My friends HE son wrote this

May garden

I had hoped to have lots of exciting pictures of my new veg plants to post this month but to be honest they haven't been doing fantastically well. All but one of my broccoli plants died, my courgettes just don't seem to be thriving and the birds have had most of the peas and beans. I've started off a load of new seeds and am hoping to have better luck second time round.

As you can see from the picture the grass is really overgrown and the whole garden could do with about a million hours of non stop weeding.

Some things are doing OK though like my fig tree.

I've counted 5 figs so far.

The roses are covered in buds.

These are some sort of weeds that I've been carefully cultivating on the lawn. No idea what they are but they're quite pretty.

More pretty lawn weeds.

My new compost bins finally arrived. I did have two compost bins before but I accidentally left them at the old house and the neighbours were so horrid I didn't want to go and ask to get into the garden to collect them.

My rosemary is covered in pretty flowers.

The front garden was covered in violets.

This is my new super duper eco friendly lawnmower. I've always liked the idea of owning a push along lawnmower instead of an electric job but when I moved here I thought it would be too much work as the gardens are quite big.

I decided to do a bit of research to see what other people thought of them and was rather surprised to see so many people raving about them and saying they are just as easy to use as an electric or petrol mower. A lot of people said they were actually easier to use because you don't have to keep stopping to move the electric cable out the way and they're much lighter than a powered mower so easier to manoeuvre.

They're also a heck of a lot cheaper than a powered lawnmower.

It's so easy to use Levi was able to mow most of the lawn by himself. He really enjoyed doing it and I didn't have to worry about him electrocuting himself because there are no cables.

It's so small and light that when you've finished you can just hang it on a nail on the back of the shed door.

It took me ages to get a photo of Levi cutting the grass as he kept running away every time I went to take one.

It took us about half an hour to do the back garden because the grass was so long but now we've cleared the worst of it it shouldn't take much time at all to cut it.

Our garden

This is the garden in April. As you can see I finally got round to putting up my mini greenhouse. I'm not going to put anything in it for a couple of days as I want to make sure it doesn't get blown away before I put any of my seedlings in it.

As you can see the polythene got blown off again. It doesn't matter now though as I'm ready to start planting.

I found these pretty blue flowers, I think they might be forget me nots but I'm not sure.

These daffodils appeared in the front garden. I did have a few lots appear in the back garden but all the flowers have vanished. Not sure if it's because it's been so windy or if the birds have had them.

More daffodils in the front garden and some slightly dodgy looking pink things. As you can see the front garden is a mess, very overgrown with half a ton of dead leaves, lots of weeds and rubbish.

Now for the exciting bit.......my seedlings. There's something quite magical about new seedlings. This tray contains sugar snap peas, greyhound cabbage, purple sprouting broccoli, white aubergine, cauliflower, early white sprouting broccoli and autumn broccoli.

This tray contains round courgette, sugar snap peas, Lebanese courgette, patty pan squash, yellow scallop squash, golden courgette, black beauty courgette and some sunflowers.

Two days after I'd sown these a certain someone (who shall remain nameless) accidentally knocked the whole tray off the window! I managed to salvage all the seedlings but I cannot be sure which courgette/squash is which as the seeds all look the same.

I've also got some tomatoes, lettuce and potatoes on the go too.

This is the garden in March.

Home Educators Beware Of Social Services!!

Sand Art

Our garden

I thought it might be interesting to take a picture of our new garden every month. Not only will we be able to see the progress we've made with planting and growing things but the seasonal changes too.

This was taken in January and shows the pathetic amount of snow we had.

This is February and as you can see we've cleared the veg patch and covered it with black polythene ready for planting when it warms up.

The mud patches are leftover from the removal of the old greenhouse and shed which the council removed before we moved in. I've got a big bag of grass seed to put down so they shouldn't be there much longer.

What happens when you ask males to behave so you can take a sensible picture

This is what happens.

Take two was worse than take one.

Getting better but still goofing around.

Elder Lee just can't help himself.

It only took five shots but we got there in the end.

Anyway the point of taking the picture is that Elder Warner is going home tomorrow. We've had a lot of fun in the time he's been with us and we'll be very sad to see him go.

Medical stuff

I haven't had chance to blog for a while as I've been ill...............again. I got a little cold which went straight onto my chest. I had antibiotics and another long course of steroids, I also started retaining fluid which they think happened because of all the steroids. The infection cleared up but my asthma was still really bad and the fluid retention was getting worse. I went to the doctors and he said I'd have to come back the next morning and he'd make the arrangements to send me back into hospital. I really didn't want to go in again so I phoned my home teachers and asked them to come and give me a blessing. The next morning my breathing was a lot better and the swelling had started to go down so when I went back to the doctors he said I didn't have to go.

I also had my appointment with the consultant the other day. My lung function is up from 43% to 55% which is good but not good enough apparently so I'm trying some new medication on top of what I'm already taking. I was x-rayed again and this time my lungs look completely clear so I don't need to go back for three months.

Levi has now been assessed by the educational psychologist and the speech and language therapist. I got the reports through the other day but I haven't got a clue what any of it means. One minute they seem to be saying there is a problem and one minute they seem to be saying there isn't a problem. It's hard to tell what they mean because everything's written in that special wording that doesn't make sense to anyone except doctors. I suppose I'll just have to wait until June when we see the specialist again.

Out in the garden

For quite some time now (we're talking years not months) I've been trying to get my dad to make me a bird table. I know you can buy them but the ones in the shops all come with a roof and don't look like they'd stay stood up if Levi kicked his football at it.

Every time I ask my dad to make me one he tells me how easy they are to make and how it's just a bit of wood nailed onto a wooden post which is stuck into the ground. I point out that I have no tools, no transport and even if I could get to where they sell wooden posts and bits of wood they probably wouldn't let me on the bus with it as they get really funny about you taking large items on the bus. So I ask him again if he'll make me one and he says yes but then never does.

Well look what I found this week, it's a bird feeding station. We used to get a few birds in Boscombe (mainly magpies and pigeons) but our new garden gets lots of birds. We only put it up 2 days ago. We got nothing on the first day, lots of blue tits on the second day and today we had blue tits, greenfinches and goldfinches.

I've also seen a green woodpecker, blackbirds, robins and a few other birds which I'm not sure what they were.

I also discovered some rosehips. I'm sure they're not supposed to be there as I think I was supposed to cut the roses back or something but as I've never grown flowers before I really haven't got a clue.

A bit of sewing

And I made this for my dad for his birthday.

Levi's Birthday

Levi isn't terribly keen on birthday cake so this year he asked me if I'd make him a Swiss roll instead. I got up at the crack of dawn on his birthday cooked him a full English breakfast and then got to work making the most delicious Swiss roll. It was lemon flavour filled with whipped cream.

I put 12 candles on it and called him downstairs to sing happy birthday. He walked into the room, took one look at the cake and said 'what's that'. I answered that it was the Swiss roll he'd asked me to make and he then decided to inform me that when he said Swiss roll he actually meant chocolate Swiss roll. He then proceeded to look at me as if I was a complete idiot for not knowing that Swiss roll is code for chocolate Swiss roll!

If he carries on like this he will definitely not make it to his 13th birthday.

More Christmas craft

I finally managed to get him to finish decorating this wooden Christmas tree.

And today he put together a gingerbread house. He was given one of these before but it didn't come with icing or decorations. I got this one in the supermarket. It only cost £2.99 and came with everything you needed to make it which I thought was much better than having to buy extra bits.

Elder Orme

Elder Orme is off to a new ward tomorrow. We're a bit gutted as it means he won't be here for Levi's baptism.