How to build a stumpery - Part 1 - Ive got wood

With the garden drawing finally nearing completion my most recent focus of attention has been on  a particularly shady area just in front of the conservatory. this  area already hides an architectural marvel: my soakaway - half a metre deep and 3 metres long, filled with gravel and stone and capped off with huge flagstones. I've spent many hours staring intently; deciding how best to utilise this space and  answer I've settled upon is to transform this rather pitiful area to a magical shady grotto. I noticed there wasn't much on the web to help the novice stumpery architect and so with tome research and effort  I have endeavoured to explain the process in a 2-part blog thriller - part one (this one) imaginatively entitled "How to build a stumpery - (check out my stump) will be followed with the as yet untitled "part deux"  in due course.

The most important aspect of a stumpery if of course a stump. They're hard to come by but if you cant get one, a bunch of logs will do just as well. What youre after is lots of nooks and crannies which you can plant with ferns later. At the risk of being gender biased I would suggest that about 50% of the population like an interesting stump and the more gnarly it is, the better. Here I'm using an impressive stump I got from the local farm just down the road. I also commissioned a local axe-wielding lunatic to care me  a Green Man out of oak which will form part of the centre-piece.

 

I chiselled drilled and sawed the remnant section of oak trunk I had going spare to create a small cutaway and water basin. Furthermore, I drilled  several holes around the log. These cavities will later be plugged with ferns. I should add when selecting wood to shape in any way, think carefully before you select hardwood or softwood. Hardwood is damn hard! Saws, jigsaws chisels hatchets and even an axe all tried with limited success. In the end my saviour was Walter the De Walt drill and a 40 mm bore drill. (of which I blunted and broke 3 before getting if completed) You can see the bore marks on the wood. Then I took a blowtorch to it to give it a blackened and aged look.

A  stumpery needs to not only look good, but also work as an holistic micro-ecosystem. Your stump (or logs) will need to be resting in soil and preferably buried 6 inches or so down. This is to promote the growth of all that lovely wood rotting bacteria. 

What this will give you is basically a five star invertebrate holiday camp.  This will in turn attract froggies and toadies. Replicating that organic-rich humus that you get in the woods is quite simple. 

You will need compost, wood matter and leaf mulch. I used a third compost, a third wood chippings and a third sawdust.

Now lay out your soil and bury your wood. This is the time to get a little arty and add some fairy-dust  grotto charm with some oversized wooden mushrooms and some old moss covered bricks. 

You can do these yourself with a little practice or do like I did, have some fun having a go yourself, add some manly scars to your hands and then pay someone selse to do it. 

By the time you are finished you should have your stumpery layout ready for planting out

So thats it for part 1 - hold on to your hats - part 2 in already under way and should be finished by the weekend.(cor it's all excitement in my house I tell ya....)

Remembering Pollyanna - life in the wake of Neo-natal death

Yesterday was Pollyanna's birthday. Today is the 3rd anniversary of her death

We should be celebrating. Instead I can hear wifey upstairs bathing Harriet and as her voice chuckles down the stairs, I'm reminded again of a future that's could have been.

On average, 17 neonatal babies die every day in the UK. Today, 17 families were ripped apart. And tomorrow so will another 17. almost one every 90 minutes. To many of you, these are just numbers. I hope its a burden you never have to carry.

Today, I pondered over those agonising moments again in the delivery room. We were advised our baby had a genetic fault that was 100% fatal.

Of course 10 months later we found out that Pollyanna didn't have the genetic fault that was 100% fatal. So she could have lived. We were advised that she were she to have lived, she would have been severely physically and mentally disabled and so the choice we made was the right one. But I don't agree.

If I were told there was any chance of Pollyanna living, I would have taken that opportunity. Yes it would have been incredibly hard work and would have meant huge changes to our lives, but the alternative, to sanction euthanasia based on some feeble notion of kindness or sparing any suffering is fundamentally flawed. You only have to sit in the light sensory rooms at Center Parcs to understand that our notion of quality of life does not necessary apply to those with mental and physical disability. When I looked into those deep blue eyes just before she was whipped away to intensive neonatal care - I saw life.

I have spent 3 years wondering whether I could call for a case investigation. What I should have been thinking was whether I should.

For Polly - with Love

DIY Couch - the sequel

The time has come to unveil my masterpiece that is my DIY couch.

Its taken 3 months and has kept me variously entertained as well as keeping Tesco’s in profit with all the plasters I have had to buy.  

 

So now I have a knuckle that I cannot bend, a manly scar and another amusing anecdote for my Grandchildren on long wintery evenings by the fire.

 

And I have a sofa! Rock on! Y’know -  I'm pretty pleased with this. I always had in my mind what it would look like and its turned out exactly as I imagined. The only time I wobbled was when I decided at the last minute to re-purpose some Laura Ashley drawers and put them under the sofa for extra storage.

This sofa stands as testament that anyone armed with a ‘Can do’ attitude, some screws and a hammer can eventually, can with some agile thinking, come up with something resembling a sofa. And it actually looks and feels rather good.

Being from a testing background, I've Load tested it (my fat ass) and  it is still holding together.  This moment of success should not be noted lightly - marks a turning point: With the pergola last summer, that represents a DIY success rate of 2/2. Yes.....gone are the Homer Simpson-esque DIY efforts – Im approaching a modicum of DIY ability.

 

So I was feted with a banquet of Sainsburys 'taste the difference' grapes an a small  parade in my honour before being quickly reminded that the downstairs loo needs "sorting out".

Harriet loves it and took all of 10 minutes to figure out how to unlock the drawers. Watch out for those babies, they’re a lot smarter than they look....