Progress

The summerhouse come workshop has been ordered, paid for and delivered. It is only small but will serve the purpose wonderfully. Just need to lay that base and build the thing. It'll look something like this when it's built:

(this image is courtesy of diy.com, by the way)

Once it's built, I'm thinking of putting a bench along the back (the longer dimension) for mounting things like a pillar drill, lathe, grinder, scroll saw, vice etc. However, it is difficult to visualise the finished article while it's leaning against the fence in pieces.

I stopped off at a local garden centre/nursery at lunch today. They have a sale on their old stock and I managed to pick up some bargains. Mrs P and I have a border in the garden that is quite acidic and dry. We already have a couple of rhododendrons and azaleas which are doing well, but don't quite fill the space. So, for £3 each, I picked up four more azaleas. Browsing the rest of the plants I encountered another irresistible bargain... five golden cornus, each four foot tall... for a pound each. Same situation with some young quickthorn. I've always been sceptical of budget plants but if you look at hedging specialist websites, you'll find a lot of very cheap shrubs. It seems that the mark up in garden centres can be significant at times. Captive market of sorts I guess. So, once my workshop is built, I have some attractive hedging to frame it. Sweet!

I have rather a lot on at work right now so progress could be a little slow but please check back soon to see how I'm getting on...