A two-fire-night!

Ooooh! Yesterday was sooooo cold, wet and miserable that we lit both fires.  It was lovely and cosy then, but in the middle of June we shouldn't really have to should we?  Especially after last weekend.  We do miss it when the kitchen woodburner isn't lit because it does so many other things at the same time - heats water and the room of course, but also the radiator upstairs so our towels are toasty, dries the teatowel downstairs, warms the plates for tea, cooks the rice and . . . . . .

. . . . . you can dry chair parts in the oven as it cools!

Workshop chicken

Well, the Roundup is definitely working and the whole garden now has a sickly yellowy tinge to it and the nettles are drooping.  There are some little oasises/oasii/oasises (what is the plural of oasis?) of rampant bright green which I obviously missed with the sprayer, so a job for another evening.  We have to shut the chickens up early before we spray as they do like their greens and they probably shouldn't be having a roundup dressing on them.  Trouble is we can't shut them up too early at the moment as their house is a bit toxic just now. 
Bob has re-creosoted the inside as a measure to prevent red mite infestation (doing that once a year seems to be the only thing that really works).  The chickens don't seem to mind the fumes, but we don't want them feeling woozy and dizzy!  One of the chickens has taken a liking to Bob's workshop and makes a beeline for the back corner of the shelf under the bench and settles herself down nicely.  The other day Bob looked underneath and heard a 'donk' and there was a egg . . . . with a flattened end where it had fallen on the hard surface!

We now have a proper lounge door instead of the chipboard temporary thing we've had since we first moved here.  We had to take the old doorframe out so we could clean it up properly and attach new bits to the bottom where it had rotted.  There was also a separate piece of wood across the top which was more like balsa wood than anything solid which we have replaced.  It was a bit awkward to get all the old stuff out as it had been built in quite well, but with a lot of wiggling we managed it and no major stones or bricks fell out, so that was all good.  The bricks are now re-pointed and patched up so it all looks much more solid.  From this photo, it looks as though we'd better seal the bricks with our turps and linseed mix - it does bring them to life as you can see.

Here's the door frame back in place - just look how bent it is at the bottom!  Luckily, the hinge side is much straighter otherwise we would have had real trouble getting it to open and shut properly.  There is now a new arch-shape piece of oak above the frame, so it all looks tidy.  The holes for the bolts into the walls are all plugged except one at the bottom.  Graham, my brother-in-law, gave me an old sixpence ages ago and the plan was to wedge it into the crooked oak beer bench in the garden.  All very logical to my mind . . . my thinking was along the lines of the old nursery rhyme about the crooked sixpence and the crooked stile.  However, I never got round to wedging the sixpence into the bench which is actually probably quite good because bits keep crumbling off it (it is made of ancient roof timbers), so I would probably have lost the sixpence.  So, Plan B = put the sixpence into one of the bolt holes and it was an exact fit, so that's where it'll stay.  We'll have to see if anyone notices it!

 

And here's the door.  This was an old door of Phil and Ann's which we had stripped.  Originally we were going to use it outside for the lean-to door, but that will be painted and so can be made using new softwood which would be far too bright and white for inside.  It is harder to get the much warmer, mellow colour of old wood and so we thought this one would be better inside.  Luckily, we had to cut some off the bottom which meant we got rid of most of the rotten wood and a dab of wood stabiliser on the remaining bit has it sorted.  It is strange the amount of difference a proper door makes.

 

 

Now that those bricks have been pointed, Bob has been able to put our corner cupboard up.  This is a cupboard Bob made ages before we moved from a lovely, burry piece of Elm from a village called Shelton (our surname, so very apt and the woodyard man saved it specially for us).  This was supposed to be a spice cupboard for the kitchen of our cottage.  Trouble is, at that point we hadn't seen the cottage we were going to live in let alone the kitchen.  As it turns out, the kitchen doesn't actually have any corners where you could mount the cupboard . . . . . in fact, there aren't really any suitable corners in the whole house and, believe me we have wandered all over trying the cupboard in place!  So, this is the only place we could think of.  We will put some triangle shelves underneath, graduating in size, which should settle it into its corner better.  Not sure what we'll keep in the cupboard (it's not an ideal place for the spices really!), but you can't have enough little spaces to hide things away.

 

We had a lovely weekend off last week. F-A-N-T-A-S-T-I-C weather!  It was like Summer - go on you remember them don't you?  Now, you won't believe this, but I actually dug out a  skirt and some flip-flops and wore them for a whole day, right from getting up to going to bed.  It felt really, really strange - almost like a normal person!  I never thought I'd ever be able to wear flip-flops again!  So, anyway, we're back to Winter again now, socks and a jumper and I think I'll be lighting the woodburner shortly - ho-hum.

 

Look, we have things growing in our raised bed!  We just turned
around and these lettuces had sprung up as if by magic . . .
 . . . well, OK, not really - Phil and Ann had a couple of spares
and gave them to us.

 



Chillies and cushion covers . . . . and weeds!

Well, we had a curry with our homemade chillies - whew . . . . hot, hot, hot.  I was on the phone when Bob cut them up and tried eating a piece raw!  Oh, it did make me laugh as he leapt around the kitchen with his tongue hanging out!  Is a huge gulp of wine the best way to cool down or would milk would have been more sensible - he opted for wine!  Anyway, the curry was very tasty.  The next two chillies are half red now, so I expect we'll have another curry at the weekend.  Talking of which, next weekend is my first one of my new contract at work which menas I have every other weekend off.  Wooo-hooo - whole weekends!  Try as we might, we haven't been able to treat my Tuesday/Wednesday off as a weekend and do proper weekend things, so it will be good to have occasional proper weekends.  We might actually get round to going for walks and exploring the area a bit.

We have now had all our scheduled visitors for a while finishing with Bob's sister and her chap last Sunday.  They stayed until Monday and we had a lovely time because the weather was just lovely - almost too hot for a beer on the beer bench!  Then Jan, Bob's stepmum, came later on the Monday and stayed over. 

So, while the visitors were here, the garden took off and everything has grown in double-quick time.  The nettles have gone from tiny things to a 3' tall mass ready to seed in just about three weeks!  As well as the weeds, the wanted plants have also shot up as though they are making up for lost time.

So, here is our weed garden!  Oh my, its quite daunting.
This year though we've given in and bought a big bottle of
Roundup.  The other evening I sprayed all of this and now we
have to wait a few weeks to see if it has any effect and in the
meantime resist the urge to pull anything up.

Both little apple trees have loads of blossom which is just
lovely.  Apparently a good apple crop is predicted this year
as all the apple trees are blossoming at once instead of weeks
apart so they should cross-pollinate well.  The plums and damsons
don't look so prolific which is a shame.

We have moved on to the next stage of our life here and have
made our first raised bed.  It is the first of a series of three down
this slope.  To start with we'll just put rabbit wire round this one
but eventually we'll fence round the whole area and have it as a
business like vegetable garden.  We have leeks growing in pots
which will be the first inhabitants of this bed when they are big enough.

This is a Grizzled Skipper in our garden - quite a rare butterfly and one of the rare
species found in the quarry.  We have never seen one before as we
weren't too sure what they look like, but it is very distinctive because
it is really, really tiny. 

Bob's workshop is now connected and he has running water! 
there is also an outside tap on the workshop which will be
handy for the veggies. 

and here it is tiled.  It did look far too posh for a workshop
when I'd just done it (we just happened to have enough tiles
left from the utility room to do this).  It does look better now
Bob has messed it up with junk!

And finally here are the cushions.  Bob's sister manages
a home interiors and gifts shop in a posh little town in Rutland
and she said she could easily sell the knitted cushion in her shop.
Very 'on trend' is what she said!  Don't think I'm a quick enough
knitter to make much of a profit though!!

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.