When will I ever learn?

A day off work today, because (again) I've hurt my back. My sacroiliac joints to be exact. I worked very hard in the garden yesterday, moving my potted citrus trees out into the garden, and I worked fast, as rain was on its way. So, I hurt my back and the arthritic knees have been sending up signals of chronic pain too. Today I spent mainly asleep, alternating with Richard Lionheart's Third Crusade, about which I know nothing. The Crusades have never really appealed to me as an historical period, so many just plain crazy and evil men using religion as a carte-blanche for destruction and blood-letting on a large scale, so I've never read much about them. The Christians are at the moment fighting bitterly among themselves, paying off old grudges and family revenges, with the somewhat perplexed Muslims standing off and letting them go to it.

Anyway, here is the work in progress:

 

I had the holly tree removed last week, (along with the Damson from Hell) so now it's all on for the reconstruction of the vegetable garden. I suppose it's going to be more of a potager, really, small scale but attractive. I could be really pretentious and call it un orto. The stump of the holly is right in the middle of the picture; when my back gets better I'll attack it with a mattock to try and bring it down a bit.

 

A bit further down the track to the perfect potager. The potted lemon that did all the damage is up against the fence, left of centre. (This was taken from the conservatory, hence the strange washed out colour). Must get some of those multi-headed onions, they have a good sculptural look, and some coloured leaf-things. And more chives, I love the flowers. A couple of grape vines up against the fence, along with scarlet runners and sweet peas will be nice. This is the warmest sunniest part of the garden, and was probably the original vegetable garden years ago. I wish I could cover all the concrete with something; ideally it would be paved but that will be very expensive, as the concrete is not level and would have to have a level substrate before any paving could be put on it. Gravel is too noisy and travels to places you don't want it. Ho hum, back to the thinking board.