Gardening, baking and inventive modes of brick transportation

Yesterday was a busy day in Locketland as we tried to sort out our front garden after a couple of years of neglect.

This is what it looked like at its best in 2006 before we got properly hooked on the allotment.


I surprised all the neighbours by turning the front garden into a mini-allotment as I was determined to grow my own veg and had run out of space in the back garden. Anyway, I reckoned that vegetables were beautiful and deserved to be on display - much to the amusement of everyone that walked past. I think it proved quite a talking point at the time!

Unfortunately it became a talking point again - but this time for the wrong reasons...........


this is what it looked like yesterday morning - awful.

So Team Locket swung into action. Everyone was assigned job titles: Fred was "Excavation and Relocation Engineer" - in charge of digging and shifting soil, weeds, wood and bricks; Daisy was "Design Manager and Relocation Expert"; Mr Locket was "General Dogsbody"; Dorothy wasn't feeling very well so she became "Catering Manager" and I was officially "Bossy Boots"!

Here they are, hard at work clearing weeds and dismantling the rotten raised beds


Meanwhile Dot was in the kitchen busily cooking Cheese and Rosemary Bread


and Cheesey Snowflakes for lunch


YUMMY!!!

Once the soil and boxes were cleared Mr Locket and the two smallest Lockets went off to the DIY shop to buy compost, black plastic and bark chippings and then the grand Brick-Relocation-Exercise began!

We have been storing a whole pile of lovely old bricks in our back garden that I was given by some friends a few years ago when they had finished a renovation project on their house. Now was the perfect time to make use of them - albeit in a very slap-dash, propped up, un-thought-out manner. But first we needed to get them into the front garden.

They came by basket,

toy trolley,

go-kart (she is sitting on some while she drives it!)

and finally SLEDGE!!!! How did that girl pull so many????? She has always been incredible strong and used to move furniture around when she was a toddler!

Once the bricks had been laid, the bark distributed and the compost scattered - this is what it looked like by the end of the day.

Much better. All it needs now is a bit more compost and bark and a lot more plants!

And then I looked up at the sky..............

WOW!!!!!