With the arrival of better weather, work could resume on the garden. We decided to install some of our old bathroom furniture from England to provide storage space for bits and pieces. Recycling in full swing! I also built a worktop so that we could prepare food for the barbecue in summer.
Gatti found a mini refrigerator on eBay – just the thing for keeping the beer cool on a summer’s day! We also inherited a retro transistor radio from one of our friends, which still works. It’s a bit crackly on occasion, but we are kind of attached to it.
May is the time when things start coming alive in the garden, especially our apple tree which, though it has now sadly succumbed to some kind of tree disease, was full of blossom for a few weeks each Spring.
And of course, the refrigerator in the garden house had to be stocked up with all the essentials – beer, sausages, and an assortment of sauces, relishes and condiments! Barbecue season starts in Hamburg as soon as it stops raining long enough to cook a sausage without it getting soggy!
Our lawn has also started to look more like an actual lawn now, and the grass is getting stronger. We’ve also planted the beginnings of a hedge down each side of the garden – well, you’ve got to mark your territory somehow, and apparently the landlord doesn’t allow electrified fences . . . . !
As you can probably see, we managed to bring our Chimenea from England. There doesn’t seem to be a direct German translation for “Chimenea” – different people seem to call it different things. Most people here call it a “Terrassenkamine”, which means patio fireplace. As you may have noticed, ours is not on the patio – we have other plans for that!
Our former neighbour Andrea kindly bequeathed her garden pavilion to us when she moved out, and in June 2013 it duly made its first appearance on the patio. We covered the gap between the pavilion and the garden house using a sun sail to give ius a bit more protection from the rain.
What garden furniture we had was brought over with us from Plymouth when we moved. Just a table and a couple of chairs, but that’s all we really needed at the time.
I even tried my hand at a bit of gardening. We had been given some plants, most of which came from our friends Irene and Wolfgang in Kassel, although one or two came from other friends. In a spirit of optimism, I planted then all in our corner garden, which is overshadowed by a large fir tree.
Unfortunately, most of these plants didn’t survive more than a couple of years because of the lack of sun and water, and the constant barrage of pine needles dropping from above. The bamboo plant is still hanging in there though, and seems to get a little bigger each year.