Post Christmas

Happy New Year Everyone! I'd love to say this is my first post for the year, however it isn't lol. I actually started writing this post a couple of days ago and just didn't get around to finishing it. So here is the last post of 2014!

If you're reading this, you survived Christmas! Congratulations! lol Some of us probably ate and drank too much. I know I ate way too much lol So now what? NYE is just around the corner - I'm not making any resolutions.... I always break them or get bored with them. I do have plans - they're not resolutions as I have had certain plans for a while, I just need to keep aiming for them.

One plan which does need a GREAT deal of attention is sorting the yard out, both front and back. We have a very small backyard with a pool and the previous owners for some reason (duh!) planted a whole lot of trees, bushes and shrubs around the pool and yard that are not pool friendly. The pool is constantly full of leaves and sticks which makes maintaining it sooooo time consuming and time is something I am rather short on these days! Aren't we all! 

When we first moved into this house, I said to my wife that all of the current plants would have to come out for a couple of reasons:- 1) They were overgrown and out of control. 2) None are pool friendly. 3) They would need to be constantly cut back and there is limited space for ladders etc, and finally. 4) They just look bloody horrible!!!! There's no theme, they'd just whacked any old thing thoughtlessly in the ground in the hope that it would grow and GROW they did..... Out of control!  

So what am I going to do about it? Enter this whopper of a cutter that I received for Christmas! As the ground isn't level and the plants are growing behind a small retaining wall, I had no plans of using a ladder to cut back the tall and out of control plants (jungle), so this will do the job nicely in cutting them down to a manageable height. It is going to be a big job and it is going to take awhile, especially since it has gotten so out of control as I haven't had time since I bought the store.

As you can see, there isn't much space between the retaining wall and the pool fence, if I fell off the ladder (Which I am very good at lol) I'd probably impale myself on the pool fence.

I can't wait to see the end result. I have already planned to plant red and green clumping bamboo in the place of the horrid jungle that is currently in place. The bamboo will give us privacy from the neighbours directly at the rear of our property and we wont have leaves and sticks constantly in the pool. It's a shame the bamboo isn't sound-proof as that neighbour in particular drives us crazy with her constant yelling!