With a weekend away planned, I tried to get a few small jobs done in the evenings.

I filled, sanded and painted the third wall in the spare bedroom.

On the landing I filled, sanded, and painted the gappy ceiling boards.

I painted the landing with our newly chosen pale yellow. It fits in nicely with the white stonewall, but brightens quite a dark landing space.

Our stable door for our kitchen entrance arrived, so I primed all the various bits and pieces.

And finally I put on the last few bits of board and insulation on the fourth wall in the bedroom. Having added board tape and painting it with PVA, it’s now ready to plaster.

While Chris headed to watch the rugby with his friends, I headed to my parents with a few crafting bits I wanted to get done. The first was a curtain that we’d brought second-hand. While listed as a pair of curtains, when it arrived it was one huge curtain instead. Rather than return it I ask my mum to help guide me through cutting it down to size and creating a pair. Once home I was able to put up our new curtain pole and hang them in place.

My other job was to repair the £20 tiffany-style lampshade I’d bought. Mum, already an experienced stain glasser, showed me how to fix the gap. First, we removed the broken glass, and the lead around the opening. Next we had to cut some new pieces of glass to size and shape.

Once ready, each piece of glass was coated around its edge in a copper foil. The pieces were then soldered into place. It’s not a flawless repair, but enough that the lampshade can retain its purpose, and hopefully soon be hung up in our kitchen/diner.

On our return from our rest, a big job greeted us. We’d wanted to lay the hedge this year, and ideally this needed to be done before the plants went into leaf. With some leaf buds already starting to open we decided it was now or never.

It took two days to lay the hedge, the first of which was freezing cold, snow falling down around us. Hedge laying involves cutting through the majority of the base of the tree and laying it down across its neighbours, using steaks at intervals to keep everything in place. This encourages the hedge to grow nice and thick, extending the life of the hedge trees and making a better home for birds and other wildlife.

The second day was lovely and sunny, much easier to work in. We had a bit of a challenge laying across where the ground had sunk from the sinkhole, but overall the laying went well.

Around a third of the hedge is made up of lilac, which isn’t a plant I’ve ever heard anyone laying, so it might not do as well as the rest. All we can do is wait and see.

The only section remaining to lay is along the side of the parking space, however the plants are so thin and weedy here we’ll coppice them instead (cut them down to the ground, encouraging new growth), and plant new saplings around them. It will then be five or more years before that section can be laid.

It was a tough job, and both of us are aching at the end of it, but well worth the hassle. The hedge won’t need to be relaid for a good decade or more, and in the meantime it should become stronger and healthier.

I’m excited for more jobs in the garden, already the tulip leaves are coming up in groups, and even the winter aconites are starting to appear. It’ll be nice to have a little more colour surrounding us when the summer comes.