Manic Kitty

One of my favourite sites, Reusablog has made a comeback with a 24 hour Blog-a-thon for charity. I missed the on-going posts over the 24 hours, but I've been catching up today. There are loads of great ideas for re-using some of our rubbish, and I was chuffed to see that one of those ideas was mine. I can't link to it directly which just means you'll have to read all the other useful tips too.
I'm planning on making some more of these flowers soon as my garden is a bit bare until the plants start growing, so I'll post some pictures of them then.

Whilst on the topic of reusing/recycling I should post about Freecycle. I found out about it when I saw a flyer for Saddleworth Freecycle the other day in Uppermill. Freecycle is basically a way to get rid of your unwanted goods, by passing them onto people who do want them. It's run through Yahoo Mailing lists, and there are lists for areas all over the world. I've signed up to the Saddleworth one (16 members), which is relatively new, so still growing, and the Manchester one (1181 members) which is established, so I've had plenty of offers of things, from Greenhouses and Compost Bins, to everything I could possibly need for a new baby (maternity clothes, cots, buggies, sterilizing gear, toys, books, videos, etc, etc, etc.) For the past year I've been saying I'd do a car boot to get rid of my junk, I should do really I need the money, but after that I'll stick what's left on Freecycle. Everybody should sign up and we can all swap our junk around.

In other news, the garden is coming along brilliantly. The fence is finished (except for 1 panel which we missed painting.) We have a gate, so feel a bit more secure. Mum has been making wider borders and rebuilding walls, as well as raiding her garden for plants which should look great when they've grown and filled out.
We've taken up the turf on one side of the garden and filled it with herbs. I'm hoping that the scents they give off will be strong enough to disguise the smells created by the neighbour's not clearing up after their dog.

The next plan is to build a little wall at the back of the garden to retain the rubbish coming over from the garden behind, then we're putting decking across the back and putting a shed up there. We're still trying to decide what to do with the fence at the back. It's a green wire mesh fence, which is supposed to be held up with 2 big wooden stakes, but the stakes are actually held up with the branch of a tree. I would like to get rid of it completely as it isn't very safe, I'm scared that one day when the cats climb on it and it will collapse. Instead I'd put some trellis up there so we can grow plants to hide the mess, but Dad isn't keen on shifting it and want to put trellis infront of it. That worries me because it would still be there and be dangerous, and we'd be losing more of our already small garden.
We'll reach some agreement eventually.

Right now back to redesigning the website. I'm determined to get it online by next weekend.