@thecuriousglasshouse Lifestyle Blog by Oxford Cottage Gardener
Lifestyle, interiors and gardening – Follow on Instagram @thecuriousglasshouse for daily updates
Sorry to have been absent from my blog, I’ve been quite busy in the garden!
A quick update…..We exchanged and moved into the house on the planned date (after all the trials and tribulations of the purchase) and on the weekend we moved in, the heavens opened and it rained non stop for about 4 weeks. So no progress on the garden during the month of April but we did managed to decorate our study and get all our books and craft and hobby bits moved in.
Since I last shared on my blog, things have moved very slowly towards ownership of our new house.
Our offer was accepted back in November, the valuation was done and mortgage was secured then came Christmas and everything ground to a halt. Come the New Year we had a couple of minor setbacks, one was about the additional parcel of land at the bottom of the garden (which is the reason we are buying the house anyway!)
It seems although the seller owned the land it hadn’t been fully transferred into his name with Land Registry so our mortgage company needs further checks. Also our buy to let mortgage, secured on on current house to release funds for the new house, had expired in early February. Due to a miscommunication between the solicitor and bank, but actually due to the banks error our application has been put on the cancelled pile! However as it was the banks error they have agreed to re-instate the application.
All that means we still haven’t exchanged, although hope to by the end of next week! Maybe!
We do however have a completion date arranged of the 23rd March so all being well we still hope to meet that. It is pretty essential as our temporary Monday to Friday rental finished at the beginning of March although the owner has agreed we can stay until 23rd, so there is quite a lot riding on this! Not least the prospect of being homeless in the week, or travelling nearly 1 1/2 hr each way every day!
Nevertheless we have made a start on planning that lovely garden and I’ve been buying all the bargain summer bulbs I can find ready for one of the big plans we have……
More news next time……..
Gorgeous snow drops
It is lovely to have fresh flowers in the house, they are so beautiful to look at and instantly brighten your day. The trouble is, at best they will last about 2 weeks before inevitably they start to wilt and no longer look their best, so I like to photograph them. Although I only use my iphone camera, with no special lighting or lenses, the effects that can be created can still be stunning.
To capture them at their best, photographing them in their vase is an option, especially if photographed in a pretty setting with a prop or two.
However you can also go for a more casual picture, as if you’ve just returned from the flower market with large bunches of flowers and placed them down.
This picture was taken with the flowers carefully placed on a wooden board to create the illusion of a casual picture. Play around with the placing of each of the stems to give the correct effect.
In this one, I changed the background and laid the tulips on a freshly ironed piece of grey fabric. This produces a very pleasing contrast, again lay the stems to achieve the desired look, moving them around until you like the result.
I also tried a more formal approach of singling out the stems and lining them up again with the grey background. I’ve been careful to leave the leaves and stems to be less formal to balance out the look.
In this picture, I used the mirror to add background detail to make the flowers stand out.
Whichever look to choose in the end, they all have the effect of making your instagram feed look stunning.
