Emergency side garden....

The side garden has always been the tricky one here. It has massive ponding issues on one side at the bottom, which revealed themselves again this afternoon when we got to a certain point in digging out the bottom. It's on the north side of the house and we cannot see it from front or back....so why bother? It was horribly overgrown when we arrived and has a few stumps, one of which we haven't managed so far to remove. We've just ended mostly neglecting it, and making slow progress on improvements (and enjoying the peony when it flowers). We did sort out by the front gate last year, and the difference between today and later in August 2024 is very obvious. We do hope to slowly finish the rest this year, and thus provide ourselves with some new space for plants - either new ones, or ones taken back out of the beds at the back as they have outgrown them.

Today didn't work out quite as it should. I'd intended to go to the Dornoch market, and Mr A was going to come with me. However, I thought to check whether the market was on before we set off and it turns out that the market is not every fortnight, but every second and fourth Wednesday of the month. Which means that it is next week. The confusion arises because July had five Wednesdays....

So we pointed ourselves south rather than north and went to Fraser Bros in Alness to pick up some bits we need for the back garden, in particular for the shed base build which is happening on Saturday.

I interspersed a bit of digging and tidying in the side garden amongst working this afternoon and so did Mr A, and I ended up missing a scheduled swim because we ended up having a beer after digging. As you do. Hey ho. It's nice that at least days can still happen in a slight unscheduled way up here.

I added an extra of the other side of the side garden. I think one of the next things we might do is power wash the moss off the path. That would make the whole thing look a lot tidier.