Garden loveliness and a transformation

Poppy come and gone, poppy come again. I love the contrast between the vivid orange of this California poppy and the gentle fading blue of the Himalayan one - they seem to epitomise their home countries; California, hot and zingy, full of light and energy; the Himalayas cool, ethereal and rather spiritual

the wonderful rhododendron just keeps on flowering, great flouncy heads of sugar pink around which the bees buzz in drunken delight

it chimes well with a pale purple variety nearby - we are so familiar with these lovely plants it's easy to forget their charm. As a child I would pluck the flowerheads from the one in Ganna's garden to suck the sweetness from their base

 down in the dell, Queen Anne's lace is once more filling the space with foamy white nodding heads

irresistible 

While all this loveliness is happening in the garden, up at the house, there has been a total transformation, of a similar enormity to the one that conjured a conservatory from a tatty patio.
This, pictured below just before we moved in, has been acting as a utility room.

It is just off the kitchen, was once the outside with a small coal store at the far end, you can just see the wooden hatch where the coal was delivered, behind the boiler. Previous owners covered it in with the most astonishingly Heath Robinson affair of corrugated plastic, misaligned wooden beams and an asbestos "wall". It rattled and squeaked with the slightest movement of air, the floor was a patchwork of grotty concrete, cracked tiles and tatty lino, the glass in the side door was cracked and there was a rather smelly drain, impervious to bleach and source of nocturnal visits by a tribe of cat food eating slugs, who always melted away by daybreak and who couldn't be discouraged by the most inventive of means.

Now it is a lovely bright space with glass roof and proper vinyl flooring which feels soft and warm underfoot. The end window was moved to the side, there's a cupboard and new clean countertop, plenty of shelf space to put "stuff"

and the corner next to the kitchen door now has windows looking out on the side space, destined to be a courtyard herb garden (one day!) instead of the previous, very unpleasant asbestos construction

We are, as you might guess, delighted with it. It is full of light, warm but not too hot and, joy of joys, quiet!
Thank you Phil!