Perfect Saturday

Three hours in the garden. What a fabulous day. But one of those days where the job you intended to do can't really be started until you do another job, and that second job has a third job that needs clearing up first too.

So we cleared away a broken old bench that had collapsed over winter under the weight of a pile of raggedy old pots (and because it was made of chipboard - not the most weatherproof of materials); edged the grass (and as a consequence made a new path to the compost heap), moved the water barrel 4 inches to the left to accommodate the bench we were moving from under the conservatory, threw out all the dead potted plants, moved two other benches so we can start on the border tomorrow and prepared one of the under-bench areas to be sown with grass seed tomorrow.

Feel right satisfied with that. While we were gardening we noticed our neighbour-but-one was busy building a tree house for his new ready-made daughters who arrived a few months ago. What an impressive construction it is. Already, that is, and it's not much more than half finished. As we were chatting he pointed out a square "window" in the gable end which he'd asked his wife to make a stained glass window for. But she told him it's too much detailed work for a play house. Nikki and I had one of those gestalt moments: two minds with a single thought. Carolyn has already made a piece of stained glass that would be perfect for the job. It lived in our downstairs toilet window until the scallies chiselled it out last March. Since then it's been living in the conservatory waiting for us to decide what's best to do with it. And here was our answer.

Sadly I don't have a photo of it in situ that does it justice, so here it is shortly after the break-in, with SOCO's dab dust all over it. Well, would you believe it, the window is already an almost perfect fit for the tree house. With a small rebate and a bit of beading, it will sit beautifully in the gable and cast its glorious blue and orange light over the girls' play for years to come. And it was made by Mummy, so what better resting place for it?

Now we're both showered and rested, we're off to watch a movie. So far, perfect Saturday. It's mac and cheese for tea too, and Nikki's baking a cake. I tell ya, it don't get much better than this.