelly but we've made good progress and tomorrow we might even finish it.

Rich has planted some fruit trees, an apple, a plum and a medlar. I've sown 4 different types of tomato seeds, they're in trays in a propagator in the cabin. Miraculously nearly all of them have sprouted including the ones that were from tomatoes we'd grown last year. I've also put some more sweet pea seeds in to replace the ones eaten by mice although I ended up managing to save many of the first lot as although all the leaves had been nibbled off they've grown new ones. They're all being kept safe in the cabin until they're big enough to survive in the polytunnel. I've also sown the first cauliflower seeds. 

There's been quite severe storms recently. I think there's been the highest winds we've experienced here. It's quite daunting hearing the large gusts and wondering whether anything is going to blow away, the roof and nearby trees are the main concern but all was ok. The eucalyptus tree in the front garden has lost a large branch but that was our only casualty. The French doors in the cabin let water in quite badly during one of the storms, this is probably because we fitted them to open inwards when they're designed to open outwards. The liklihood is we're going to have to change them round but that's definitely a summer job and one I'm not looking forward to, they were horrendous to fit when we first put them in. 

Work continues to complete the cabin, Rich has nearly finished grouting the tiles in the shower room and there's quite a few more fiddly type jobs to do. I've now got 2 cupboard doors on in the kitchen, 2 more to go. They've got to be painted yet which I'll probably do when I give the whole lot another coat. 

We are starting to look towards working on the house. It's still our long term goal to live there eventually. This extra time has afforded us more opportunity to realise how we want the house to be. In some ways we've become more adventurous in our plans. Hopefully this year we'll see big changes.