Goodbye Front Lawn?

I've shared this on other forms of social media over the weekend and it's been interesting seeing the different comments from the other platforms.

I really dislike my scrappy front lawn. I never mow the grass so it always looks a right mess. I've already put raised beds on the one half (this is the other half) where I grow some crops over the summer. 

I'm now thinking I'd like to grow a small patch of cereal in this area.

Three Today!

Three years seem to have gone in the blink of an eye! 

Sorting seeds with daddy

It doesn't seem like five minutes since this little man was born. 

Quick Kitchen Tour

Short video of our new kitchen I've been building from scratch over the last few months. 

Not quite finished but it's nearly there. 

Can't quite see how we coped with the old tiny one now!

New Year

Well 2019 hasn't started off as well as we would have liked. My wife's mother tripped and fell on new years day and broke her hip. She went to have surgery and they decided to replace it rather than repair it. So quite a dramatic start to the year, but she's all good and on the road to recovery.

We also have a funeral to go to tomorrow for a previous neighbour who we used to live next to before we moved here. Such a a shame as she was such a lovely person and has had a long battle with cancer.

Funny when I think back, she was my first ever proper neighbour, growing up our nearest was a full field away, and she was a great neighbour and became a good friend.

She'd happily look after everything when we went away and was always so friendly and nice. I have many happy and funny memories of her, one springs to mind when a rat had got into her kitchen and we were both trying to get it out! Neither of us wanted to open the cupboards and it kept going from one to the other.

Such a shame that she lost the fight.

Other than all that the time between Christmas and new year has past like a blur, lots of family and friends, lots of fun times and getting some jobs done.

I've lots of aims and ambitions for 2019, a long list! I'm going to do my regular self reliance goals post in the next couple of days! It's going to be an optimistic list I think!

How did I do against my self reliance goals 2018?

It's that time of year again where I look at how I've done against some self reliance goals I set myself earlier in the year. Looking back I'm really pleased with all we've managed to achieve this year and I seem to have managed to at least tick a few things from the list!

#### And Don't worry I know some people are chomping on the bit to see the new kitchen - a short video tour will be uploaded soon I promise! ####

Community -

Well I think I can safely say I'm a fixture of the village now, I'm involved with a few few things now!

The play group has run all year and we have had a great friend join our ranks to help, so with three of us running it and a healthy number of mums and dads turning up each week it seems like the playgroup will run for much longer yet! I'll have been going to the playgroup for five years in the spring and helping to run it for two, such a great way for families to meet each other and hopefully makes new parents feel much less isolated.

I've also tried to help at the children's school where I can as it does feel like the heart of the village.

After completing the school library in time for the opening of the new school in January, I seem to have been roped into a few more projects since then.