The destruction continues

 A week since I posted! Nothing exciting to report except for three Canberra days this week, which is probably two too many. We went in Sunday for the scale model swap and sell - I went to the Canberra Quilt show for the first time in years. I enjoyed it but it is about half the size that it used to be when I did white glove duty - it used to be in two buildings and now it's in one, with fewer quilts and not nearly as many vendors. But entertaining for a couple of hours. We then had a lovely long lunch with friends and yet another quick trip to Ikea for blinds ... Monday I went in on my own to go to the doctor and have a lovely gossipy coffee with a colleague from work (I'm not missing it, but I still love to get the goss) plus buy some ugg boots because it has been minus 7 which is COLD. Then Thursday we went back to get the house ready for another futile open day, bought some electric blankets (see minus 7 above) and did grocery shopping. Exhausting!

But there has been time for continuing the destruction. Here is a perfectly fine bay tree that was innocently growing away ... except it is three metres tall and about a foot from the house and suckering like a crazy thing. I can understand why you might plant it there - there are oregano and rosemary bushes too - but it has gotten way too big and was making the kitchen very dark.

So it got the chop. Chainsaw guy did the hard work and we pulled on ropes and removed the branches using the less serious chainsaw and the loppers. Small pile for firewood, much larger pile for the chipper and plenty of little suckers still living to supply bay leaves for casseroles.

It went through the chipper like a dream - long straight branches with lots of leaves. Our chipper doesn't really mulch the leaves very finely but that's OK, we are still going on beds where we want to kill the ivy. It smelled lovely and was fun to spread about. 

Of course now all we can see is the sad state of the house exterior. It's weathertight and not too bad but needs a re-paint and a bit of carpentry care in spots. That is not my photography at an angle... that is how badly that wall and the chimney leans in. That's an unused chimney but it is very picturesque so I think we have to keep it. We also had the pipes freeze for the first time! The tenants never mentioned it so we think it was a combination of the cold and the removal of the bay tree. The acanthus certainly looked very sad losing the shelter. Anyway the pipes are barely lagged so we will get onto that, should be an easy fix. 

And in even more exciting news we now have matching his and hers safety helmets with ear muffs and face shields. Gardening is more dangerous than I had anticipated.