Fire place tested!

Last night we lit up a fire in the fire place for the first time since we moved here in late July.
Found out there's no damper in the chimney to shut when the fire place is not in use, or forget to open when starting new fire... ;-) That's a bit odd to me. But maybe that is the standard here, not to have one.
Anyway, the fire went extremely well. We had an old bamboo wind chime that the previous owners had left here. That made excellent piece of firewood. I do not like wind chimes, why would you add more noise to your garden and annoy all the neighbours too? So burning it gave me great satisfaction.

Spring time in the garden?

It seems like some bulbs in our garden are a bit eager on getting started!
It is still only a few degrees above freezing here, the snow has been gone for just over a week and there are a bunch of green things already shooting up from the ground. Just have a look:

Shoots in the back garden

...and shoots in front of the house.

As for what it is, I have no idea whatsoever. All I know is that we have a shed load of bulbs in the ground there... :-)

Buddleia "gone"

Did a bit of pruning in the garden yesterday evening. Had to cut down the Buddleia to almost nothing. It looks like it had not been pruned properly before for a long time and then this hard winter broke it. The base had split and bits were rotten. So I had to cut it back really hard. With a bit of luck it will survive. ;-) If not, we have to get a new one.
A Buddleia will only flower on the new shoots from the same year, and it is the flowers that makes the bush beautiful and attractive. Its flowers attracts butterflies, so we want flowers, not shrubbery.
Now all that is left is to shred the branches I cut off, and then await the spring.

The root stump left.

Branches for shredding!

Some more cat pictures

Since I haven't published any pictures of Lily for a while, I thought I'd better do so now. Here's three new ones, fresh from the camera:-

Shed pictures

Just took a few pictures of the new garden shed here: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/tooony/GardenShed
The shed measures 180 * 210 cm so it is just big enough for storing our garden tools and equipment there. Barbecue, mower, shredder, chain saw, loppers, shears, hedge trimmer, spades, pots, wheel barrow... It can all go out of the garage now!
There is more work to be done on the base under the shed, to have it look pretty. And maybe I'll build a more permanent roof on the fire wood storage. The green color blends in quite well with the surroundings. Well with the hedge behind really. And it is a quite similar in tone to the green paint we put on the lower boundary wall some time ago.