The debonair Basil Marigold's

... Julius Caesar stood. Looking at the far bank of the Rubicon. The year was 49BC. Caesar was in his prime and with his veteran legions behind him, he was about to gamble his power and his life by crossing into Italy and become a public enemy. I am tonight feeling an empathy with Caesar, which is odd as I often feel more with Marc Anthony. Caesar never knew the outcome, he didn't know if he would win, but he had nothing to lose. Death or Glory for him. Everything he worked for would be crushed with defeat, but still he crossed, uncertain.  Caesar uttered the phrase, ' ālea iacta est' (The die is cast). Today, I may be crossing my Rubicon.

Derby City Council, run by the Lib Dems for the moment, are delivering a new £36m Ring Road development. They have 2 sections to it, both of which need, obviously naming. Now, here's where the genius of Derbyshire marches into its own, and as usual for Derby, on its own. Not for Derby some smoke filled room, were Councillors or officers suggest names such as Rolls Royce way, things like that. Nope, they let the public come up with some Ideas and boy did they not fail us. Merlin Way, named after the Famous Merlin engine developed by Rolls Royce. Steve Bloomer way, famous Derby City footballer, the usual suspects famous sons and inventions. Well, there is one stunning invention created in Derby. I, cyber geek, did not know that Lara Croft was created in Derby, by a geek who  liked his women; tall, thin, massively endowed, dressed in very little, of which is inevitably tight and has a massive knowledge and ability to use experimental Military hardware. So follow this link and vote t

It's pitch black outside, and has been for the last 3 hours, which is the most depressing thing about Winter. So I was sat in front of the PC and felt I needed cheering up and larked about with my new toy and created this, which seems a lot better than what I face out of the window.

Yes, it is. It is that time again. When 'Mr Christmas', dons his Pickling Hat again. Last year was my first effort at the Pickling of Onions, because I felt that the quality of onion I purchased wasn't good. I decided to pickle my own. So this year I am pickling my Xmas batch. And here are my beauties; I am particularly fond, and hopeful of the glass jar in the middle. So much so, I am going to focus on it here; Now, this is where it gets exciting. This little beauty is 'Mr Christmas' experimental jar. I call it the 'Pickled X'. I have used normal pickling spices but for my vinegar I have used a nice Red wine Vinegar, to hopefully give it that deep full bodied pickling experience. I am proud of my baby, and hope in time for christmas it'll be ready to be released and be edible. Exciting times. 

Tonight, we as parents witnessed, what can only be described as epic Vomit, from our daughter, at dinner. Having been fed her Milk at 3pm, and then a fish meal for her dinner at just after 4pm, an average day for her. Then one cough later, and she has been coughing throughout the day, out came this kind of milky green liquid vomit. It didn't dribble it, it came out like water from a fireman's hose. And I would not have been surprised if it could have been high pressure and directional, fortunately the direction in which I happily call the green river of fish and milk, flew straight into the her lipped plastic bib, just below the lip itself. A perfect fill so to speak. It reminded me of my friend Glen, who many years ago now, on a night out, downed a pint of beer in one and then proceeded to insert an exact pint of vomit back into said pint glass, the perfect pint. Astonishing at the time.

Had another quick go just now so, here is my latest effort, which I actually quite like. It's an attempt at a moonlit sea! For those who may think it's a giraffe eating a leaf.

So, it finally happened. The Pen fund of legend has been spent, for maybe two reasons. It had got up to an amount where even I began to get a little nervous about buying a pen with it, as opposed to doing something else, like, for instance building an extension to the house. The other is that Grace told me too. So, I had planned a trip out to assess the fund while my wife headed to IKEA to see a friend. Her friend wasn't well so it became a family trip to Nottingham! The pen fund stood at £225 at the start of the day and we had discussed yesterday that if we saw something for a reasonable price, my wife would contribute to it as my valentine's/birthday present. Arriving at Pen Sense, makes me understand totally the emotions of Augustus Gloop, when he entered Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. I feel his pain of all that chocolate and only one tummy. I see all those pens and feel like I would like the income of Simon Cowell, so I could build myself a house out of pens. My wife

I am heading into the Regional Capital tomorrow morning, to buy my wife's christmas present and hopefully I shall exchange my pen fund for a rather nice Mont Blanc pen! This is the plan as I will head to pen sense and see what my fund will buy, if anything from the Mont Blanc range of Fountain Pens. If I am successful I shall post a photo tomorrow!

One can only be amazed at the intelligence of children. Our daughter, the Gruntfuttock, has been for a while now, jabbering away in a form of pre-talking communication. It is essentially noises but you can recognise it as her trying to talk. I had dreams of her graduating from an Oxford College, her first in Classics and Theoretical Quantum Physics. Today, this dream was re-assessed while in Specsavers. While both her Mother and I  looked for a new pair of spectacles, then witnessed the scene of our daughter attempting to communicate by high pitched squeals, squeaks and hand gestures to another child. Sadly, this only lasted for five minutes, after all how long can you spend talking to a mirror? We wheeled her away soon after, before she started blowing raspberries at herself.

...with the old artrage programme and am getting more familiar with it and starting to also get a handle on what I think I am expressing. I do think the graphics tablet will help as a mouse really is fiddly and limits me to the below and the previously posted. Not quite at the detailed level yet, very broad, but hopefully colourful. I think I see improvement in each one.

So, for the past few days I may have stayed up a little later than was probably good for me. It was for a great reason though, and that is...The Grandslam of Darts! I love the sport of darts, and yes it is a sport, it should be an Olympic sport. I long dream of a 20st, beer drinker winning a gold medal. I was, when I was attempting to recreate the lifestyle of Jim Morrison, pint by pint in the late 1990's I was a member of a small pub Darts League team. I may well be brave and say I could have been the only Classicist who played in a pub darts team. Which to me seems quite odd as for 3 years we studied people who if nothing else, could throw a mighty big, pointy spear. Greek Darts I contend.

When driving home and pondering what it would be like to be driving in an Aston Martin, supercar. Do not, I repeat, do not get so into the image that when you change down gear to turn right into the home street, and you find yourself attempting to do this by flicking the flappy-paddle gears that are built onto the steering wheel. Remember that as far as you are aware, Ford never built this option into a 1.4 55plate Ford Fusion and so, when it doesn't work, it will take a few seconds to realise you'll have to use that funny little stick which sticks out for the floor to change gear. I have learned this lesson.

Well before I head for my bed, after a particularly tough 5 a side game from tonight, cursing my age, my unfitness and my all round, roundness. I fancied another go with the art rage. As you can progress is slow, pretty similar styles to before, because they essentially suit the level of detail I can get with a mouse. I think maybe I am obsessed with sunsets. They truly do inspire at times and I have to make the most of them as I have calculated that should I live to the age of 70, I will have experienced 25,550 of them. So far I have lived through 12045, approximately and some have been truly majestic. Though I sometimes wonder why my brain works in a way in which I need to know how many I have and will see. Does anybody else do this? Anyway I have a tried a different form for the next one, which I quite like and as always not what I originally had in mind as it is difficult to not let the minds eye take over, every now and again. Maybe lighting, definitely some form of electrical

Before I retire for the night to bed, where my poorly wife is at present, she has a cold, from child, which I am sure is heading my way, I had another crack with these oils. It really is good fun, and you still have an undo button too! A dark and brooding moorland style for nighttime me thinks. Shame Tony Hart is no longer with us, I could have got to the gallery!  And before I go, RIP Edward Woodward, the Equaliser.

I have a pen fund and it's doing rather nicely at the moment. Though my wife and I disagree over the morality of owning such an expensive pen. We did discuss what we'd do if it reached a £1000 and I spent this on a pen, but I doubt it will go this far. Though if it did I have identified a nice pen, which I could import from Japan for around this price. They are exceptional pens. You can also purchase many limited edition pens for at least this price. I think my mont blanc will be discreetly less than this. This is not the purpose of the post, it is to discuss that I can, and do have a penchant for being a bit 'faddy' at times. My present fad is my umming and arrghhing about buying a graphic tablet for christmas as I downloaded a free 30 day trial version of Corel Painter 11. It is used by professional graphic artists to paint digitally. I like to think I am a little arty myself, well my art teacher did and he always put pressure on my mum to send me to art school after

Now, in the late 1970's council workers came in for a lot of stick about the way they worked. You know the old, six men drinking tea, watching one man dig a whole. Starting a job, and then having a tea break after ten minutes, because you are on council time, etc. Well, I thought this was a myth about how they worked and truth be told Ihave much more respect for council officers having worked with them closely but every now and again, they let me down. I saw this in the loading bay. Now I thought, as a rational man, that this was pretty self explanatory and the old saying of, 'It ain't rocket science'.

If you are  afficianado's of Mr Terry Pratchett and his discworld series, you will be aware that dwarfs are renowned for two things; songs about Gold, which tend to go 'Gold, Gold, Gold, Gold....' and that they use, as their deadliest weapon, dwarf bread. It is also a food and you can survive for days with dwarf bread, as it makes everything else around it look edible, he says. Well. It appeared that my lovely wife has been discreetly reading my much smaller Pratchett collection, than was. So here is revealed the first human made dwarf bread. Now, as you can see it is quite focused in its density. I can though assure you it is arguably the heaviest loaf of bread I have ever lifted and is the equivalent of a common house brick, both of which could go through, without much thought, a plate glass window fairly easily.

Well, for those that may look at this site fairly often. I have now added my twitter updates on the left hand panel. I am a fan of Twitter as are some of my friends, you can follow them too with the following twitter names @rosiepop (a fashionista blogger, http://rosiepop.typepad.com/ whose blogs I may not truly understand from the fashion point of view but enjoy them from a well written and random angle, and hey I have learnt more about fashion than I knew before!). @paulbellmusic (a great musician, from notts, but now an exile in sheffield, the pie city, with his lovely wife @zoe_bell and it cannot be long before their daughter is on either, which has just given me a bonkers idea! :-) @LilCornishPasty the meanest homemade pasty maker, and fellow westcountry celt, though from the second county of Kernow! and her husband @TwoLittleFishes  computer whizz and also a great web designer, so if you need a business website, he's your man. you just need to search for these at twit

so writes William Shakespeare, in, 'Much ado about nothing'. I myself am somewhat partial to a beard. It works on two fronts, as a protection against winter cold and as a mobile food locker, as you can always find something in there you ate 2 days ago that can provide sustainence on the go. A bit like a living lunchbox, if you will. Well, pre-Grapevine I was a little unkept and while camping decided not to take the shaver because I fancied a lazy weekend, this then stretched into our two week holiday in France, where I and my wife decided I could remain unshaven on the proviso that I shaved it off on our return. So here is the offending little fella, in its full glory! Now, due to the agreement, it had to go, sadly. But not without, as a friend on facebook said, without doing a mexican and boy, he asked, so I delivered. I have managed the two style combo, the first, as my wife pointed out was Geoff from byker grove, for those who know! Not my favourite, but quite a facial state

I am having a major moral dilemma at the moment, caused, by my last visit to the supermarket. Would I be wrong in wanting to upgrade my trolley to have, for instance, a Eurofighter, standard 27mm Mauser cannon? just to clear the aisle a little?

hello, soon to bed

I was somewhat surprised to see that it had been a month since I posted, something, anything on this blog. Which at times seems a long time and at other times, it seemed a lot longer than that. Yet so much has happened. One fine moment was becoming the family with the screaming, beetroot faced child on an aeroplane. And to the guy who shot me an annoyed glance, to that effect, over the back of his chair, and may have found himself staring into the face of a man, who, had he actually followed that glance with one word about the noise, would find himself doing a charity sky dive, minus the parachute and in fact, the charity bit, more of a dive really, sir, I apologise, it was not a good time. I will not mention what I had planned to do to the french teenagers who delayed a five hour late flight, by another 30minutes inside the plane, it did not involve arriving in England with us, anyway. So I will put some thoughts together to describe how the family survived their first camping experie

Now, usually awards ceremonies tend to take place around christmas time, or the new year but mine are somewhat different. It is a one off award that I tend to give out on an annual basis to those who exceed the norm and therefore prove themselves abnormal. So with little ado what we are celebrating here is the 2009 winner of the Tony Theaker 'Congratulations, you truly are the stupidest person I have encountered in 2009, with you unmitigated genius' award. And the award goes to the female owner of a battered camper van for the following, intellectually qualifying, reason. The mind which works this way can only win the award. Initial Thought: I need to charge up my camper van or provide electricity to my van, which I can do by plugging a cable into an internal house socket and connect this to my Van. Thought process 2: How to do this? Option 1: I will run a cable across the floor out of the house along the pavement and then attach to it to the van in a discreet and safe manner..

as i mentioned in a previous post here and they choose not to call it, as I suggested, 'Dink', they called it Copernicium , after Nicholas Copernicus . a good choice, but I still think, 'dink' had more authoritas.

and no, the french police are not all like peter sellers, either!

How could anybody refuse this anything, with a face like this? Look, honey, look at the cute doggie! We could have one, couldn't we? look at his face!!! :-)

had a great conversation with his nannar today, when discussing the 20p that don't have dates stamped on them that are worth £20+ to collectors. He was told, 'If I had one I would put it on baywatch!', what? said I. to which nannar replied, 'oh, I meant ebay'

...this one catches the eye . Indeed, now the point I have an issue with is that Aethiests do not believe in the existence of God, Gods, whichever your belief system happens to be. By actually having an Aethiest Camp, are you not, technically, teaching a belief system. Secondly, if it is a camp without religion, is that not really just a summer camp. Admitedly there isnt one I know where one of the competitions is to'disprove the existence of a mythical unicorn'. which reads as a contradiction in terms, but hey ho.

For those of you old to have remembered the A team, a group of soldiers of fortune, wanted by their own government, for crimes, they did not commit. Then you know who Mr T played, Bad Attitude Barracas, or B.A. whose amazing catchphrases such as, 'I pity the fool', and the classic, 'I ain't goin' on no damn plane, FOOL!'. Which is a continual running gag throughout the series that one of the hardest men in the world, just see how he defeats Rocky, in Rocky 3 to witness hos awesome power. B A barracas was afraid of flying, so every episode they, essentially, drugged him and one moment he was having a meal in new mexico and the next he was waking up in a car in Colombia. Yet he fell for it everytime. My daughter I have realised last night is living the life of B A barracas. Everytime we get her into her car seat she may cry and then smile but more often than not falls asleep and everytime she wakes up she's somewhere else and appears stunned. Yet, falls for it

and then I can afford this , one of the most iconic buildings of american architecture, the ennis house of Frank Lloyd Wright, now on sale to a private buyer. I would like that to be me! So I calculate that I need to find, 9,100,000 friends to give me a pound each and then I have raised enough to buy it, and a pound is not a huge amount. So the request is out there, fund the Theaker's new home, now! Grace would love it here!

Seriously, music lovers out there try these girl, 'BATS FOR LASHES' she is an incredible musician and I am rather fond of her sound and her, unique sense of style. Reminds me of PJ Harvey in some ways. definitely worth a search on you tube! bats for lashes!

...Not to have blogged for a while. I promise. So much quality stuff has happened, that really, really needed commenting on, such as Tories buying Duck Islands, Gordon Brown proving that Michael Foot wasn't the worst labour leader. David Blunkett being stampeded by a cow in derbyshire and perhaps my favourite a new addition to the periodical table, not yet named, but is 112. Which means the song will have to be changed, which takes me back to science lesson at school! pretty confident that they'll have to blend it into the song. I do feel there is a need now for a new substance called, 'dink'. So, my good reason, we have acquired a freeloader, a non-rent paying lodger, who, it would appear only eats, sleeps and poohs. occasionally if the mood takes her Vomit over my wife, bizarrely not me. I can only assume we have bonded in such a way that she knows that instinctively that I can put her in the compost bin. It can only be described as turnign yuor life upside down, but

To adjust to what my wife and I have inflicted on ourselves...in a good way. But hey ho, look at the time. There's a 8lb reason I am up this late at the moment and she's asleep in the pram behing me now. No doubt dreaming of new ways to exhaust her parents, i put it down to her devious turquoise socks, myself. She is downstairs because she has had wind and just won't settle upstairs, especially now mum is snoring too. I have attempted to cuddle as much wind out as I can and she seems to have settled a little, hardly a peep for 20mins, apart from the occasional fart. Can't show i disappeared there for 10 mins trying to get her settled, one wet nappy changed and a bit of wind and one dummy, well two counting me. and she's quieter, but still not asleep, but drifting away...much like my grip on sanity!

yet at present so little time to get my thoughts down, what with arrival of Grace, our baby daughter, and future world leader or maybe check out girl at morrisons, wtho have great chicken roll, by the way. I don't really care as all i know is she's gorgeous and we all affect te world and its people in our owin unique way. We'll just ahave to wait and see. At prsent I am being impacted by Grace as it's 5.52am, she's asleep in my arms and i'm listening to a sheep shearer on bbc radio 4! aparently 100 sheep shearerd a day is like running a marathon, proving one thing sheep shearers from devon can't figure out the difference between a road race and a haircut.

...unlike a dear friend that should read, see, see what the little girl is doing, already!

Like a dear friend My eyes are fine . I am just silent because I am so tightly wound up at present that I am struggling to cope with this endless unknowing waiting. This has been the toughest part of the pregnancy.

My wife is now, officially, overdue. I like to think I am a caring man, also. I am though, exceptionally anal about being punctual. You see the issue I have here, with my daughter. I have developed a plan, which I think will rememdy my issue...

I would still like to see Bjork live. I loved her 'uniqueness'

I have to admit to beginning to get a little tense of late. Where I have become like a slightly wound up spring, unable to relax or remove the internal crushing pressure seemingly spreading within body and mind, due to impending parenthood and other issues. Hence I was pleasantly cheered by a couple of photos of the old Williams/Theaker stomping ground which reminded me of just how fortunate I was to grow up where I did, which is God's own county of Devon, hence I am Devonian, of mixed race. Half midlander (Mum from Bilborough) and half, very north welsh (Father from Angelsey or Yns Mons, depending on your view and home to my favourite town, 'Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch'. So as you can see it was natural geographical culmination that led to me being born in Devon. Which here as you can see is a 'quaint' little fishing town on the english coast! as you can see, if appearances sold places it would be a winner. Like everywhere it has good

Being a boy, I have a natural inclination towards Science Fiction. Which i developed as a child who wanted to see the world from the outside in, or at least from a position that involved leaving orbit. It also piqued my interest even further when I was introduced into the world of I think the two greatest Science Fiction authors; Arthur C Clark and Isaac Asimov , Asimov wrote the incredible 'Foundation' series, which, originally a trilogy, became the father of 7 novels in total, based around the fall of the GALACTIC EMPIRE and the character of Hari Seldon. As a teenage boy I remember devouring these books and wondering if I could ever write a story as imaginative or as thought provoking. The other writer with whom I grew up with, was, Sir Arthur C Clark, a total geek genius, who died a few years ago at the ripe old age of 90 but who, in his career, has written some of the great cannon of Sci Fiction writing. Indeed, he is seen as part of the science Fiction triumvirate, includ

...It occured to my rather marble sized brain that I posted about our Gas emergency but never revealed the magnificence that followed on from this in respect of me, the apprentice, being shown by the master, ie: father in law, who has very, very many, many more years of DIYing than I have! I believe at that post I said we were going to remove the carpet and go au naturale, bathroom floor wise. Well, I kind of took a back seat on this one, but did make the massive contribution of buying a little sander for the corners, which do look great. but it does look great, so here is our bathroom now, essentially, courtesy of our father in law while he was on holiday! how great is that, He spends his holiday DIYing our bathroom, which ironically enough is exactly what my mums partner will be doing when he comes back in september when I launch my 'operation loft' at him and hope he has the time with my help to crack on into the loft to free up the vast storage space for the 'as-yet-un

...And in many ways you may have experienced the scenerio of visiting friends and relatives and saying, hmm...that's a nice bathroom colour. I like the way they have hung that Titian to juxtapose the Canaletto in the hallway. Yes, I do this quite a lot and it has been thanks the house of a friend, rosiepop and especially their Ikea dining table which we filled in our heads for future reference. So, on the way to the Airport last night we took a detour to that little oasis of sweden in Nottinghamshire, The ikea store so big it has its own postcode, to get this wee beasty of a table. The reasons we went for this table is that with the impending download of our daughter, note how I have techno geek identified pregnancy with software downloading. I am also tempted, if we have another child to name that one, Theaker 2.0. though doubt I'll get this past my wifes quality threshold! That, though, is another story, back to the original. The ide being that are Dining room table is quite

....This is now turning into a mighty rennovation, in incremental steps and today saw the achievement of a further new addition to our Garden, which in a way, was driven by somebody elses garden, my nannars. Which after years has been given a right good going over, the result of which has released a lot of very good top soil. Which I was thinking of buying but as this opportunity came I, in the end, took a bag and a spade and dug for victory for some free top soil, which was purloined with great efficiency. The whole point is dealing with this end of the garden, here below. which, as I am sure you'll agree looks bad, a mess of cosmic proportions that I felt I had to tackle with my vast Garden landscaping skills, with my tongue in my cheek here. So by getting some free soil, it enabled me to head down to our local DIY store to purchase what I felt would go in this corner and here is the result. It cost £7 but I think the result is good and it is planned here to plant maybe? or plant

And so recently I found myself travelling here, Kelham Hall, home of Newark and sherwood district council. It is set in a truly stunning surrounding, complete with village cricket pitch in the grounds. On an early afternoon in glaring hot sun and azure sky, it was a beautiful place to be. The room is where the meeting took place, it was almost as impressive on the inside. A very beautiful place and held King Charles I here after he surrendered in nearby southwell. And became a Theological college under the C of E sold it to the newly formed Newark and sherwood dc in the mid 70's.

and I think I can count this by looking in the mirror and seeing it's only me. Which is one. But hey it's my blog and therefore a dictatorship where one is a majority. MC Escher is great and bonkers, but I have a contiunual dream that one day I will own an original etching by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, an 18th century italian engraver, who is famous for his etchings of ancient Roman ruins and more so from my perspective, the series I first saw was the, Carceri d'invenzione, the imaginery prisons series of etchings. Sadly, They really start from a reserve price of about £450 for the less famous works and gradually head up into the £2-3500 price bracket at auction, for an etching about 20 x 18inches in size, proving small is beautiful but really, rather expensive. I guess I found them intoxicatingly intricate and the product of an incredible mind. They also happened to look like the artwork I could only dream of producing, style wise. Here is an example; It appeals to the go

Essentially. The person who built the house within which the Theaker family resides had, for some reason, a passion for building in the style of a marxist and staright lines and right angles it would appear, where the bourgeoisie enemy. This has thrown up many physics bending issues. And if you are ever fortunate enough to sit in our dining room and you are looking in the right place, you too will see that our decoration and furniture gives the dinig room an impression it was designed by MC Escher , who has always been one of my favorite Sketch Artists and as a schoolchild who liked sitting alone in the library, I found his work fascinating, whereas nowadays people would probably think MC escher is a Hip Hop star. They would be wrong as he adds strength to the Argument that the Dutch produce the most bonkers people on the planet. They based their economy on a flower, that's how bonkers these people are! Anyway. As we have now established that this house has been built by a man with

And the skanky looking bench that appeared in Fridays post, bought last year from Ikea, to rerplace the one Terrie and I broke by sitting on it, which seemed one of the fundamental purposes of a bench, being sat on safely, but I may be a little picky. This bench has weathered some good weather and had really started to turn green, which as a style I actually quite liked. But as we dont live in House and garden magazine. It got sanded and stained to go with the ongoing garden project and here is the final result. It is a much nicer bench now and looks lovely. It even blends into the back wall!

...It means that boredom meets unstained wood, that's what happens. It is like a scientific collision. The thought process was thus; 1) Hmm...I must put that woodstain into the shed, 2) Oh, the shed door is locked and key is in the kitchen and I am in the Garden...bench I stained yesterday looks nice. 3) Going back to the kitchen is a long way from the Garden...wonder what's for tea...Oh, look at the shed door, that's made of wood, ah-a! As you can our shed used to be the outside toilet, as up in the north they felt this was the best place for them, to start with, right next to the kitchen. It is a period feature, or was until it was moved upstairs many years ago. Though it is nice, I am sure you'll agree, that they kept the original turn of the century toilet door. But after living through the Great War, The second world war where it took part in the raid on St Nazare. It returned and over time has declined to become a pale shell of itS former glory, in this way our to

...More photos, perhaps tomorrow as that may work.

...Continues unabaited and seems to grow and grow, which ironically the newly sowed grass isn't. But heyho, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger and my back must therefore be becoming somewhat broader. After the heavy lifting and creation of our new entry into said Garden. It was decided that we needed to chop back the far end trees that hung to the wall like leeches to flesh, except instead of blood they sucked mortar. This an old photo which shows the amount of growth projecting from the wall and overhanging the bench. I have decided to show a winter one to show how lovely winter can look. This one I used to try and show how far forward the bench is because of the overgrowth, and should be seen in the context of the following photos, which shows what can happen over a couple of days when you garden with brute strength and a saw! So It took a at least five trips to the local tip to rid the garden of the complete butchered mess I made of the back wall foliage, which I '