Finally, we have some news! 

After months and months of bureaucracy, delays, idiocy and general faffing, we have exchanged contracts and will be moving house next Monday. Eek! 

I am relieved, and daunted, and excited (and daunted again) all at once. What if we hate living in the middle of nowhere? What if I can't think of anything to do with all that land? What if the neighbours don't like us? (At least we'll be a bit further away from them I suppose). What if the car breaks down and I can't get to work, or it snows, or the well overflows or the electricity goes off? What if...? 

We're not in the habit of moving house very often (between us we have been in this house for forty years), so the slight trepidation we have about this particular house is hard to distinguish from general wibbling about moving house at all. Still, we're legally obliged to go now so we'd best just pack up and get on with it. 

Much of our stuff has been packed for months - the cellar has been full to bursting since before we put our own house on the market last July. We've now got a week to get everything out of the cellar, and the rest of our things packed. The removals firm dropped off another forty boxes today and I think we'll use them all. 

We aren't minimalists.

At the weekend, once we had a date, I packed up my tubs from the garden. They probably could have gone in the removals van, but they're difficult to stack, and would have taken up a fair bit of space (which, er, we don't have much of). So I bundled them all up and took them to a friend's house for safekeeping. 

Here they are, nestled among the snowdrops. They won't need any looking after at this time of year, and there's nothing much growing in them anyway, but it seemed a shame to leave them behind.

It felt strangely emotional packing up the garden. At this time of year it's mostly sticks, but there are a few shoots coming through and it feels odd to know I won't be seeing the chive flowers again, or the gooseberries. 

I'm pretty sure there will be plenty of times when I'll be looking back with fondness at the thought of having a tiny city garden that I could weed and prune and tidy and be finished in time for lunch...

And so, just like that, we have sold our house. 

Of course, it wasn't 'just like that' at all. There were tears, tantrums, endless trips to Wickes and visits to friends, and much late night tidying and sorting and painting. 

But the photographer came (and was here for hours, and made our home look beautiful), and the next day we had a for sale sign in the garden (after a brief period of it being in someone else's garden, which must have been quite alarming for them). 

Over the next week we had sixteen viewings, three offers (and several counter offers, and retracted offers, and increased counter offers), and eventually we said yes. And of course, as soon as we did, someone jumped back in with a higher price. We said no - we're retaining some shred of sanity by acting as much as we can with good manners and integrity. 

It's a strange thing, having people wander round your house. I thought I'd feel judged, but by the time it went up for sale, it really didn't feel like our house any more. We've made so many changes (and I will share some of them), and packed away so many things, that it feels more like a holiday cottage. 

On the first day of viewings the sun shone obligingly, and even I couldn't quite believe how well the house looked. The third person to view went straight to the estate agents and offered, and it was her offer we accepted in the end (after much to-ing and fro-ing between us and with other people - I've never had so many phone calls in my life).

Of course, nothing is ever straightforward. Our buyer has to sell her house before she can buy ours, and we've given her quite a short deadline (I'm confident she can do it!) And we, having finally put ours up for sale after finding our dream house, have decided that the location of our dream house may not be quite as idyllic as the house itself. 

We've found an alternative, but it needs a lot of work. A two hundred year old cottage in a national park, with peeling wallpaper, mouldy carpets and a slightly precarious roof. And a greenhouse, woodland, outbuildings and a beautiful view. 

We've put in an offer, and are keeping our fingers crossed. 

Our searching has taken us to many beautiful places. This is a big move for us, and we want to be as sure as we can about the place we move to. We spend our weekends wandering between cafes and poking around potential new houses as much as we dare, and after work we sometimes drive out and just sit and listen. We've learned a lot doing this, but it's actually a nice activity in its own right. 

In the meantime, I've been pottering in the garden. My efforts have been focused on the house these last few months, and outside the raspberries have died and the willow is reaching for the telephone wires. But at the last minute I spent a small fortune on bedding plants, and with the lavender, the fuchsia, and the redcurrants, the garden looked as beautiful as the house. 

Once we'd accepted an offer, we breathed a sigh of relief, closed the door, and life started to return to some vague kind of normality (albeit still with a lot of phone calls from the estate agent - I'll miss those guys when this is all over). On Sunday, I picked some of the remaining gooseberries, and sat de-stalking them in the garden ready for making jam. 

I haven't actually got round to making that jam yet, and the gooseberries are now in the freezer. I remembered that I do, in fact, have a full time job, and rather inconveniently that has required me to do a fair bit of travelling these last few weeks. Just this week I've spent over 20 hours on trains and buses. I'm tired. 

But we're getting there. This waiting is hard, but being able to sit still makes a nice change from painting and plastering and gluing and sticking. At least while we wait we can drink tea, and see friends, and rest. And, of course, investigate questions like 'are you allowed to replace metal framed windows in a national park?' and 'just how much does it cost to put in a new heating system?' I'm going to know so many things when all this is over. 

I'll miss this little garden when we leave. I might look back at pictures from when I first moved here and see how far we've come. It feels like it looks after itself now (apart from the willow), and now I have a bit more time, I can just sit out there and read. 

Our new garden, if all goes to plan, will be much bigger, and no doubt I'll be marvelling and cursing in equal measure about that. But for now, I'll just sit and wait, with as much patience as I can muster. 

It's been cold and frosty out there this week, but I was delighted to see that the bulbs we planted before Christmas have started to come through. 

At least I *think* they're the bulbs we planted - there's a small chance they may be unharvested garlic. We'll see. Whatever they are, it's nice to see some new greenery out there and it's making me feel like spring is on the horizon (however distant). 

I've also been delighted with these autumn bedding plants, which are still going strong despite the frost. 

I suppose it's probably pretty sheltered out there - the edge of the garden is only a few feet from the house, and we're in a built up urban area so maybe it just doesn't get that cold. Whatever the reason, the tubs are looking positively lush, not bad for Christmas week. 

I've got high hopes for this giant poppy - I thought I'd killed it in the summer but having planted it in the ground (rather than a pot) it now looks like it'll soldier through. I wonder if we'll still be here to see it flower... 

I've never grown ornamental cabbages before - I always thought they were a bit pointless, when you could just grow a real cabbage and make a nice meal out of it. But then I didn't grow any real cabbages, and these ornamental ones take up very little room and have been a great source of purpleness, especially now when much of the rest of the garden is full of sticks. I'll definitely have them again. 

They're ever so frilly and delicate, and such a beautiful colour. Looks like I won't have too much of a problem making the garden look inhabitable to sell the house in February after all. 

I'd love to hear what's going on in your garden if you're willing to share - feel free to post a link to pictures if you have them! 

Well, it hasn't stopped raining, but I found these pictures I took from before we visited Fay, so these will have to do. As you can see, the willow hedge is getting nicely out of control and wild. Our little seating area is what you might describe as 'lush', but certainly not 'tamed'. There also seems to be a colander full of old broken mugs in the corner there. 

Still, there are plenty of flowers around the place right now, which is pleasing me greatly, as I have planted precisely none this year, so these are all either perennial or self-seeded, which is just the type of flower I approve of in my garden. Independent, doesn't need mollycoddling. I'm much more inclined to sit about looking at pictures of other people's gardens. 

I did buy these giant poppies. I'm pretty sure they have an actual name, but they've always been giant poppies to me. I've got a spot marked out in the garden for them, and will plant them if it ever stops raining (did I mention how much it's raining?)

Everything else in the garden has just arrived here all by itself this year. 

I'm especially pleased with these alien flowers (again, I'm pretty sure they have a real name, but I can't quite remember what it is).

They're not quite flowering yet, but when they do, they're quite a sight. I bought them as seeds from the fabulous Higgledy Garden a couple of years ago, and now they're popping up all over the garden. Most pleasing. Hop over to the Higgledy Garden website to see what other people's flowers are doing, and maybe even order some of your own. 

Oops, I'd forgotten I'd bought these jolly purple wallflowers too, nicely framing one side of the door. If you look closely, you'll see a rogue potato in there too. They seem to have sneaked in everywhere, possibly as a result of my lazy composting skills. Oh well, I'm never going to say no to an accidental harvest. 

I'll be back with more garden pictures once I've actually done some gardening... 

This week has been filled with berries. Peter came home from a friend's house with a gift of home grown strawberries, my mum picked our crop of gooseberries and redcurrants, and another friend turned up with a tiny percentage of her giant raspberry haul (swapped for some of our gooseberries). Not bad at all. 

The strawberries were easy to deal with - they went in porridge for two breakfasts in a row. The gooseberries and redcurrants sat glaring at me from the windowsill for two days, threatening to rot where they sat and be completely wasted. Eventually I forced myself to sit down in front of two episodes of The Waltons (well, it's nice to have a bit of homely inspiration) and separated the redcurrants from their stalks, which was most satisfying. 

I'm afraid I couldn't face doing anything with them after that, so they've gone straight in the freezer, along with the gooseberries. 

Today brought even more berries - fortunately of the low-input-required variety. 

A couple of years ago I'd planted some raspberries and tayberries in a corner of our little garden, and had been rewarded with... not very much at all. This year we've been a little bit more fortunate. 

Yep, that's our entire raspberry and tayberry crops, combined. 

It didn't take me long to process them, or pile on a dollop of yogurt and porridge, and very tasty they were too. 

It bet by next year there'll be a grand crop - but I'm hoping we'll have moved on by then. Still, it'll be a nice surprise for the new folk. 

Well, I finally gave in and ordered myself a new camera, and I'm hoppy, skippy, over-the-moon delighted with it. Can't promise my photos will be any better, but my experience of taking them is better, which means I look forward to taking them, and therefore take more, which is all that counts.

Anyway, here I am on a Thursday afternoon, sat amidst the chaos that is our living room, watching a film and crocheting my new ripple blanket. This is for a friend's new baby, and I confess it took a few false starts before I got going properly. I've been using this pattern, and I can't fault it one bit - once I actually followed it properly it worked perfectly... 

I'd really recommend doing as the pattern suggests and making a small trial version first. I didn't, and ended up unravelling the first rows of my entire blanket several times. For some reason my ripples were going up, but not back down, and so the whole thing was going round in a square. 

Most vexing. 

I'd also recommend using a larger crochet hook for the first chain row - that means when you do have to unravel it (which you won't, because undoubtedly you'd do it properly the first time) it won't be as fiddly to redo. 

Fortunately I sussed it eventually, and am now rippling my way to cheerfulness with an extremely non-pastel purple, turquoise and red blanket. I have no idea whether this new baby is a boy or a girl, but I'm (fairly) sure the parents will appreciate the colourfulness. 

As you can see in the first picture, my rippling is taking place surrounded by boxes, piles, and things-out-of-the-cellar. There's barely room to put my feet by the sofa before the chaos starts. Our living room isn't exactly a relaxing, minimalist haven right now. This seat is a refuge, as long as I keep my eyes focused on my crochet and don't look up. 

Outside, though, the garden is in reasonable shape and I'm very much enjoying the flowers that are springing up with no help at all from me. 

There are chives everywhere in my garden, and usually I split them each year and spread them out, although I didn't bother this year. I confess I haven't eaten any at all so far (shocking, I know). I often dry herbs, but I've never dried chives. Do they keep their oniony flavour? Maybe I'll dry some and see. Those flower heads are so pretty, really stripy and delicate up close, and always covered in bees. 

I think my new favourite flower might just have to be nigella though. So delicate, and yet so strange and somehow not like flowers at all. 

These have self seeded after I grew some from Higgledy Garden seeds last year, and I love seeing them in all their weirdness by the back door. (And really, if you're after flower seeds, do buy them from the lovely Benjamin Higgledy - he hand writes a thank you note with every order and is an all round utterly lovely bloke). 

I'm slowly trying to make our garden (along with the rest of the house) more presentable and ready to sell. It's strange, the thought that we might be leaving soon. I've only ever really gardened here, and while the space is small and overlooked, there are things about it that I'll miss. 

I'm trying not to scare myself with the thought that I find it difficult to keep on top of even this tiny garden, and we'll likely be moving to a much bigger one. How on earth will I manage? I'm comforting myself that at least the neighbours won't be able to see as much of it (hopefully). Somehow it's always more fun to just sit in the garden than actually do stuff. 

Today I had a message from my auntie with a picture of the plants growing in her greenhouse, which reminded me that I never did get round to writing this post. 

Recently, I've been looking out of the window at the garden with an increasing sense of guilt (or, as I prefer to think of it, 'the nagging voices of success'). I've done a bit of weeding, but otherwise nothing much since my mum helped me dig up the willow hedge a few weeks ago. 

Last weekend I decided it was about time I planted some seeds. But then it started raining, and a friend popped round for a cuppa, so I stayed inside and made labels from an old plastic milk carton, cut into strips. I don't like to buy plant labels, and have tried all kinds of other things (lolly sticks, card wrapped in sellotape, labelling the plant pots) but this has to be the most successful. Perhaps not very pretty, but they're only going in the greenhouse, not the ground. 

When the sun came back out I had a box of seeds, and a pile of labels, and headed outside. But then I remembered I'd bought some reduced herbs from the supermarket, and planned to rescue them and repot in bigger pots. I was taught the art of herb rescue by Fay, my Orkney friend (who's no longer in Orkney) and her rescued supermarket basil.

Look at it there, with its roots all tangled. All that was squashed in one tiny little pot! Poor thing. 

I also rescued a pot each of coriander and flat leaf parsley, and they were in an equally sorry state.

I replanted some of each in a giant cup and saucer planter that I have on the kitchen windowsill. Then it started to rain, so I brought the cup and saucer inside, went back to rescue the seeds and the camera (didn't want to ruin yet another one!) - and promptly forgot about the rest of the herbs, which are no doubt now strewn about the garden after all the wind and rain we've been having. 

And I didn't even remember to take a picture of the finished cup and saucer planter. 

So I still haven't planted any seeds, or turned the compost, or rebuilt the mini greenhouse. But I do at least have a little bit of basil on the windowsill now. It's a start... 

What are you growing? Have you planted more seeds than me?