Lucy was my first purchase, not quite the great work of art that I'd hoped for but at the time I was desperate to get started and needed somebody up there to get the motivation going.

I found Lucy at the home of  a wonderful Russian lady (named Lucy!) who I'd seen from afar for many years, diligently painting and placing her bird baths and figures out the front of  her house to sell.  So I called in to see if she had anybody I wanted. Well, my Lucy came home with me despite the fact that she was clothed.  Along with her came a bird bath, both of which are still adorning my pool yard.

Lucy originally had pride of place at the back of the waterfall, carrying her little basket and flooded with light of a night.  The birdbath went through a few transitional changes. I realised quite early that it was pointless depending on the local birds to frequent my new birdbath. Why would they - for the past twelve years they've swooped down into my pool at 4pm every afternoon for their daily swim . The birdbath proved no answer to this problem,  despite my efforts of trickery by putting toy birds in it, so today it still stands as a pot plant  holder.

So with these two to start my journey with I visited the local nurseries and bought lots of plants, lattice and wooden dividers. I got in all sorts of trouble with the "cement like" soil my poor plants had been trying to exist in for the past 12 years and realised I needed some garden mulch and fertiliser. So, armed with face mask (warnings on the bags had me in a bit of bother about bacterial diseases these products may contain if I inhaled any "droplets"!) so with mask, gumboots and swimmers on (yeah, picked heatwave conditions to do this in) I dug in.  This took considerable time due to the heat but eventually they were all planted into the earth (along with countless fingernails and a few stones from a little ring I'd forgotten  to remove).

One particularly hot day, when I  felt I was 'knockin' on heavens door'  as my heart raced, my arms ached and my mascara ran, I had a visit from a one time good friend , his wife and baby,  who had also been sweltering in the heat.  It was a nice reward to sit back and share the fruits of my labours with friends.