Moving On Song

I remember once upon a time, along time ago, going to a rather terrible B&B in Minehead (a fairly terrible place - at the time) with my family. Every night at dinner the owner would read through the menu and list the vegetables one by one, after which he would say 'fresh from the garden', "Coq Au vin with carrots, fresh from the garden, peas fresh from the garden and potato's dauphinoise fresh from the garden". Clearly this was the source of endless jokes throughout said holiday and will frankly still cause some hilarity when resurrected.

But now.. I GET IT! I am that man. A friend came over for dinner and I couldn't stop myself... "erm that lettuce you are eating - it's from our garden, and the peas and the spring onion - yup, that too". Such is my shock and delight that we have literally grown real life vegetables and fruit (4, count them, 4 strawberries), that I can't hold back, I realise it's dull and not really even surprising to most but I am AMAZED!

Moving on (temporarily of course). It has been an interesting few weeks chez squat. Not one to let the (literal) dust settle for long, I have been having valuations on the house. The first one I thought was slightly crazy but after 3 more it seems not, the changes in the area combined with the work we have done means the value has risen, not insignificantly. This pleases me of course. What pleases me more however is the compliments - admiration for the radiators or niches in the bathroom, an odd 'lovely fireplace' and I am putty in their hands.

I KNOW they are sales people and I KNOW they want my business, but yes, asking me if I am an interior designer will work every time! It's not definite that we will sell and move and yes I would be sad to leave the hard work behind but every time I walk past any of the many building projects down the road I can't help but feel a pang of envy. Besides, the hallway needs re-painting so it must be time to move on!

Strawberry Fields

There are half drunk cups of coffee all around me, the lingering smell of freshly smoked cigarettes hangs in the air, Euro trash beats blares out of the stereo. A holiday in Greece? Turkey, a quick trip to Paris... no no my dear friends, I am in my very own kitchen. Except, it is no longer my own, it is well and truly theirs, buildersville. 5 of them, large and Polish, they don't say much but I can't help but worry about their diets.

At this point there is no point trying stake ownership over the house... it's so much easier to accept that for now it is theirs, they will do with it what they will. So, I creep apologetically around them and watch as things slowly but surely progress.

I am shocked/ amazed about the quantity of produce the consume, coffee, cigarettes, wallpaper, paint, all of it in such ludicrous quantities I honestly don't know where it goes.
A 10m roll of wallpaper is surely enough do approx 5m of wall - apparently not, 2 rolls doesn't even cut it. 7 litres of paint for the outside, no no no, of course they need more. However much you think you need, double it and you might be getting close.

The results, as ever, are pleasing, in fact the newly painted WC door, brought squeals of delight. As ever my love of a dark bold colour knows no bounds. Doors which were previously the cheapest, lowest quality emergency purchase have been transformed into an elegant statement of a door, all through a lick of paint. The paper, I am sure, not to everyone's tastes, but I love it adds a real point of interest to a tiny non space. The exterior, slightly disappointing, mostly due to our choice of hue, is still a vast improvement and the outside light at the back is a literal delight.

Last night I consumed my very first home grown, perfectly formed, deliciously ripe strawberry. Oh the joy!

I Can't Stand The Rain

The rain, whilst doing wonders for the plants, has reeked havoc with general garden progress.
How is a man to lay his grout when no sooner is it down, the rain is washing it away. When a task is as tedious as grouting you really don't want to be doing it multiple times. Oh it's been a fun week!

Still with a little help from Ken the DIY/ Gardener (complete political rants a plenty) we have a garden, well except for the 2 missing slate slabs which we failed to buy to complete the space and the right hand bed which needs populating, and the furniture, and the whole bit down the side of the house.

Veggies are coming on a treat, in a competition the mint would be winning hands down, rhubarb a close second followed by cauliflower, the basil, alas, appears to be drowning.

Tomorrow sees the fateful return of the builders, I am avidly baking in preparation (I find bribery works wonders). And so commences some of the finishing tasks -downstairs WC, leaky roof, loose guttering, and painting the front of the house.

Samples have been liberally applied and colour chosen, a light khaki as inspired by a splendid looking house up the road. Possibly risky due to hideous white plastic windows which I would move heaven and earth to not emphasize but what's life without a few risks! The previous owners, who spent literally no money on the house, had delightfully invested in staining the bricks around the top windows a tasteful bright red!!! This must be dealt with, I don't know how, but I know a man who will....

Light up

Loving the Plumen bulb, which won the Design Of The Year 2011. Just saying!

http://plumen.com/

Singing In The Rain...

I don't know how it happened, I'm not sure when or even why exactly, but somehow it crept up on me and I can deny it no longer. I am officially middle aged. How do I know this? Well during the recent bout of relentless rain my first thought was not, well there go my plans for sitting in London Fields drinking warm white wine out of plastic cups and talking about which party to go to.... no no no, I found myself uttering the immortal words "Well it will be very good for the garden". Dear God save me!

Moving swiftly on. This week has all been about wallpaper, hardly less middle-aged I hear you cry, but not so, my wallpaper inspiration comes from wayyy more cutting edge/ teenage sources.

Stripes - long been a fashion staple but hadn't entered my consciousness for walls, until that is, I found myself wandering round a Jack Wills store in Stratford Upon Avon (so not middle aged!). Entirely unimpressed by the teenage, frat boy clothing (middle aged), I was, however, very impressed by their interiors. An interesting melange of bold colours and styles, modern and vintage (of course) but also pinks next to greens, via blues and purples, stripes next to damasks, with the odd spot in to boot. Somehow it worked, personally I was most taken with the bold coloured striped wallpaper.

This then led me onto stripes more generally, actually it seems, a long time wall classic through the designs of legendary designers such as Sue Timney, love, love, love her simple black and white stripes, bold, classic and contemporary all at once.

I also paid a visit to the uber, uber House Of Hackney, a fantastic new husband and wife interiors design duo. I am not alone in my admiration, they have been all over interiors and main-stream press and rightly so. I visited their brilliant pop up in Dalston a couple of months ago and having decided to plump for their Dalston Rose in my downstairs loo, went to their house/ office/ show-room just off London Fields. A beautiful house, of which the front part acts as a show-room for their designs, the rest is their office and home, taking live-work to the max. All in all very impressive, I was personally most taken with their chosen hue on their exterior render!

I am very excited about the soon to be redecorated WC - floral walls with deep blue wood panelling. It is a tiny room and some schools of thoughts would argue should therefore be kept light and simple to make it seem bigger. I couldn't disagree more. Embrace the smallness, embrace the darkness, and use it's size as an opportunity to make a statement. I predict a dramatic, bold, amusing room which could otherwise be a tiny, nothing space..... we'll see.

Enough of this tittle tattle, back to the important stuff, the tomatoes are doing well, the lettuces at the back thriving, we have 2 little green strawberries and the rhubarb may well need re-housing to a bigger pot... ROCK.... AND.... ROLL!

The Birds And The Bees

The long gap between this post and my last is not entirely due to my slackness, not entirely... it is symptomatic of the length of time it takes to build a garden, however moderately sized, from scratch. Particularly when the building is being done, in the main, by one amateur (occasionally) enthusiast with the odd flurry of help/ hindrance from his better half and her four year old niece.

Still after weeks of proper graft we are moving slowly away from urban wasteland to city retreat, I even saw a real life bee buzzing around today - I kid you not!

As with most things in project squat, our starting point was pretty dire. I don't know how the weeds were managing to grow but they were abundant, what we thought was soil was a combination of razor blades, pegs, hair bobbles, old tiles, bricks and glass - mainly glass. There wasn't a single plant to nurture and the ground was majority poured concrete - if in doubt slap some concrete on it.

We are not there yet but I am in awe and excitement at the progress. We were even able to spend some SERIOUS cash at a garden centre and spend two delightful (for delightful read knackering, no idea how those OAP's do it) days gardening.

Yes we have the floor to lay, yes, yes there is way more planting to be done, of course it still looks like a dumping ground. But in my head I am already out there with my glass of rose in the afternoon sun, the only interruption from my blissful daze, the gentle sway of the grasses and wafts of lavender, with perhaps the odd butterfly fluttering past.

Spring Fever

Spring is well and truly in the air which can only mean one thing, chez squat. Time to tackle the garden. A small attempt was made to tackle the garden last year but somehow in an amongst building a kitchen, bathroom, 3 bedrooms, living room, downstairs loo.... it fell by the way side. Slack!

Such excuses are no longer valid so, it's time to channel our best Percy Thrower and address the wasteland that is our 'garden'. In all honesty I think it has been 1 part lack of time, 3 parts fear that have held us back. Give me a wall to knock down, bathroom to design, builder to manage - pas de problem, give me a daffodil bulb and a bag of soil - stumped. I have been told I bare a passing resemblance to Guardian gardener supremo Alys Fowler, alas I have discovered that titian locks alone do not a gardener make.

In walk wonderful pal Jame to the rescue! James, just so happens to be a landscape architect. In exchange for plying him with booze and the odd Sunday roast we now have a fully fledged garden design. Don't be alarmed, there will be nothing fancy about this garden, our desires are simple, somewhere to sit, maybe throw the odd BBQ for friends, make the most of any sun we do have, somewhere to grow some veg and herbs, and a place to drink a glass of rose on a warm Summer's evening (clearly in my head I in in a garden in Provence not wasteland in Hackney!). The importance of reclamation and a 'lived in' feel remains prominent, James and I are definitely on the same page there.

Big snag with project garden is the necessity for patience, something I have very little of but will require in abundance. Still one step at a time.

Step 1 - The clear out.