Public holiday

It was a public holiday in Victoria yesterday, for the footie grand final (which is actually this evening and, for the first time ever, being played in Brisbane not Melbourne). It was also quite a nice day, weatherwise. Mostly sunny. Pleasantly warm.

So Jim and I took the opportunity to assemble the new outside table that came from Bunnings on Monday. It wasn't too complicated to put together, although the picture instructions weren't as clear as they might have been.  We didn't realise that the bracing pieces had an up and a down and put them on the wrong way round.  Easily fixed. And now we have an outside table AND we are still married!

But I decided that trying to assemble the benches that came with the table might prove to be too much of a strain on our relationship. Too many different pieces. And there's no hurry; the bloke who's coming to re-lay and slightly extend the patio isn't coming for another month. I'll think about the benches later.

Then I turned my attention to the front garden. The little side bed desperately needed weeding. In addition to the hollyhocks and lupins, it was full of long grass and what I think is a kind of wood sorrel. It's very pretty but it is rather taking over. So I weeded around the hollyhocks and lupins then topped up the bed with some of the diminishing heap of garden soil. I don't think anyone has ever worried very much about the gardens in these units. When we arrived the front garden was full of agapanthus and the "soil" looked more or less like builders' rubble mixed with clay. Jim got the agapanthus out and I planted the front bed with lavenders, rosemary, a curry plant and seaside daisies which don't seem to mind living in poor soil. I do feel, though, that I should start improving the soil a bit.

Anyway, I then hung a bamboo trellis on the side fence with metal S hooks. The fences are made of metal and I can't think of any easy way of attaching things to them. The S hooks will do for now (and possibly indefinitely!). I have planted three small sweet pea plants which will hopefully climb up the trellis.

And now the front garden looks like this:

I'm glad I decided to do all that yesterday. The top temperature was probably around 21d. The weather was pleasant.  Today the top temperature is forecast to be around 13d and when I went out about an hour ago it looked like this:

I haven't read the rain gauge yet so i don't know how much rain we had overnight, but it sounded quite heavy when I got up for a loo stop at around 3:00.

My desk appears to have acquired a new ornament

Whiskey spends quite a bit of time sat there, looking out the window. I'm not sure quite what he is watching, but it is his favourite window. Brandy tends to gaze out the windows at the front of the house.