Sunrise through the early morning mist.

It was not I that took this picture! Mike goes off for a walk about 6a.m. and takes the camera sometimes. He meets all manner of people on these walks. Today it was a landscape gardener. He is to come along and get rid of/trim/cut back the awful leylandii which are totally masking the views at the rear of the house.


One of our cherry trees in blossom. So far I have found two pink ones at the rear. Others are white, not sure which are ornamental and which will bear fruit. I am not up on cherry trees. Yet.
There are cherry trees at the front, and in the middle of the lawn. All in blossom at the moment.

This is our sitting out area, by the summer house. The path to the right leads to a small wrought iron gate. But as this is straight on to the road , almost onto the t junction, I cannot think what use it is to have.

Also in the seating area one of the buddhas contemplating the pots of lilies.

I had hoped to get them into the garden proper, but as yet, we are still mulling over where to put what, so they will remain in their pots for another year.

I tried out our wood burning chimenea, despite the fact it was a glorious day! The wood Mike had bought was a bit big and has just smouldered. But once we get the right stuff it will be very useful in the summer evenings. And I do love the smell of wood burning. We intend to have a wood burning stove installed inside the house.

Oh! Nearly forgot. We found out how to work the wine coolers in the dining room. I should have known - most things in this house have a remote control, even the lights, and there was this wee remote which I had thought was to redirect the sound from the radio into different rooms. But no, Mike discovered it turned the wine coolers on. So we have two bottles of white wine in there and see what happens!

Just as we came in from outside our friend from up the road called by. Now my normal reaction to any visitor is to drag them in and put the kettle on or open a bottle. But she was accompanied by a very large Dobermann....Not knowing where our three cats were I had an uncomfortable chat on the doorstep, feeling so bad as this was so totally against my grain. And this the person and husband who had given us what was one of the best meals I have ever had, the day after we moved in. Anyroads we got invited for afternoon tea on Monday, so havent completely blotted our copy book.

I am so unused to a social life after running a b&b for nine years and being at paid guests beck and call it is hard to get my brain into gear that I am no longer in that situation! Always having to be around from 4p.m. onwards. Not forgetting the mornings and breakfast and cleaning rooms and making beds. I still find it difficult to go and sit in the sitting room and watch the television as for many years, come the evening I would be in my bedroom watching it there. Even though this is a different house I still have that feeling of possibly having to disappear should a guest want to be in the sitting room. How daft is that! And when Phoebe, our parrot starts the jungle noises, it really doesn't matter, whereas it did before. That sort of taut feeling that everything had to be right for others not us.

They do say you have to be mad to do b&b. Lets hope sanity is slowly coming back.