Measure seventeen times, cut once
The weather has got a lot colder – it was below zero at eight o’clock this morning – but still very dry. I got fed up with my dressmaker’s pencil because it kept breaking, so I bought a box of 10 sticks of chalk from Tesco for 45p. They break too, but not into such tiny bits. I have been drawing lines on the patio to work out where it should be cut. I think I have nearly decided what should be done.
This is where the bottom left hand corner of the lawn will extend into the patio.
The line going through the right-angle of the triangle is just a construction line and not to be cut through. I will rub it out before my landscapers start up their angle grinder.
This is where the patio will be cut to make the right hand border
A mystery has been solved. The hole in my fence, which I first noticed in January 2009 (see Fence damage), was almost certainly made by a fox. I saw a couple of foxes yesterday, running backwards and forwards across the back of my garden, and one of them dived through the hole into next door’s garden. I am going to have the panel replaced when I get the pond and lawn edging built, but I think it would be a good idea if I put some netting across the panel now to try and discourage the foxes from using that route. Otherwise they may just make a hole in the new fence panel. Ultimately I am going to grow some pyracantha up the panel, but that will take a few years.
My pelargoniums don’t seem to have noticed this morning’s frost. I am quite happy for them to continue in blissful ignorance. In September I took cuttings as usual, but only three. I didn’t take them as badly as I usually do, and they seem to have all survived so far.