Hi Everyone.

It's been a long time and life's changed a lot, but a little bird told me
that my name had been mentioned in dispatches earlier in the month and I
thought it might be time to catch up with old friends.

Jenny C was right - new house and new garden to start on............. Sadly
David (who some of you will remember from the urgmeet of 2000) died two
years ago, so it's been a time of adjustment, challenge and learning to be
independent. This move really is the start of a new chapter in my life which
I'm really looking forward to.

The old bellsbarn website is no more - Demon's tortuous procedure for
moving a broadband account finally killed it off (6 weeks of progressively
more fraught phone calls, more stressful than the house move itself!!), but
I hope to re-institute the geranium pages when I have time, and to produce
some new home pages to show the work on the new garden.

Briefly, it's a small cottage garden which has been worked for the last 200
years. The soil is wonderful - black, crumbly and so easy to dig; a big
change from the clay at Bellsbarn which is only a mile up the road.
I'm finding it hard to be patient and see what grows - from what I can see,
there is a multiplicity of all my least favourite plants. A spirea I've
hated since childhood which I've removed several specimens of, a huge
evergreen something or other that was taking up an entire flowerbed to
itself - this has gone too, after hours of fun with a bow saw, a ratchet and
pulley, a chain saw, the help of assorted neighbours, numerous cups of
coffee and several packets of chocolate hobnobs!!! I've also risked life and
limb up a cherry tree in my wellies removing the branches which were
catching on the mains electricity cable!

First important thing is to install a decent shed as I've no garage - at the
moment guests have to share the spare bedroom with my garden tools! Once
I've got that sorted I can set about redesigning the garden - a pond is a
must have, once I've decided the best position for it.

That's most of the news for now, other than I'm now working at a local
nursery( www.mercastontreecompany.com ). It sells mature and semi-mature
trees, shrubs and topiary....... summer days clipping the cypress spirals
were glorious, though it's less fun now the weather is getting
colder!However, my terms of employment state that I don't have to go in if
it rains - what could be more perfect:-)

Jill