If you're anywhere near a forest, let the deer eat your jungle. Then you can take PRIDE as the lions come for a look.

Stanman May Your Light Forever Shine

Is slowly starting to take shape, after nearly 2 years. OK, it's a rented property, but it had been empty for at least six months prior. OK, someone had occasionally mown the lawn, but the rest was a nightmare. The borders were a weed patch, infused with a ground-level creeper that's several orders of magnitude more prickly than bramble, what remained of the fences was covered with ivy (which also wound its way through the shrubs), and what had started out as a laurel hedge had been neglected so long it was about 30' high and the lower branches had layered themselves, so it was at least 6' deep. It had to be tackled bit by bit, at least partially because I didn't want branches sitting on the lawn (there's still a decent amount of grass in amongst the moss!) longer than necessary, and cutting them up into 4' lengths to fit in my car to take to the nearest household waste site is a pain!

So last year I finally got around to planting stuff, then discovered the next little surprise. A layer of broken glass, about 6' under the soil level. I have a sneaky suspicion that whenever the double glazing was installed, the contractors didn't dispose of the single glazed panes they removed...

I'm also a lazy gardener, preferring to do it in spurts of a couple of hours, every couple of weeks (apart from mowing). But even though it is a bit of a chore, the green bin is full to overflowing, the lawn covered with branches for a couple of days (not to mention the path down the side of the house) so it looks like a tip until completely cleared away, and I inevitably end up very tired, with mud wedged under my fingernails and thorns in my palms; when it is eventually cleared up it looks better than it did before.

And it means I've done something constructive with my weekend / evening, away from the draw of my computer :)