The BBC made-over my back garden!!!

We moved house last year, to a bungalow, to help with my mobility problems. We had lived in a 4 storey Edwardian house, that was really impractical for me, so after a while of looking, we found our new house.

We needed to do some remodelling inside, which uncovered some structural problems which meant we couldn't move in for 5 months after we'd moved out of our old house!

The garden was a challenge too far for me, so I applied to a programme called "The Instant Gardener", and after a series of interviews and a recce, they chose my back garden as one of the gardens to do. 

I was taken out for the day, and returned to find a wonderful transformation - from a garden that I didn't know where to start, to a sci-fi themed garden.

They had created a portal (from the best ever videogame in the world) and painted my shed TARDIS blue!!

Here's a few pictures from before they started:

It was overgrown, I had no idea what things were, and more importantly, no energy to tackle it. I felt completely overwhelmed by the challenge!

Then, along came the BBC:

I have a Portal in my garden!!!!!

I utterly, utterly love what they did - with help from my husband and our good friend, Stuart. :) They completely transformed the garden, and gave us something I would never have dreamed of, made it completely manageable, and inspired us to take it further:

My mum had given me a chunk of money for my birthday, to buy a water feature; following my day out with the BBC, I knew exactly what I wanted, a pond!!

A couple of day's digging and sand laying by my husband, and we had a pond with a stream :) We carried on, with more help from Stuart, and from the money mum had given me, we finished the garden. When I say "we", I mean I made the drinks and the blokes did all the work!


Here's the pond, and you can see willow screening and cedar chippings behind it:

Looking from the TARDIS along the back of our garden:

 Next to the side of the house:

Looking towards the pond:

More of the Portal, plus a better view of the willow screening - we put that up to hide the tatty, but sound fence, and to give us and our neighbours a little more privacy:

 

 I absolutely LOVE our garden, and am so grateful to the BBC and The Instant Gardener team for the work they did in our garden. Kev and Stuart have worked their socks off, as well, and I now have a garden that I can enjoy, and the only work Kev has to do in it now is cut the grass and rake the leaves in the Autumn! I'm sure he'd like artificial grass soon :)

Lego Marvel Super Heroes almost done!

This has to be the longest it's ever taken me to finish a painting; Radiation has been so patient and understanding :)

I'm almost there now, just have to do the swooshes and outlining, then I'll be ready to post it off - I'll aim to do that over the weekend.

Here's where I'm up to:

I'm so sorry for the poor quality of the photo - it's using my iPad. I've found my camera now, but need to buy another SD card reader,, as I can't find my old one - downside of all my stuff being in storage from July - mid December during the protracted house move!

I'll go out now and buy one, so the finished pictures will be a better quality.

Lego Marvel Superheroes background finished

I'm quite tired today - had things to do over the last week or so that have left me without much energy, but I have painted. 

I've finished the background of @Radiation's painting, and just have the characters to finish, then the outlining left to do. I'm happy with how the background has turned out, and am thankful for the miniature brushes my BFF bought me a while ago, as they are so useful in this painting!

Here it is:

I'll do some more over the next few days :)

Lego Marvel Superheroes continued!

At last, I've done a little more painting! This must be the longest I've ever taken to complete something, but life and medication just keeps getting in the way :(

Radiation, who this is for, is an incredibly patient person thankfully. 

Anyway, here's a little more done - I've painted for a couple of hours this afternoon, concentrating on the right hand background, getting the buildings done. It doesn't seem much for a couple of hours painting, but it is quite detailed!

Here's a close-up of what I've done:

And here's the whole painting so far:

I'll be doing some more in a couple of days, I think.

Lego Marvel superheroes at last

It feels like I keep saying this: "I've not been well, I've been too tired to paint, I've finally paints a bit more".

Being medically retired from work has been harder to deal with than I first thought it would be. I'm still having investigations into the problems with my neck, left shoulder, hand and arm: tomorrow I go for nerve function tests, to confirm I have no median nerve in that arm, and to see if they can tell exactly what's going on.

I've been diagnosed with cervical stenosis at C5/6, on the left. That's why my left hand doesn't work properly any more, and it's just going to get worse. The neurosurgeon won't operate yet, as the risks are too high. I'll have to wait until I can't use my arm/hand/shoulder any more, or when the pain becomes unbearable.

That's why it's been tough, the last several months. I've been off work for 10 months now, and have tried several types of pain medication. Work are throwing me a retirement do - if you're based in the NW of England, and you need a job, try Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust, they're a wonderful organisation to work for!

Enough of that; here's where I'm up to with the Lego painting:

The whole thing:

A close-up of the side that's almost finished:

Radiation is the most patient person - still waiting for this painting, without putting me under pressure to finish it quickly!

I'll update more, soon :)