Reviving the Old Rectory: 2015: Review of the Year

2015 began with us stacking logs from the chopped down Leylandii trees. Logs that have seen us through this winter and will see us through another couple, if not more. I know it's late in the year to be going on about what happened last year but here's a review of the state of affairs at the Old Rectory as we left 2015 behind and headed into 2016.

The hearth in the living room was retiled and a wood burning stove fitted.

Before...

During...

After

The fernery was created, outside the rector's office.

The veg patch was dug over.

And six yew trees planted in the front bed, which I am pompously and pretentiously calling the Cardinal's Bed, because I want it to be planted with flowers that are rich reds and purples, punctuated by orange and gold, and backed by dark conical yews. Life is so wonderful in the dark recesses of my mind.

We continued working on the windows. S's study window is yet to be completed and painted. In February, the casement windows returned from their long sojourn in Moreton-in-Marsh. We painted the upstairs windows while we had some scaffolding up but now need to finish the ground floor casements. A job for the spring, I thought, but it didn't happen and now we are waiting for the heating engineers to go so we can sort out the gin terrace again - and paint those windows at last. But it will probably be next year now!

We did our usual May Day brunch and welcomed the neighbours in, including our newest recruit from No. 5.

In July, my lovely, clever daughter, H, graduated with her BA (Hons) from Manchester University and D, S's equally lovely and clever son, received his PhD on the next day from the same university.

And not to be outdone...

We painted mum's sitting room - almost - window and an annoying strip by the door still to finish.

The long running saga of the painting of the arbor finally came to an end. Only for it to fall over in high winds (Hurricane Yet Another Crazy Bitch) and suffer damage, which means it now needs repainting. I've now realised that I can weigh it down with bricks to prevent this from happening. Although these must be really strong winds as this arbor, trust me, takes some shifting. Anyhow, the painting of the arbor...to be continued...

We managed some produce from the garden: bramleys like bums and potatoes with willies. I planted my asparagus bed.

Finally, we started - but are yet to finish - our incredibly trendy crazy paving paths in the veg garden.

Sprocket celebrated his fourth birthday.

I spent some time finding out about previous inhabitants, focusing primarily on the Rowden family, particularly Edward, the long lived Vicar who refurbished this house from being a workhouse, starting this task at the beginning of the nineteenth century. In June, we employed an architect who arrived with a report charting the Old Rectory's journey from being the local workhouse to the Rector's residence.