A shed, a shed, my kingdom for a shed – first published 17 June 2014

In June 2014 I was waxing lyrical about a new shed. It was all very exciting. Commando, after a lot of window shopping, ordered a shed online from Wickes. They said it would be delivered in one to two weeks. Three and a half weeks later and we are still shedless. This wouldn’t have been quite so bad if Wickes hadn’t already taken our money. Eventually, Commando, getting a little impatient and having heard nothing at all about the possibility of an imminent delivery, called Wickes customer services. This is where things took a decided turn for the worst.

17 June 2014

“I’ll ring the supplier and call you straight back,” the woman from Wickes said when Commando asked where our shed was. Of course she didn’t. Later that day Commando rang again, explained that he’d been promised a call back with the whereabouts of his shed and asked what was going on. “I’m sorry sir,” a different woman said, “I’ll find out for you and ring you straight back.” Of course she didn’t either and, by this time, Commando was running out of patience with the whole thing and beginning to wonder if in fact Wickes even sold sheds. There was no way he was going to call back again because, frankly, if he had, he’d have ended up being one of those customers that all customer service agents dread, the shouty, incoherent ones.

So he subcontracted the job out to me. Obviously calling companies to complain is my territory, mostly because I’ve been on the other end of it so much myself so I know how it works. I also don’t do shouty or incoherent. Well, not normally anyway.

This time the phone was answered by a man. Very politely I explained the shed situation and the abysmal lack of customer service situation. I asked if I might speak to a manager, knowing full well that was never going to happen. Managers are not stupid, they normally only take calls once they’ve had a chance to find out all the answers so the most you can hope for is a call back unless you shout so loud the need for a phone is academic. I do not shout. I wasn’t taking any chances with another call back either.
“Um, my supervisor is on another call right now,” Shaun, the poor customer service agent said in a voice that made me fairly sure he was younger than CJ and about as well trained in customer service too, “would you mind if I put you on hold and tried to call the supplier myself?”

More than five minutes of mind numbing hold music later the unfortunate Shaun was back.
“Um, the supplier says they have had a bit of a run on sheds,” he said, “there’s been a high demand.”
The temptation to say, “you don’t say, right at the beginning of summer when every man and his dog is replacing the ones that were destroyed by the winter storms, who’d have thought it?” was strong but it would hardly have been fair on poor Shaun. Instead I asked if they had any idea when they would be able to deliver?
“Um, they didn’t actually, um, say,” he said nervously, sounding a little like one of the characters on the Simpson’s whose voice is breaking, “but they are going to call you this week.”
“To arrange delivery?” I asked.
“Um, no, to tell you when they will have stocks in to deliver I think.”
“So you still have no idea when we might have a shed then?”
“Um, not really.”

To be fair Shaun tried his best. It wasn’t his fault in any way. He did mumble something about gestures of goodwill once the shed was delivered and we were happy with it. The problem is we still have no idea when that will be. I get the feeling somewhere there is a man watching a tree grow so he can saw it into timber to make our shed.

Politely, I asked Shaun to make sure his manager was aware of the situation because, if there was no call this week from the supplier I was going to be back on the phone and this time I would be speaking to the manger whether they were on the phone or not. I also pointed out that we had bought the shed from Wickes, not the supplier, so the least they should do was keep us informed and call back when they said they would even if it was only to tell us they didn’t have any answers yet. Their website still offers delivery within one to two weeks which seems a little over optimistic as far as I can see but we will get to that if and when we need to.

So there will be no pictures of sheds being constructed in the foreseeable future. There will be no pictures of me buying paint or lovingly applying it. There will just be more pictures of a breeze block wall and a couple of bags of sand. If there is a moral to this tale it is not to buy a shed from Wickes, unless you aren’t planning to put it up any time soon.

By now you probably know I’m quite fond of my little garden. Even though it’s not the biggest and it may not be the neatest or most perfect of gardens and it currently doesn’t have a working shed, I enjoy pottering around in it. It occurred to me the other day that, while I often post pictures of the plants, I have never really given you the grand tour. So I’m about to put that right. Come inside and have a look…

Maybe I should tell you a little of the history behind the house and garden. The house was built in 1933 on land was once part of the estate and gardens of the man who had the Big Bridge built. Ours was one of the first houses to be completed and the first owner turned it into two flats used by the wives and families of service men away at war. Towards the end of the war, my paternal grandfather, Pappy, bought the house. He was the second owner. Pappy kept the house as two flats. Mother and my Dad (when he came back from the war) lived downstairs and my aunt and uncle lived upstairs. Eventually, when my aunt and uncle found a house of their own, my Dad bought the house from Pappy. By the time I was born, Pappy was a widower and living with my parents.

After Mother died in 1990, Commando and I bought my sister Alex’s half of the house from her. It was in need of a great deal of love and attention because Mother had been too ill for too long to do much of that herself. The garden was an overgrown wilderness but, at first, we had to concentrate on getting the house in good order and, with three young sons, money was tight. The front garden, right in front of the bay window, was one of my first projects. I filled in the central bed and The neighbours thought I was mad as I dug out new beds in the pouring rain.

Slowly but surely, I filled it with shrubs. Many of them came from cuttings but a few, like the hypericum, were presents from my Mother In Law, who shared my love of gardening and delighted in taking me to garden centres. To fill the gaps while they grew I sprinkled cheap packets of seeds or gathered seed from flowers in other parts of the garden. Even now the odd nigella or aquilegia pops up unexpectedly in strange places but I like a bit of randomness so mostly I leave them. Right now, hypericum, nigella and a little hebe are the main providers of colour, along with the daisies on the grass, but soon there will be exotic day lilies.

The garden on the other side of the path is much newer. It was once a long sweeping bed with grass leading in a meandering curve to the drive. When we built the gym it took up a fair bit of the garden and the grass was turned into a muddy, debris strewn wreck by the builders. I was sad to see some things, like my beautiful camellia, go but I saved what I could and much of it is now in the back garden. One thing that didn’t make it was the yew tree in the corner by the door. These days the bones of it support my variegated ivy tree and I’m toying with adding some clematis or another climber to run through it and give me flowers.

 

There’s lavender along the path to brush against as you pass. Even when it’s not in flower the smell is wonderful. Behind the lavender is a small olive tree I planted a couple of years ago. It flowers but, so far, we have not had olives. I think it’s probably too cold for them. Before the gym was built the path turned the corner and ran down the side of the house. Nowadays it’s been diverted to go around the side of the gym but a little of the old wall remains. Buddha sits there watching over the house, chuckling all the while.

This part of the garden has become overrun with arundinaria but I plan to tackle that in the near future and plant something a little less invasive. In the middle of the garden there’s a Kilmarnock willow, planted when my first granddaughter was born, and along the wall shrubs, lilac, holly, an unhappy weigella, privet, bay, a variegated holly and the choisya by the gate. Between them the marguerite daisies are just coming up again.

Now a gravel path runs round the gym towards the back garden. It has a satisfying crunch when you walk along it. This little bit of garden screens the drive and is dominated by a bright cotinus, a haze of flowers right now. This is also where the quince grows, along with lavender and a senecio which is covered in bright yellow flowers now. The peony is over but there are geraniums, heather, cornflowers, poppies and a few other seedlings yet to come to anything. This was where Fluffy liked to bask in the sun.

Through the gate there is a small concrete area where my mini greenhouse sits. This was once the floor of the garage, built by Pappy and my Dad but we pulled it down when the gym was built, along with and old coal bunker and the Bird Room, where Dad kept canaries. The back wall of the garage is still standing, mostly to keep out the antics of Topol and his children next door. It isn’t pretty and I’d rather something nicer was there but, until they move, it will stay. I keep thinking about painting something on it but, so far, I haven’t got round to it.

Down the step I broke my foot on when I tripped back in 2008, the wall continues for a while where Pappy’s shed used to be. This is where our new shed will go, if it ever arrives. At least the wall will be hidden. This was where all my tubs used to be. Beside the shed there used to be a greenhouse with a breeze block base. The base is still there but now it’s a walled garden. Commando built me some wooden seats and my fatsia grows here.

 

There’s a conifer, holly and bamboo at the back against the trellis, interspersed with jasmine and everlasting sweet peas, neither of which is flowering yet. Commando likes to keep the box and euonymus at the front clipped where I would like them a little more wild. Between these I’ve planted red hot pokers and hebe and rather a lot of little flowers have seeded themselves amongst everything, some of the welsh poppies are even coming up through the slats of the seats much to Commando’s annoyance.

Along the other fence is the wide bed. This was where Mother had roses. Much as I like roses they’re a bit of a waste most of the year and these were so overgrown and strangled by weeds they had to go. The main shrubs here are the mahonia, elaeagnus, philadelphus and, of course, the palm. This is where the New Zealand flax used to be and where the little fig tree is now looking quite happy along with the blueberry. The yucca is just coming into flower and I look forward to the beautiful white blooms, much later this year for some reason.

At the pointed end of the lawn is a gateway through the ivy and honeysuckle arch Commando built for me. The old shed is there at the moment and once it was filled by my Dad’s bird aviary. This is where my little veg plot is, soon it will be quite a bit bigger. The plan is for raised beds but this may take some time to organise so don’t hold your breath.

Standing in the arch looking back at the house you can see the decking that runs right along from corner to corner. The back garden is much lower than the front because everything runs down from the road. Before the gym was built there were steep stone steps that I’ve fallen up and down a few times over the years. The decking is much nicer and safer too. Right now the tubs are lined up along it and they are a mass of flowers.

The California poppies are out now along with field poppies, welsh poppies and the oriental ones I wasn’t sure about. I planted red and black and when they grew I wasn’t sure which they were. Sadly the red ones have come to nothing and the flowers that have just opened are more purple than black which is disappointing. They are quite pretty though and I will save some seed. The nasturtiums are putting on a wonderful show too.

It’s all going to look very different once the shed is up and I’m quite looking forward to a new view from the gym door. The kitchen door opens out onto the widest area of decking and this is where I’ve put the herb pots and the big square tubs, where I’ve got tomatoes and cut and come again lettuce growing, for the time being. There a mosaic table and chairs on the deck here and, on sunny weekend mornings, I can sit here eating my breakfast looking out over the garden.

So that’s it. My little garden. It isn’t very big, it isn’t perfect by any means and, right now it’s shedless, but it makes me happy.

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