While the site is rubble and sand, I'm dreaming of a time in the future when I'll be sitting right here with a nice cup of coffee and the newspaper enjoying the scent of my flowering vines. Or harvesting peas and chard. Or hosting a social brunch, or watching Ash grill up a storm. Or planting milkweed and crossing my fingers for monarchs. This vision comes to me courtesy of Fiona, one of my dearest and oldest friends, who normally gets to design much larger and damper gardens in the Home Counties. She might not know California succulents as well as the local garden designers but she knows me better than anyone I could hire here.   Her task is to provide me somewhere pretty to do those things I mentioned. A place to sit and read the paper, eat a meal with family and friends, and grow a few easy crops. We also want scented climbers - because our perimeter wall faces onto a dogshit strewn path  delightful walkway down to the baseball field we are building it high. We want t...

 Demolition day has come at last. Days, actually. Which surprised us because we honestly thought if you just looked at that old shack funny it'd fall over. But it took four days in total to tear it down and wipe out an other old Hermosa beach cottage. Sorry. It took a day for the crew to unpick some parts of the house that are safer and more easily salvaged that way. It looked a bit like a bomb had hit it afterwards. But I've seen 'remodels' around here leave less standing, so I was looking forward to seeing more damage done. The next day they brought the bulldozer on site. That was Veteran's Day, and Hermosa rules prevent construction taking place during a public holiday. But they had to shave a smidge off the side of the house just to be able to park the bulldozer so technically a little teeny bit of house was demolished that day. That's my kind of parking, just make a bit of room for your vehicle and hang the consequences. On Thursday they really went to town...