We made it to the deadline

Yes, our May deadline has been and gone and we just about made it by the skin of our teeth.  May seems to be the month of visitors and so on New Year's Day we wrote a great, long list of things to get done before then.  There were a couple of things we didn't get finished like the coffee table which has temporary legs (some spare chair legs we had lying around . . .  like you do), the bath is still unpanelled and the lounge still has that horrible chipboard door.  But those things were not really important and everyone had places to sleep and sit, so that was fine.  We had another planning meeting yesterday and I think the list is even longer this time, but without the deadline.  The new list is just so that we can choose a job to fit a time slot and things don't get forgotten.  With the May dealine over, Bob is going to get back to making furniture and trying to sell some of it - a bit daunting really as it is so long since he's done it!

He did have a practice run by making a single bed for the oak room.  It looks really good and is very sturdy, made from some timber our builder friend rescued from a job he was doing.

The dry-run putting the bed together.  Bob thumped one corner
to get it in place and the head of the screw holding the bracket
sheared off completely.  Good job it happened then and not when
someone got into bed!  We had to go and buy some stronger screws!!

Next stage - in place and waiting for the matress to be
delivered.

And here we are all made up with the quilt cover I made
and ready for Mum to give it its test run.  This does give
'making the bed' a whole new meaning!

All our deliveries arrived on time and in good condition, including the second settee for the lounge.  It is a bit of a squash to get the two of them in there and it looked a little odd to start with . . . . it's a cosy lounge you could say.  We're used to it now and I'm in the middle of making cushion covers which will help sort out the colour scheme a bit.  I've made two oatmealy-coloured ones for on the red settee and I'm knitting some smaller mellow green ones for in front of them and then I'll think about the ones for the other settee when I see how that looks.  A few years ago Kevin McCloud did a programme on telly and part of the trailer for it was him saying that you had to sort out the structure of the building (the important bits) and only then can you start thinking about cushion covers.  At the time I sighed and thought how long off that moment was . . . . well here it is!

And here's the half-done coffee table with its chair legs - they
do make it look very 70's.  The top is a single piece of Elm which
someone gave us - full of woodworm tracks, but it has character.
Bob literally finished polishing the wax off this as the visitors arrived!

So, the visitors are as follows:
On the Bank Holiday weekend Carol and Graham (my sister and her husband) came on their way back from the Lake District.  We had a nice moochy time and then went to see a band in Llandudno.  We saw The Vaccines much to my teenage neice's envy . . . . lets just say, we were in the older part of the audience demographic!  Brilliant though.
They went home on Tuesday and on Thursday Mum and Dad arrived with their Dutch friends on their way to a week on the Welsh coast.  Again we had a good time pottering around and eating at the pub in the village.  I have even picked up a few words in Dutch!
They left on Saturday morning and were followed by Ben who is having a tough time just now having split up from Lucy, his long time girlfriend.  All very sad and complicated by their joint plans to go back to uni in Aberystwyth together in September, giving up jobs and their flat.  Hopefully he felt a bit better after some home cooking, a change of scenery and a hug from his mommy!  Still loads to sort out though, poor lad.
Ben left on Monday and next is Mum and Dad and the Dutch friends on Saturday on their way home and then Bob's sister and her bloke the following weekend.  Jane hasn't been since the very early days when we were still sorting out the roof, so she should see a bit of a change!

While Ben was here, Bob showed him how to use the chainsaw and we got on with clearing our bit of the field.  The weather wasn't really good enough to go for a walk with hail storms and torrential rain interspersed with lovely sunny bits so outdoor work close to home seemed a better idea.  The log pile for next year is gradually filling up and without all the branches in the field we'll be able to keep it strimmed to try to get on top of the nettles, so good job done.

Look!  We have chillies nearly ready to pick.  This is a plant
we bought last year, which flowered but didn't do any more.
They are Scotch Bonnet Chillies - so they should be quite fiery!
I feel the need for a curry coming on!








Slouched out!

We have now slouched.

Now we have proper things in the living room, it does show
that door up a bit - maybe we should change it d'ya think?
The other side of it is covered in all sorts of paint as it is where
we cleaned off our paint brushes - quite a work of art you know.
This little oak chest (which Bob made before we moved) is only
here as a temporary coffee table - we have a big lump of elm
to make into a coffee table.

We really weren't sure what size telly to get so we found
a likely-sized picture and put it in a bin bag to see what we
thought it'd look like turned off . . . take the bin bag off and
it becomes a telly turned on!  This could catch on you know -
the picture is probably more interesting than most of the stuff
that's on telly!

So, here's the real thing - took us all afternoon on Monday
to try and work out how to use it!  I have finished the curtain
for the other window, so it's nice and cosy with them drawn.
This cupboard was one of the pieces donated to the cause
by some friends and it fits brilliantly and looks just right.

It has been a strange week really - we are having to learn a new way of living again (like we did moving into the caravan, then again moving out of the caravan and now having more than one 'living' room).  This morning I heard Bob making a coffee before I came down, but then he wasn't in the kitchen so I just assumed he'd gone to the workshop, so I got on with unloading the washing machine, etc and then I found him relaxing in the lounge with his coffee - I didn't even think to look there!  We now have two woodburners to juggle and decisions about which to light.  As it's still quite chilly once the sun's dipped behind the trees,we light both!  The one in the kitchen is useful for cooking and heating water so that gets lit first, but after tea we don't keep it going, we light the other one for the rest of the evening.  We have to walk miles now to re-fill our wine glasses!  Do you think we should get a little fridge in there?!  It still feels a bit like a holiday cottage - we haven't put much in the way of nik-naks and pictures to personalise it yet.  We need to get the rest of our ornaments and pictures out, look at what's already out and have a good think about where everything goes and move things around.

It certainly seems strange not to have all our building paraphanaelia in the house anymore and we have to think where we have re-housed it to.  Where do we store the chicken food now?  Muddy boots, where do they go?  We like it really, don't worry, it's just strange.

So, now Bob's in the middle of making a second single bed for the oak room and should get that finished this week coming.  I have made the quilt covers for them both.  The second mattress should be delivered on Thursday, the second settee should be ready to collect on Wednesday and the second duvet is on order from M&S and should be in on Tuesday - we are using Ben's old mattress and bed which is longer than normal (he is 8ft tall!), so we have had to get a kingsize duvet for the length and then I'll cut it down to single width.

Couple of disasters this week - well, not disasters really just annoyances.  On Friday we went to Shrewsbury for lots of bits and pieces and to have lunch and got a parking ticket.  I sent the cheque off straight away so we only have to pay half, but forgot to put a stamp on - oops, they won't be impressed with that will they?  Yesterday I had the bright idea to dye the white quilt cover for the double bed because it is really quite boring.  I'd quite like to make a patchwork quilt for on that bed one day, but that could be some time off.  So I thought I'd dye it bright red and do some tie-dying into the bargain - cooool!  Just before lots of visitors seemed like a sensible idea to me!  I put three lots of dye in to make it a nice deep colour and spent ages trying to convince myself that the results weren't really pink!  There's no way round it though, it's definitely PINK, very PINK! So, today while Bob was off in Bolton looking at lathes I went back to Dunhelm (second time in two days) and was so thankful that they had lovely bright red quilt covers - phew!  Disaster averted.

On Friday we had an amazing rainbow which lasted
absolutely ages.  This picture really doesn't do
it justice - it was beautiful.

Back to work tomorrow!

Tomorrow we can slouch!

I'm so excited - tomorrow we can move the settee into the lounge.  Just how darned posh is that?!!!!  I worked different hours last week and so worked the early shift on Thursday and then when I got home we started laying the floorboards.  We started either side of the hearth which is the most awkward bit to do and so we were quite pleased to get that bit all worked out and cut to shape and ready to glue together on Friday morning.  We were also quite pleased with our cunning design for the hearth.  To allow for the boards expanding and contracting, you are supposed to allow a bit of a gap all round the edges.  In a normal room, this would be hidden by the skirting board which is put on after.  Now, obviously, skirting board would look a bit silly round this brick hearth, but equally so would a gap round it.  So, when we laid the bricks for the hearth Bob built a little frame slightly smaller than the finished size and a bit higher than the thickness of the floorboards and underlay and filled that with concrete then built the hearth on top.  This meant that when we took the frame away, the bricks were 'floating' above the screed and we could tuck the floorboards underneath so there's no gap to be seen, but there's still an expansion gap hidden underneath.
When you are laying floor boards it is always recommended that you buy extra to allow for wastage - little bits you have to cut off so the boards fit, but are too small to use.  Our floor area pretty-well matched the coverage given by whole packs and at £75 a pack we decided to ignore the wastage allowance advice and hope it all worked out OK.  It did mean we had to be really careful all the way through to use every offcut and make sure we didn't have any bits less than a foot long.  That, along with trying to ensure the joins didn't form a pattern and that the few boards with scratches would be under the settees, meant that a lot of thinking and planning ahead had to be done.  But we got on quite well and got it all done on Friday and were very pleased not to have to go and buy an extra pack just to finish the last six inches which is what we were dreading - look, this is all we had left!  Phew we got away with it again! 

Bob's socks were either too fluffy or too dusty for doing
this job - don't want sock fluff as a permanent feature
of the floor! 

We then had to leave it all alone for the glue to dry properly.  We just ran a bead of glue inside the groove of each board which got pushed in by the tongue when they were pushed together.  They are not actually fixed down to the floor, but should stay where they are because of their own weight and the weight of the furniture.  Yesterday we put the first coat of the oil/wax mixture on to seal them.  It was Bob's birthday, but if you are going to do a job on your birthday, this is a really good one to do.  It doesn't take long, is really easy and is very satisfying.  It's like magic as you paint it on and it brings out the grain and colour of the wood and completely transforms the floor.  I think I've said before, it reminds me of the magic painting page in the Rupert annuals we used to get when we were little where you just paint water on the picture and the colours appear by magic.  It also reminds me of our summer occupation when my sister and I were about 3 and 4 - Mum would give us a bucket of water and a big paint brush and we would spend hours painting the concrete garage and paths and then start all over again!  Today we put the second coat on and that will be dry by the morning and we can put the settee in!  Whoop, whoop!  Yeah!!  WooHoooo!!!  Tomorrow we can slouch!  We might go and look at tellies too and so we'll have our great big, massive 80" TV in there . . . . . . well no, OK, it's not going to be that big, but it will be bigger than the tiny one we've been watching for the last four and a half years and we might not have to leap out of our seats to read any captions or writing shown!  I am  little bit excited.

The little tiny windows are also in between the lounge and the two bedrooms.  These were draft holes in the barns and we didn't want to brick them up, but obviously the bedrooms need privacy.  So, we got a local glass artist to make little glass panels with coloured bits in so they are opaque.  She also incorporated some of the original roofing nails into them.  We got these years ago and kept them safe all the time we were in the caravan and through moving in until a few months ago when we broke one - oops! 



We thought we might try and get a little candle holder
on a spike that sticks into the wall for here . . .
is that called a pricket?

This window has a little light behind it and there was
supposed to be another piece of glass on the other
side, but that is the one we broke and so . . . .

. . . Bob has made a tiny oak frame and added an old
iron bar so it looks like some of the little windows or
arrow-slits in castles.  Or, a tiny little prison - I might
get a little troll or something to live in there!

As I said, yesterday was Bob's birthday (the big 50, but don't tell everyone).  After a lie-in and breakfast in bed while he opened presents and cards, we pottered around for a bit and got a picnic together and then went for a walk.  It was a beautiful sunny, warm day which was lovely after recent snow and big winds.  The Spring flowers are picking up and the hedge banks are full of primroses, celandines, wood anemones and forget-me-nots.  We had our picnic sitting on the panoramic pointer stone on the top of a hill.  I'm sure they have a proper name, but I can't think of it.  It's a big stone with an engraved metal plate on top with the profile and names of all the surrounding hills and mountains, so you know what you're looking at.  Anyway, amazing views and usually we don't see anyone up there.  Yesterday though it was quite busy and we had to keep moving our picnic in case anyone wanted to look at the plaque.  This walk was a bit of a test of my knee which actually held up very well and didn't give me much trouble which is good, even after doing a fair bit of kneeling the day before laying floorboards.  When we got home we oiled the floor then, after a cuppa and a piece of birthday carrot cake we had a nap - it's tiring having a lazy day you know!  In the evening we walked to the pub in the village and had a really nice meal and a few pints.  All in all a very nice lazy day.

Today we've been doing some furniture restoration on a piece some friends gave us.  It was supposed to be a fairly quick smarten up job, just sanding out some water marks then oiling and waxing it. Trouble is it just about fell apart when we took the drawers out and so we ended up pretty much taking it apart.  It is now all sanded though and glued back together and in clamps.  It shouldn't take long to finish it off and then it can go in one of the bedrooms.


Tomorrow we slouch!

Catch Up

Well, the snow has almost gone at long last.  There are still some patches stubbornly hanging on.  The weather has actually been pretty good for the last few days with lots of sunshine and, if it wasn't for the melting snow, it might actually feel like Spring.  I'm hoping that the plants and wild flowers will suddenly spring into life, but there's not much sign in our little bit of woodland which is usually carpeted in wood anemone, violet and sorrel leaves ready to thow out flowers any time.  The primroses seem to have thrived and we have plenty of those and there are lots of bluebell leaves, so we'll see.

We have a job to do to fix the gutters which couldn't hold the weight of all that snow for so long.  Some of the rise and fall brackets are actually bent at right angles and the spikes in the wall are bent downwards meaning that the gutters are almost hanging off and not really very effective.  Course, the parts we can easily get to are fine and it is only the bits above the extension where it is right awkward to get to that need dealing with . . . .ho hum!

Talk about cutting it fine, this is how much tile
adhesive Bob had left when he finished the
floor!

So, what else have we been up to?  Well, poor Bob had to do the floor in the oak room all by himself as my knee is still not right.  Despite a second trip to the doctors for a second opinion and me asking him very nicely to please tell me it wasn't arthritis, it appears that it is which is a bit of a bugger really.  I've been taking ibuprofen for a couple of weeks and have been on till-duty only at work and it is much better than it was, but i guess it's something I'll just have to learn to live with (concrete over the garden and put ramps in everywhere!!!).  Anyway, nuff of that . . . . Bob did the floor in the oak room and so that is the end of the tiling and we just have the oak floorboards in the lounge left to lay and we are going to get on with that at the end of this week - I think that will probably make the most difference of just about anything we've done.

The end bedroom is now habitable and has been christened by Jan, Bob's stepmum, who stayed on Monday night.  Jan and I went up to Scotland for a couple of days to see Laura (at the Tibetan Centre near Lockerbie) which was really nice - it was the first time Jan had been and so Laura could give us the tour which was interesting even though I've seen it all before.




This curtain took a bit of planning - the bottom
of it is at head height, so it couldn't be just an
ordinary one.  Thankfully, it works quite well!

The others were much easier - I'm really pleased with the
material, even though Bob thinks the little hearts on it
are a bit girly!

Bob has been working hard on all the little wooden bits we need to finish things off like the tops of steps, tiny frames for the glass in the draught holes between the loung and the two bedrooms, pattress plates for curtain pole brackets, shelves, etc, etc.  At the moment we have bits of oak of all shapes and sizes all over the place.  I have a picture in my head of Bob with a stack of bits in his arms flinging them out from the centre of the room and they magically fall into place and everything gets finished all at once.  Might not be quite that dramatic, but it should all come together quite quickly.

Just for a very short time (while Bob was doing the oak room
floor) we had a settee in the lounge.  As soon as we saw it, we
immediately sat on it, closed our eyes and imagined the luxury -
lovely, even though it didn't have the cushions on it!  We've ordered
the second settee (bright red one from DFS) and we should have that
in a couple of weeks.

At last, the chaps came to fit the woodburner last week.
We had to wait a few days before we lit it to let the mortar
round the flue dry out naturally.  So, we had the first ceremonial burn
on Monday evening using the rest of the sticks we found in the bread oven to
light it - they'd been there about 30 years, so were properly dried out! It
did a good job of warming the room and also the end bedroom.
It was actually really exciting - a snug and comfy lounge is now
so close . . . can't wait! 

The Chickens seem to have used the snow as an excuse to go on strike and three of them aren't laying at all.  Good old Horse is the only one we can rely on!

Oh, nearly forgot to tell you, we saw a Red Kite over the quarry the other day.  Having lived in Northamptonshire where there was a big re-introduction programme and we got so used to seeing them all over the place, it was really exciting to see one here.  It is only the third we've seen since we've been here.  It looked as if it was just passing through rather than looking for somewhere to live, but you never know.
 

Depressed chickens

Oh, the poor chickens are not enjoying this snow at all.  The last few days they have poked their heads out of the run and then turned straight back round and gone back to bed.  Poor things, their feet don't touch the ground which must be a bit disconcerting.  I did manage to entice them out today with their favourite treats - tomatoes and cauliflower leaves - and got them to come down as far as Bob's workshop.  They are now hanging around the door, knocking to be let in I think!

As you may have gathered, we have had loads of snow and it is showing no signs of disappearing.  On Thursday the forecast was for a foot of snow overnight, but no-one quite believed it and thought that may be just very high up and we'd get a light dusting - it is now Spring after all and British Summer Time starts at the weekend  . . . . how wrong we were.

It is very pretty though, especially yesterday when the sun shone, so here's some pictures of our winter wonderland:-

This poor little Birch sapling is usually standing straight and
tall.  I had a lovely vision of a squirrel jumping on to it, disturbing
the snow and getting catapaulted over the hedge and into the
quarry - oh, that would be so funny to watch!

There is so much snow on the roof that part of the extension
roof almost meets the path.  The snow on the pathway
round the extension is up to the oak room window and when
this lot finally slides off, I don't think you'll be able to see
out of the window at all.

We have some fairly impressive icicles.  As the snow inches
down the roof, these icicles angle in towards the wall and more
form hanging straight down.

This is what we had to dig out on Saturday morning - it took
us about 4 hours to get all the way to the lane (about
100 yds of top-of-the-wellie-deep snow) and clear the
waist-high bank left across our track by the snowplough.
All the time snow kept falling out of the trees down our necks
and branches threatened to fall with it - a dangerous job!  Hope
M&S appreciate the effort we went to so I could go to work!

The view from the kitchen door - all perspective is lost in
so much snow unless the sun shines on it.

All Friday night we kept getting woken up by loud rushing,
grating rumbling as sections of snow slid off the roof and
crashed to the ground.  Wouldn't want to be standing
underneath, they make huge piles of snow!  Needless to
say, the chaps didn't come to fit the woodburner yesterday.
They need to get on the roof and din't really fancy it!!
 

Knackered knees

Well, my shoulder survived a workaout at M&S, but now my knee's knackered!  D'you think I'm getting too old for all this?!  Bob and I were talking the other day about what we thought we'd need first, a hip replacement or a knee replacement.  I think at the time I said hip, but I've changed my mind this week!  I did spend two and a half days on my hands and knees last week and I think I may have twisted my knee without knowing it, disguised by the aches and pains of crawling around for so long!  I went to work on Saturday, spent 8 hours on my feet and then could hardly walk back to my car! 

Extreme cake decorating!

We have tiled the floor in the end bedroom hence the two and a half days on my hands and knees.  Laying these little tiny slate tiles is not a quick job even though they come in foot square sheets so it took a whole day with me laying them and Bob mixing the adhesive and cutting pieces for edges and round door frames, etc.  Then the next day we did the grouting and that takes yonks plus ages!  We tried all sorts to try to make it easier and speed it up.  I even dug out some old icing equipment and cobbled together a piping bag.  This worked quite well to start with and was much neater and less wasteful than just smearing it all over.  Trouble is, the grout mix stiffens up quite quickly and hands and arms can't cope with it for long, so back to smearing it all over!  That is all now cleaned up and just needs a coat of floor seal to bring out the colour of the slate.  The skirting board is all cut and painted and ready to fix once it's properly dry and the curtain poles are up.  So, you know what that means . . . . yep, time to make curtains.  We bought the material last week and I'm really pleased with it - it's maybe not what Bob would choose as it is a bit girly with hearts on it, but it's not that girly!  It is red and beige check with raised embroidery between the checks and little hearts in some of the squares.  Oh, hold on . . . . .  don't go anywhere, I'll be back in a moment. . . . .

. . . . there, a photo, that's easier than explaining!  I like making curtains out of squared material - it makes cutting out and lining up soooo much easier.  Once the floor's sealed and the skirting boards are fitted, we can move the bed, etc out of the oak room and into here and then get on with the floor in there - more little slate tiles, oh joy!  They are perhaps not what we would have ideally chosen for bedrooms, but to be honest you won't see much of them by the time the beds are in and rugs are down and they were so cheap they were a bargain not to be missed!

Here's what Bob saw out of the kitchen window the other
day - can you pick out the two buzzards?  How cool is that?!

Butter and barter

There's been more exciting news all round in the last couple of weeks.  Firstly, Ben has a place at Aberystwyth to do a Masters in something like Conservation and Managing the Environment.  As I said a while ago, his girlfriend Lucy will be doing her teaching thingy there so it's brilliant that Ben has got in too and they can have a year together back in their old university town which they really like.  Big step for them both to give up their jobs to go back to learning, but good for them.

Our exciting news is that, after more than four years of trying, we think we've finally done a deal to buy a bit of the field next door.  The chap that owned the field and cottage it belongs to always said we could buy part of it, but never kept to his promises, was something of a money-grabber and generally just messed us around for three years.  The young couple who moved in last year are much more straightforward and amenable.  We talked about it last summer and they said they'd be happy for us to have some of the field and last week we got round to talking details and agreed on where to put the boundary and also the price  . . . . we are going to do some tree-planting and hedging for them in exchange.  How cool is that - just like the olden days, a good old bit of bartering. 

So, this is the bit we're having which is actually a fairly small proportion of the whole field, but will make a huge difference to us.  It means that we can park the cars in one corner and have room to turn around so visitors don't have to reverse down the lane.  It's surprising how many different cars we've reversed down there because no-one else likes doing it!  We will probably also plant some fruit trees and perhaps have some wood or timber stores.  It also means that the bit of ground nearer the house which would have had to be carparking can now be a veg garden which in turn means that the other side of the house can be a more traditional cottage flower garden (eventually!).  You know, it's funny but the chickens don't really go in this field although there's nothing to stop them, but when we turned round after shaking hands on the deal, there they all were happily pecking around - so they approve.  We've spent this afternoon trying to get to grips with the jargon on the Land Registry forms - oh what fun!

I have now finished painting for a while.  I ran out of the yellow claypaint with just a couple of square metres left to do - it's behind the settee, so that doesn't really matter does it?!!  Don't worry, I will do it and we've ordered some more paint but will wait for the decorators merchants to put together a bigger order so we don't have to pay £10 delivery.  I pulled a muscle in my shoulder a few days ago and it was quite painful, so I had to rest it for a couple of days and so just did bitsy painting like door frames.  Shoulder's much better for the rest, but I hope it can withstand the next three days of humping boxes around at M&S!

Bob has built the hearth in the lounge for the woodburner to stand on.  The bricks are wet on this picture - they'll look better once they've dried out and had a good wire-brushing.  Fitting the woodburner has given us nightmares.  We could quite easily buy the flue and other gubbins and do the work ourselves.  The trouble is that you are supposed to have a HETAS certificate to say it is properly installed - without one the house insurance may be invalid.  HETAS engineers won't sign off someone else's work which I guess you can understand, but if we pay them to do it it costs twice as much.  The alternative is to get Building Control to inspect it, but of course you have to pay them several hundred pounds, so it's not that much cheaper than getting someone else to do it for us.  So, the woodburner itself cost about £500 - we had one quote for £1,200 to fit it!!!!  They obviously keep the woodburner costs down and then sting you with everything else you need.  We've gone with a much cheaper chap to fit it (still way more than the price of the burner itself), but he seemed really professional and conscientious.  So that is being done in a couple of weeks. 

Today we completely cleared the lounge, vacuumed all the dust up and sealed the floor with watered down PVA.  We have done it before, but it had obviously worn off and there was just sooooooo much dust everywhere.  It looks so strange in there now - it has been a building site and workshop for so long.  Hopefully now we can keep it fairly clean in there.  Next job is to move all the boxes out of the end bedroom and lay the floor in there - hopefully we can get on with that next week.  Then curtains - tee hee that is exciting.

Bob has also been doing a bit of furniture restoration.  Some friends offered us an old cupboard and a set of drawers, but they have been stored in an old container and are a bit the worse for wear.  So, they've had a good douse with woodworm treatment and Bob is busy taking drawers, etc apart to clean up and re-glue.  They should look good when they're finished though - very much in keeping.  He has also been cleaning up a big pile of oak joists that the builder who helped us with the extension brought round.  They are from a bungalow that he is adding a second storey to.  He is having a coffee table out of some of it, but Bob can have the rest.  We're busy thinking of all sorts of things to do with them.

Another of Bob's skills - he's a chimney sweep!

We had one of those 'This is what it's all about' moments last week.  At the end of the day at work there were some tubs of organic cream which were going to be thrown away, so I bought them for 10p each and made butter out of them.  It's really easy - you just over-whisk the cream until it splits.  You then pour the butermilk off (the chickens adore this!) and put the butter into several changes of cold water and squidge it around to wash the rest of the buttermilk out.  Then you sprinkle some salt on and squidge that in and dah-dah you have home made butter.  Four half pint tubs made the equivalent of three packs of butter all for just 40p.  Anyway, back to our 'This is what. . .'  moment - Bob had made bread as usual and so we had warm bread spread with butter that was just a few minutes old and it was delicious - sounds corny, but what more could you want?  I'm a simple soul at heart!