And the garden is finished...

 The monster hedge is gone and the front of the caravan is totally transformed, with a new raised bed built by husband, and the lovely stone pots found buried under the hedge now filled with plants.  It looks absolutely gorgeous, pics to follow when we get home and I upload them from my phone cam.

The van front was all discoloured and marked from the horrible hedge, so we've covered it up with expanding trellis covered with plastic ivy - looks so much better than it sounds, thankfully!  After we'd found bits of the monster jasmine actually growing inside the caravan, we didn't want any more real plants anywhere near the van, hence the plastic ivy, which actually looks very nice.  The ground in front of the van is full of thick roots from the hedge, it would be too much hard work for husband to dig it all out.  So husband cut it all as low to the ground as he could with his electric hedge trimmer, then we used a root killer product - not keen on the use of harsh chemicals, but needs must.  Husband built a wooden raised bed box which we put in place, lined with thick weed membrane, then filled the box with first sand then chipped bark.  The lovely stone pots have been stood on the top.

As usual, husband has done all the hard work, following my ideas and design, I just helped him out when he needed an extra hand, and then planted up the pots and helped to position them.  We've also put up a spare piece of trellis at the end of the garden fence, and planted a purple clematis to go up it.  Husband's loosened up a strip of hard ground along the front edge of the fence and I've planted the last of the Spring bulbs there.  And that's the garden all finished - hooray!  

We're going home tomorrow afternoon, having been here for our longest period yet - 11 days I think.  We've both got a number of appointments next week, necessitating us being at home all week.  We'll be back here again in a week or 10 days, when we'll be tackling the untidy overgrown bank behind the caravan, our last remaining job.  We've had a really lovely time here, some more work completed but lots of rest and relaxation.

Husband had a phone call this morning about his prostate operation, which he's been awaiting for a very long time, about 2 years or so.  He's been asked if he wants to have the op, which will involve an overnight stay, in a different hospital to the one he'd chosen......our local large hospital in Taunton have a massive backlog and if he holds out for that hospital, he'll be waiting for probably another year.  The other hospital, Yeovil, is further away from here, but not excessively so - he was originally offered Reading or Newport, Wales, both 100s of miles away!  He's still looking at a wait of around 4 weeks, but that's ok, at least there's finally an end in sight for him.  Now I just hope that I'll soon get an appointment for physio for my hip - I had an initial phone consultation in January, having waited several months for that, only to then be told that all physio appointments were suspended so the staff could be seconded to the Covid vaccination programme.  Which is fair enough, all hands to the pump etc, but in the meantime my hip is increasingly painful, to the point where it's becoming a real problem and I'm now in need of a walking stick.  Hey ho, we all have problems of some sort.