I decided against painting the shutters and went off to the garden centre near L'Isle Jourdain to get some plants to perk up the garden a bit. At least after the rain the soil would be workable.
I bought a car load...
...and they are lovely!
I thought I would put them in the patch that Pete cleared on Monday...
..it gets some shade from the buildings, but also sun. First I watered all the plants thoroughly by plunging them into a bucket of water, and then it was time to fork over the soil. Not such a simple job! Two hours and nearly 3 barrow loads of rubbish later and I am still not half-way across the patch.
This is my third barrowload!
I also uncovered / dug up some big flat stones that were obviously part of a path. I had found others from this path before and I'm pretty sure it led from the end room of the house to the outside toilet, which was the only one available. I like to think of it as the Thunder Path. When I bought the house it had a concrete slope at the back and the little door from the end room opened onto this. I think that you would have gone out of that door, across the concrete under the barbecue shelter and across the little area I am digging, to the loo!
I used the outside loo for a year before I had proper sanitation. Here it is in its cosy little 'shed' (before I moved in to the house)....
Anyway, I digress...
Did I mention it was really cold this morning? Well, of course, as soon as I started digging, the sun came out and it was BAKING HOT! I'm taking a break right now, writing this, and I'm going to go back to the digging this evening when it's a little cooler.
Seeing as how this hamlet was actually the farm barns for the Knights Templar, who had their quarters in a little village called Champeau, just a stone's throw from here, I thought I might uncover at least one interesting artefact. What I did discover is an awful lot of bindweed, mixed in with a considerable amount of nettle roots. It made me think - I've never seen bindweed on the Time Team...
...why is that? It certainly slows things down, trying to pick it all out, and I wouldn't like to think how long it would take with a teeny Time Team trowel...
4 comments:
Best of luck - looks like jolly hard work but at least you will be able to appreciate the flowers when you sit on the loo!!! Is it still usable?
No - the mechanism finally broke (it was like an aircraft loo) and my son helped me to take it out.
What a great blog and what a lovely project you have on your hands! Renovation work is so hard and I know (very well) that sometimes it seems never ending. Worth it in the end though - even all that gloss painting!
Best wishes and thanks for following me! Helen
I would actually like an outside 'loo'--we call it an outhouse. I know my husband won't put one in, but if I lived in the country and lots of guests showed, it would come in handy! I see you have lavender in the car boot (we call it the 'trunk'). You are certainly determined to make a proper flower bed---will you be adding some fertilizer or compost to the soil?
Post a Comment