Page 50 - VE Magazine - Issue 42

FULL ON
The ups and downs of building your own outdoor living space
BY PAUL BRACE
MY WIFE JULIE AND I are both ‘dooers’ with a creative streak, but we’re also both very busy with our day jobs earning our living. Julie’s day job is styling hair and making stained glass windows, mine is Jag- uar E-Types and, in the seemingly fleeting spare moments we get, we both like to do interesting and useful things. Julie paints, sculpts and makes jewellery, while I nurture a seventies motorcycle collection – as seen in the previous article!
A couple of years ago we moved to the heart of ‘1066 country’, on the fringe of the historic town of Battle, and gained a decent sized garden that has sparked a previously untapped horticultural interest. On occasion Julie had visited the Chelsea Flower Show but we hadn’t built much more than a fancy
gothic brick barbecue and the usual rustic water feature. It was at Chelsea about 20 years ago, that Julie saw a fabulous brick- work folly feature with patinated peeling terracotta paint on crumbling rendering. She remembers climbing roses weeping over the walls that enclosed a cosy terrace and it being absolutely lovely. She could imagine views of a garden framed through the various windows and the subject was subsequently bought up on a regular basis.
Fast-forward to winter last year and the new garden was getting knocked into a good basic shape. There was however a long row of overpowering Leylandii, a good 70-feet high, dominating and darkening a particular corner and pretty much killing everything in their shadow. It was an easy decision – they simply had to go and Julie suggested
a few tree surgeons she knew who might do the job.
I’m a bloke though... I can do stuff... and I’d not long ago bought a chainsaw... Julie was in the kitchen busy preparing a fancy meal for a dinner party that evening, so now was my chance. I was already fully trained (having watched a few YouTube tutorials), so in no time at all, down they started com- ing! I couldn’t see what the chainsaw fuss was all about, and I began lining those bad boys up on the ground almost parallel to one another. As dusk fell I was getting knack- ered and, having had a good run, decided to quit while I was ahead and start again the next day. Of course I didn’t actually stop there and, being a bloke, who can do stuff, decided to drop just one more...
I have many reasons why that felling
50 / October-November 2018 / ve
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