Some things take a little while

I have a very long list of jobs, and a lot of stock items associated with them. I don't fully understand the process by which things get put off for another time - something to do with the difference between the important and the urgent?  When I acquire materials I almost always intend to process them reasonably quickly, but that often doesn't follow.  My record, I think, is a package in the workshop which contains the pieces of teak and slate needed to make a small coffee table, which is wrapped in newspaper dated 1975.  I should be able to sort it by the end of 2015, I think.

So my third willow basket has happened at lightning speed.  In January my younger son and his wife donated  a red wig for my car:

This was some overgrown willow from their Devon garden.  I don't know a great deal about all the various willows, but this had the advantage of beautiful colour variations from yellow to red, and the disadvantage of being rather thick-stemmed with lots of side shoots. When I got it home I spent ages trimming off the sideshoots, and used the thickest rods to create a screen for some of our compost bins.  The rest went in the bath to increase its pliability (not our only bath, in case you were wondering):

As I worked with it, I learned a lot about which rods were really too thick for the job in hand, so the outcome was a rough-and-ready (artisanal?) basket which has now gone back to Devon to hold logs for the willow-providers.  They are kind enough to say it's fine.  As it's the first basket I've made without expert supervision, I'm grateful to them, but shall be aiming higher next time.

Wisteria support

We have been planning for a while to plant a wisteria in the side garden.  To support it (assuming that it grows!) we designed an open structure which in effect creates a new south 'wall' facing the utility building.  In due course the drystone wall will be repaired (Elizabeth is going on a National Trust course this summer) so I used up some 4 x1 carcassing and some half-round posts, held together with galvanised roofing bolts.  The new planting is going to feel somewhat intimidated for the first few years, we feel.