The first day of the month was beautiful and sunny after a frosty start. We’ve had so few frosts this winter and -5 degrees c has been the lowest. My daughter and her man came down for the day so not a lot of work got done but it was an enjoyable day sitting in the sunshine, (light winds too). They left at about 3.30 and I did a bit of hand watering in one of the tunnels. I became aware of an unusual noise above my head, when I looked up I saw a major tear along one of the hoops. Its definitely not repairable and it couldn’t have happened at a worse time due to Philip starting his treatment on Monday. The cover has done amazingly well and we think it was put on 12 years ago. I presume that all the strong winds we’ve had this year has finished it off. Once we got home we started to look up who could do the recladding job asap. We emailed a number of people including Martin from Lineside Nursery not to ask him to do it but to see if he knew anyone who could. He has plenty of his own work to keep him busy. Imagine my delight when I found an email from him this morning offering to do the work for us.

All I have to do now is order the polythene sheet, the batons, the nails and some extra help. Then, with help from the young George, we need to remove the old sheet, the old batons and the guttering and generally get everything prepared in between taking P to and from the hospital for 4 days. Its going to be a difficult week.