purpleinopp said: OK, that's what I'm talkin about! Wow! Seeing still shots are not enough to fully appreciate your gardens and incredible view.
I have a lot of shade (thankfully, for the comfort) and a lot of weeds. Considering what I had to start, it's better, but the weeds are winning lately.
Your juke boxes are so cool! You have excellent taste in music. Have they been meticulously maintained or did you restore them?
Thank you very much for the "visit" to your gardens and "summerhouse," a fun nickname for it.
Thanks for the kind words.
The summer house is based on photographs in very old books I found in Manchester Central Library, of Victorian country house garden buildings, particularly tea-houses, built by Japanese carpenters, brought over to construct them. Plus a few ideas of my own.
I built it in 1987 to compliment the koi pool.
Likewise, the lanterns. I found this photo of a stone lantern in a book, it's in the Imperial Garden in Kyoto, it's about 300 years old.
So I copied it.
Then got a bit more adventurous.
and then I made the 6ft. pagoda. They are all made from fine concrete mix.
The latter had a bit of a tart up this year, I do it every few years.
There's a lot of lights in the garden, four porch lights on the buildings, two low voltage spotlights, the two lanterns, the summer-house lights up as does the fountain and there's four sets of fairy lights, all controlled by four switches behind the lounge curtains.
The switches are all connected to this consumer unit I installed in the garage, by an armoured cable under the patio. I updated the electrics a couple of years ago.
The jukeboxes I bought on eBay about fifteen years ago. They were in reasonable condition, but needed a good clean and lubrication. They'd both been in private hands for half their lives. The big one (80 45s) is from 1976 and the smaller one (50 45s) from 1969. I hade to re-make the graphic on the small one. I managed to get a replacement for the bigger one for £5. They all go blue with age. In the summer I might take out the carousel motor of the big one and give that a service as it runs a bit slow, But it's a "lie on your back to get at it," sort of job, so I keep putting it off.
They need regular use to keep them working. I play them when I'm gardening.
This is the big one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Lots more videos of them on my YouTube channel (but none of me).
