The staging is, at long last, in the poly tunnel ready for plants to be placed upon it, salads to be started in trays upon it and looking perfect for the part it will play in year round vegetable and flower growing.

We hitched the trailer to the Saab this morning and set off for our favourite DIY superstore to buy wood, wood preserver, filler and a palette knife, chains and hooks and lots of nails.  The trailer has been a blessing.  Bought through a website from some dodgy geezers who turned up at the gables with heavy gold earrings and a message that the trailer electrics ” could be fixed easily” – it has been surprisingly resilient to its multiple trips to st neots and carrying manure from a neighbours smallholding, not to mention the half ton of logs it carried in several loads yesterday and the little people that is has transported around the field when hitched to the tractor.

The geezers, dodgy though they seemed, sold us a “good ‘un” and without a trailer we would struggle.

This afternoon we attached chains to the floating duck platform ( that has been covered in the polyester shower curtain reclaimed from our bathroom refit) and set the platform afloat in the middle of the pond.  Jeremy set to work on the ” floating duck house” which he is worried might sink the platform.  We won’t know until it is finished and in place……..watch this space.

I spent some time this afternoon filling holes in the walls of the house where curtain rails ( and old velvet curtains) had been removed.  The kitchen is beginning to take shape but it will be a close call as to whether it will be finished before the Christmas holidays.  It all depends on the granite work top – the measurements were taken today using high tech machinery sent by the midlands company that produces the granite composite.  As with duck houses …….watch this space.