Wrenschovations

Miracle tree snapped in the wind yesterday and is now a thick trunk about 1m tall.

This is very sad news.

This is the only time I’ve ever been annoyed at the wind in Cape Town.

We shall see how it goes now.

Plan is to keep watering and feeding it and then make a protective cage thingy around it.

Oops, forgot to shoot the fig:

It’s only ickle, but it’s got loads of figlings.

On Saturday morning we heralded the arrival of the Dish Washing Fairy:

Long may it live in our house.

Plants! Loads of them. New ones.

Ambassador Kosh. Hallway plant extraordinaire:

Ficus. Was unhappy in the front garden, so we put it in a red thing. Now it happy .

Frangipani. Came to the house as a leafless stick, from Casa Tanya (thanks!)

Two new climby jobbies - on the tree, and on the pergola (Wisteria o’ Doom! Growing at a sillyfast pace).

Middle of the succulent patch, finally filled: yay!

Close-up of the amazing airbabymaker:

Along the edges of the leaves, it grows little babies. The babies grow roots, then they fall off and plunge the roots into the ground. They grow up so fast… *sniff*

The Amazing Miracle Tree TM:

Hopefully Parfles will correct me if I’m wrong, but this thing is about a year old and it’s already over 2m tall. Holy leafy goodness, Batman!

And now for some furniture.
2nd-hand bench, painted and shinied by Parfles:

Beautiful (and comfortable) bench bought for us by Eck (thank you!):

Screen for outside shower, made from old shutters, painted and installed by Parfles, with unexpected finishing help from Jean, on Sunday.

Apologies for the low-level commentary.
Work crazy!
Me crazy!
Mad people crazy!
It’s crazy!

There was comedy of errors (without the comedy) following the initial construction of the pergola.
In summary: the quality of the finishings was sub-standard and we asked them to redo it.
In fact, they’re still coming back once a week (sometimes less frequently) for an hour or so to add another layer of varnish / give it sand / etc.
It’s gone beyond annoying into ridiculous now, and we still have half their money (payment due on completion), so we don’t mind if they take their time.

Enough whinging. Behold, shady thing:

Yay!
Also behold the continued sproingyness of the garden and the daisyness of the daisylawn.

Before and after:

Coming soon(ish): bamboo bits on top, and shade cloth.
My skin rejoices!

Huzzah!
The sprunging in the garden is most pleasing.

Some front garden action:

[Compare this to just a few months ago: yoinks!]

And a quick bit of back garden goodness:

[compare with April, and when we planted the lawn plug wotsits: yoinks!]

This whole “being outside and doing stuff” might catch on…

Winter time has meant mostly snuggles and fires at Casa Wrensch but now that the weather is clearing up, stuff is happening again. The garden is looking fabulous - things are going sprout! I’ll try and snap some pictures at the weekend.
In the meantime, please say hello to Mr Chalk, the newest addition to the kitchen:

[click to embiggenate]

Well hello there.
Team Wrensch have been mostly huddling around the fire and doing small stuff like mini-shelves, hanging up pictures, hence The Quiet around here recently.

The front garden exploded into greeny awesomeness, though. Thusly:

Also, we’re in the process of remixing the study / library / my office. First step has been to paint the bit of wall by the bay window (browny green), the bookcases (limey green), and for Jo to make little shelves and legs to raise the bookcase up over the skirting board and more them towards the wall. Thusly:

I’ve decided to set up a plant viewing contraption.
It will consist of a number of A4-sized mirrors on spinny poles in the garden, connected by a system of of levers and pulleys, running through underground pipes.
The control panel and main viewing mirror will be in the lounge.

We’ve thrown a few more trees into the ground:

All is well in Casa Wrensch.
Not much going in inside the house at the moment (nice big list of stuff to do, though!).