Some things don't need an explanation..

This is what greets me every time I need to go and get a garden tool. And it smells absolutely divine... And on the right hand side of the door there is a small golden honeysuckle adding to the scent as well. It's not as big as the rosebush yet but give it a couple of years and it will cover the wall behind it and the doorway. I'll make sure of that!

Right now inside the old paintshop there is a very pungent smell of wood oil since we have given our patio furniture their first coat. It didn't help to have both doors open and all windows wide open, I still got a headache from the fumes.

We've celebrated midsummer here in Sweden and we had my mum and sister with bf over to stay. We had a bit of luck with the weather being very nice and warm so we did manage to have a bbq. Much laughter and a game of boule on the lawn after the bbq made the evening complete. We didn't have a midsummer pole to dance around and neither did we bother about going somewhere to have a look at one being raised. We might have one next year and I'll make sure that James does the frog dance as well! Everyone stayed the night and we had a very late night game of TP. The next day was very chilly after a early morning downpour which actually filled all the water butts! We were all very tired so we just relaxed and had a nice lunch before people started to set of back home.

And today it is back to the grindstone but somehow I don't mind anymore, because I can just leave it all back in Falun when I go home at night. It does make a difference with a bit of distance between work and home. Anyway for me and it also helps to know that I can just sit out in the garden and relax if I like when I get back home.

Some pictures from our new house and garden. These are the lovely pink roses in their new pots on the steps.

I just love these flowers. Gazanias they are called here and they only open when it is sunny.

Finaly done with the new hall downstairs and upstairs!

And this is what we are considering having on our kitchen wall, it's just a little bit of wall by the window that will have it if we decide on it.

A young brunette goes into the doctor's office and says that her body hurts wherever she touches it.
"Impossible," says the doctor.
"Show me."
She takes her finger and pushes her elbow and screams in agony. She pushes her knee and screams, pushes her ankle and screams. Everywhere she touches makes her scream.
The doctor says, "You're not really brunette are you?"
The girl says "No, I'm really a blonde".
"I thought so," the doctor says.
"You have a broken finger."

Time is a flying...

Where do the days go? I cant believe just how quickly the days have passed since we moved in with boxes, furniture and fishes. Thing is, it is only 3 weeks since we did move in and we already have some flower beds going and a bit of a vegetable patch started. Plus we have managed to almost agree on a wild kind of wallpaper for the kitchen and paint the hall a very nice shade of green. Today we went and bought some more good soil and 3 pale terracotta pots for my intense pink patio roses I bought earlier this week. They are now sitting nicely on the steps up to the front door.

I also managed to connect the water butts together with this brilliant set of tube and washers that James dad suggested we get. I still cant believe that we Swedes haven't come up with something similar so James ordered them online and had them sent to his parents and they sent them on to us. Might be a good import idea there...Hmm. I got a bit of assistance from Lotta when assembling them so if there is rain tomorrow as they predict with some thunder included we will be set with rain water in hopefully all 5 butts for another spell of nice warm summer weather as we have had for 3 days now.

I planted my beans today and put up the bean poles. All I need to do now is sow some marigolds and weed and water. Until this autumn that is. We have to see if we will get started on a bigger vegetable plot, lots of digging involved there though so we'll have to see, I would like to be able to grow potatoes at least!

I had a nice little chat to one of our neighbor's. We can call her Liz. She has lived here all her life and took over her parents house. She used to know the first people who owned this house and she could tell me quite a lot about how it used to look like before. They had big garden beds with summer flowers and vegetables in them, but they were all on the wrong side for us as we intend to dig up the lawn closer to the house rather then the old shop. They had pebble paths inbetween the beds and now I understand where all the pebbles are coming from when we have been digging up our new flower beds. She also said there used to be a one room and kitchen upstairs and that the 2 brothers lived in the house with their parents and one brothers family. It would be fun to get a hold of some pictures from how it looked like then. Maybe I'll ask our Liz nicely if she has any.

I cant believe how many shades of green there is!

We are trying to decide on a nice apple green for our hall that continues on up the steps and the landing upstairs. We contemplated lots of different colors before settling on some sort of lime green or apple green. Not knowing how many shades there were that looked nice on paper and horrible on the wall we are now into our fifth tester pot and still it doesn't feel right. Well one of the new ones we got today feels better then the darker olive green we decided on yesterday. The olive is nice in daylight but makes the hall look very dark at night time. What to do, what to do..

In other news we have finished digging two flower borders and have planted one up but got some left to do in the shady one. The tomatoes have gone in the short end where there is sun all day and they are really sprouting on now. We have also got rid of the big mound of dirt that they dug up earlier when fixing a leaking water main. We also shifted the big lilac bushes they uprooted at the same time.

We are doing a wee bit of planning for the future as well. We really do want a green house in the garden or a conservatory added onto the house and if we did the latter one we could have a patio area next to it with steps down to the garden we thought. Still have to decide where the vegetable garden is going to be dug this autumn though. I dread that because it was hard enough doing the little flower beds with all the turf that had to be removed and all the weeds that left all their roots if you weren't careful with the fork. Maybe we could have a digging party? Anyone interested?

I think I'm going to have a look if the paint has dried yet, they tend to dry darker these green ones..