Hello everyone - room for another in the potting shed? I've been having a read over the last few days and you seem like a lovely friendly bunch, full of energy and enthusiasm - just what I need. Sorry I missed the party last night 
I'm in Belgium (DP is Belgian), and we bought this house last June. There's been so much to do house-wise that so far we've not done much on the garden, but there's huge potential and I want to get stuck in. I feel quite overwhelmed at times, given the size of the garden and my lack of experience (my parents are keen gardeners and I'd always wanted a garden of my own, but until a few years ago I'd lived in a series of flats in various different countries so got very good at container gardening!) but I keep reminding myself that the only way is to do little bits at a time. The previous owners weren't gardeners; they put in a lovely terrace with a little pond (fabulous water lilies and irises last summer)...and other than that, it's all moss lawn. There's the odd shrub stuck in haphazardly in front of the hedge, and nothing else, not a single flowering plant other than a few abandoned rose bushes (we kept an eye on the garden last spring before the sale completed to see what we were getting). There are lots of trees, though, and in the autumn I planted lots of bulbs beneath them so we'd have a bit of colour in the spring - the crocuses have suffered in the snow, but the daffodils are about to come out, and later on there should be tulips.
I've decided that my first tiny step is to create a herb patch, taking over the only real bed that exists already (DP has just about cleared it; it was full of a random hodge-podge of things - roses, box, marjoram, lots of weeds). It's about 2.5x2.5m, not far from the kitchen door. I've got lots of seedlings in propagators at the moment (I keep showing DP how they're growing, to hurry him into laying the promised path!)
That's quite enough of an introduction from me - I'm off to peer at my seedlings again. I look forward to getting to know you all.