Matthew Lang

Sun low in the sky, a roast in the oven, apples stewing for later tonight, the Packers on television shortly. Pretty much a perfect evening ahead.

No plans this weekend, and I intend to keep it that way.

I’m taking each day as it comes. Enjoy the rare luxury of not needing to be anywhere or do anything in particular, and just pottering about the house and seeing what happens.

My idea of a great weekend.

I might have jumped the gun putting my tomato plants out in the greenhouse last week. Colder temperatures at night this week, but hopefully they’re sheltered enough in there to keep the worst of the cold away.

The first dash of colour in the garden this year. A welcome sight.

Jennifer planted these bulbs in October in a layered fashion so that we would see all the flowers through springtime. Looking good so far.

We put the Christmas tree up this weekend, as next weekend was going to be a bit busy. Outdoor lights go up tomorrow.

Despite most of the trees having lost most of their leaves, the view from the home office is still great at this time of year.

📷 day 28 - ephemeral

Finally finished my greenhouse project.

A much better use of the space and will be a better environment for growing. We’ve more flowers growing on the deck as well. Be nice when these are in full bloom.

We’ve more plans for next year. A couple of raised beds will be added for vegetables and herbs.

I started putting the steel base down on top of my greenhouse’s foundation tonight. Hopefully, it will be fully built and ready to host some plants by next week.

For the first time this year, I’m working from outside in the back garden. Over the summer, I’ll work a lot more between here and the golf club. Once all the usual chores have been done, I’ll share a picture of the back garden office.

After a much-needed lazy Saturday morning, I spent the afternoon doing a dry run of the base for my greenhouse. The bricks are lined up and level, but they need a final layer of concrete to keep them in place. I’m happy with the first run at it, though.

I spent the better part of a day preparing a section of the garden for the new greenhouse. Now, I’m reaping the benefits of a hard day’s work by chilling on the couch with a rum, watching golf, and doing some Rails coding on my MacBook.

I missed some glorious golfing weather over the weekend as I finished painting the hall. With that done, all our major home decorating plans are complete, and I can enjoy the outdoors and golf until around October.

I’m ending the week on a high with my wife’s birthday today. My wife is off to yoga this morning, and then we’ll spend a couple of hours in the garden, preparing it for the good weather. Finally, I’ll be cooking the birthday girl’s requested dinner, which is one of her favourites, chicken pie.

The Game of Bricks light set for the Santa’s Post Office are fantastic.

The Christmas tree is up!

I had some company this morning in the garden.

Our Japanese Maple in the garden is looking its best just before all its leaves start to fall. I wish autumn was a bit longer.

Today, finished getting the back garden in order for the winter. Just the remainder of the leaves to fall and the golf net will come down in a couple of weeks.

A south-facing office window has its ups and downs.

On the upside, bright sunny days like today are great for looking outside, and the office is well-lit throughout the day. On the downside, it means some serious squinting of the eyes is needed to read the code on my monitors.

I replaced the plastic castors on my Ikea office chair with rollerblade-style castors. The difference is like night and day, and the new castors are better for our new wooden flooring in the office. My only gripe is that the office isn’t long enough to see how fast my chair can go!

I finished flooring the last of the rooms yesterday. The wee yin is chuffed to bits with his bigger room. No more major home projects now until late autumn. Weekends are for golf now!

Back to Ikea this afternoon for the second time in a month. Picking up some furniture for the big yin’s room.

I picked the wrong time of year to do a major home project. I had to rest for a few days between flooring our three rooms as the lurgy had taken old. I returned to it last night and almost finished the second and largest of the three rooms. The final room will be done at the weekend.

First stage of our changing of rooms complete. My office is now upstairs and ready to go.

Going to floor the big yin’s new room over the next few days and then finish off the wee yin’s new room a few days after. Better rooms for everyone with more space for the boys.

Made a red velvet cake tonight using this BBC recipe. Disappointed that it looks more like a chocolate sponge than a red sponge.

Final leaves of the autumn raked up and bagged and tidied up the driveway in preparation for our Christmas lights and wreath going up. A bit of code and coffee this afternoon and that will be a productive day.

Got the bed of veggies going for the roast, potatoes, carrots and parsnips are peeled and ready, Yorkshire pudding mix is chilling in the fridge, some tunes on in the background and the coffee is brewing.

Just another chill Sunday afternoon.

📸 day 21 / fall #mbsept

That little hint in the garden that fall is here. And yes, I prefer using fall to autumn.

First try of the tomatoes from the garden. I’m sure they’ll taste great.

The last splash of colour in the garden before winter sets in.

When we moved into current house, we had three oak trees across the street.

A few years ago, they had to cut one down as it was dead. Today, they’re cutting down the remaining two for the same reason.

I know they need to be cut down for safety reasons, but still sad to see.

Trying something a bit different tonight, chicken parm in marinara sauce and mozzarella.

Our Japanese maple in the back garden is starting to change colour. A change of seasons is upon us. #mbaug

We had a new deck put in the back garden to give us more seating space. Up until that time, Scotland had been enjoying a wonderful sunshine. Since the deck was finished, and coincidentally lockdown restrictions eased, it’s been pretty much grey and wet.

That’s Scotland for you.

I always love the superb view at my parent’s garden in the winter.

Over the years, I’ve taken a few pictures like this, some with leaves everywhere, some with frost, and even a couple with snow. I’ve yet to capture the deer that sometimes wander into the garden, though.

Our street is in a very quiet part of town, but like most places this time of year, there’s the frequent noise of fireworks being set off for Guy Fawkes night.

That’s the garden sorted for the winter. Time to reward myself with a couple of hours watching the Solheim Cup. Go Europe! 🇪🇺 ⛳️

Last of the painting done in the den this morning. Just need to get a few bookcases from Ikea for the room and we’ll be done.

Side-projects are taking a back seat for the next few days so that I can get the den re-painted and spruced up abit. Looking forward to getting a place for some of my books as well.

Spent the afternoon getting the garden into order today. There’s something to be said for a little bit of grafting.

Sustainable living?

I’d love a place like this.

This is the most restraint I’ve had to show in my life.

This tub contains the awesome trio of nuts, peanut butter and chocolate. I don’t know how they’ve lasted 24 hours in this house.

The turkey is in, the kitchen is stocked. Just a few presents to wrap and we’re all set in the Lang house!

Drew’s chasing the window cleaner round the windows of the house. I hope he doesn’t make him fall off his ladder.

A shame you can’t get these for UK light switches. They would have been a great addition to the boys rooms.

… over at Tools & Toys.

The joys of home delivery from @asda. Ended up with two bags from someone else’s order which included three sirloin steaks.

Interesting new idea for home security. I would be interested to see how accurate it is.

Communication is important when establishing a relationship with a potential client. It can be won or lost in just a couple of minutes.

We have an area in our front garden that is shaded for most of the day and the soil is terrible for growing anything in. For the last five years we’ve covered the ground with tarpaulin and gravel just to make it more presentable. It still looks bare though so I called a couple of landscape gardeners to come out and give me quotes to put a rock garden in to make the front of the house a lot nicer to look at.

The first landscape gardener that came out had a professional looking website with examples of his team’s work. I started to explain the situation and what I had in mind. He agreed with everything I suggested and I mean everything. There were no suggestions or ideas from him not even a question about plants, colour of stone or anything else for that matter. The price he gave us was cheap but then he didn’t give me the impression that there would be anything eye-catching about what he would produce. His lack of discussion didn’t boost my confidence either.

The second landscape gardener arrived a few days later. I actually got his number from a neighbour and he’s done a number of gardens in and around the area so it’s easy to see his work. I told him my idea for the front and what suggestions he had. After taking a couple of minutes to look at the ground he said that he could do what I asked but he made a number of suggestions that would make the rock garden more natural looking as well as ensuring that the plants would grow with the right amount of drainage under them. The conversation went on for about 15 minutes until we both agreed what I was looking after. He couldn’t give a price there and then as he said he would need to do some price checking to get the best deal. A week later and he called with a quote that was more than the first quote we got but still within our budget.

The second was different though. Conversation, engagement, sharing ideas and collaborating. He explained the options that I had, possible problems with solutions and even made a number of suggestions to improve the rock garden. This is why I will be going with the second landscape gardener. It was clear from our conversation that he had the knowledge and he explained exactly what he had in mind.

It was all in the communication. It was two way and simple. It’s worth remembering that when talking to potential clients about project work to be honest and helpful in that first conversation. When other factors don’t come into it, it might just hinge on that first conversation.

I’m definitely giving these no-cook refrigerator oatmeal breakfasts a try next week. I’ll report back the results.