kitchen

May. Yeah.

/ Loony Feminist / 2 Comments

The kitchen is finished, and hubby loves the induction hob. It’s great to have it done – it was only a few days of disruption but we have had another “sort-out/cull” and so everything is tidy now. Trouble is, neither of us can remember where we’ve put anything . . .

The induction hob was fitted after I took this photo . . .

YD, her hubby and their little girl have just gone back to New Zealand after a month here. They split their time between his family and hers. It was just so lovely to be able to cuddle them. ESW is an absolute joy. She even likes my little songs (The Welly Song, the Nancy Lee, etc etc). Their journey was better on the way back – Birmingham to Frankfurt, then to Changhi in Singapore, then to Auckland in NZ. On the way here it was fraught. They’re homesick though – they couldn’t get over how “normal” and familiar everything is, including friends and family. Decisions to be made.

The garden is a joy. Love it.

The M.E. has taken a new turn. Now, when I have an episode, my tummy joins in the party, in an IBS sort of a way. But now I’ve worked that out I can remain a bit more positive, knowing that it will pass. I am eating a diet suitable for IBS, and have discovered something called FODMAP (don’t ask what it stands for). Low FODMAP foods are better for me, so no brassicas, only 3 portions of fruit/veg per day, lots of porridge oats, much less processed meat (oh, sausages, I miss you!) and it seems to be helping.

No knitting mojo. None at all. Several weeks now since I picked up my needles. I expect it’ll return. It usually does.

Finally had the front lawn sown with clover. It’s growing well. We also have a little rockery now intended to stop lorries and vans from reversing over our lawn. It looks ok too!

April. Yeah.

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Loads happening. Solar panels fitted – and making more electricity than we expected. Excellent.

It took a day to erect the scaffolding, a day to install the solar panels, and two weeks to dismantle and take away the damn scaffolding. Hmph.

Sold the double oven dual fuel range cooker, had a single electric oven fitted, and now awaiting new kitchen cabinet with induction hob and new worktop for most of the kitchen. We have Freecycled the five saucepans and two frying pans which won’t work on an induction hob. That took about two hours – amazing facility! Within approximately 3 minutes of posting the offer, we had lots and lots of replies.

So this is what our kitchen and utility currently look like.

This is what it looked like before . . .

Rockery set up in the front garden and front lawn seeded with clover. Only a week ago so no sign of sprouting yet but I’m quite excited about it.

So many things going on that it’s triggered an M.E. episode. Sigh. So I’m taking it really really slowly – I slept for most of the past two days – and just putting the shopping away was enough for today.

February! goodness

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Hi people.

I’ve been a little preoccupied what with one thing and another. But YD finally had her baby, whom I shall call ESW (initals), in the middle of January, 10 days late, and had a very difficult time indeed. ESW is now three weeks old and had her tongue-tie snipped yesterday, which has made life much easier for YD, her hubby, and most of all for ESW. Let’s hope it just all settles down now and they can enjoy, instead of enjoying and worrying about, their beautiful little girl.

Knitting has continued apace as you can see from the photos. And even a little sewing, for LCS (14 month old grandson). He loved it. I’m going to make another clown cushion and keep it at home so children who come to see me (I have a little friend called Henry, for example) can play with it.

Guitar playing – not so much. It’s been a year, I’ve tried two different guitars (classical and plain acoustic) and a ukulele, and it’s just not working for me. I thought a ukulele would be easier to handle, but it’s a pain. Under the boob? above the boob? right on top of the boob? nah, just got to the stage where all three are just sitting staring at me balefully. I’m going to hang on to the Fender acoustic and try to get rid of the other two.

We are in the process of getting quotes for refurbishing our kitchen (cabinet doors and worktops only) and it’s all quite exciting. Today I went to a kitchen showroom. By myself. Not the best plan I’ve ever had really. My inner wimp appeared. I spent approximately 45 seconds in there, wandering around aimlessly, feeling really stupid and as if I were 12 years old again, lumpy, adolescent and awkward, so I came home. There really wasn’t any need to go, because we’ve requested samples of the sort of thing we want anyway.

So I wrote to my lovely French penfriend instead. That’s an hour’s job, because I write in French, then translate into English, and correct her English letter to me. Hardly any corrections this time though, at all. (Bravo, Réjane!)

It’s “Time to Talk” day today – is that global? or just in the UK? anyway, on my facebook “on this day” there was my post from last year. (not sure this will be available if you’re not on facebook!) Still makes me feel a bit wobbly, to be honest. Now I’m on the maximum dose of Paroxetine, having tried to go back down to the 40mg a day dose, but need the 50 to be stable. And I need to be stable.

Tomorrow I’m hoping to have the energy to start re-organising the craft room. The lids on the boxes I got from ebay are starting to split. So I’m going to dump the broken lids, keep all the boxes and unbroken lids, and we’ve been to IKEA and bought a load of Samla boxes, some inserts, and all the lids. Am very nerdily excited about it! I’ll post photos when it’s done, just because I can.

And oh god my computer. Last Sunday it started behaving very oddly indeed. The mouse stopped working. Eventually I twigged that none of the USB ports were working. I reinstalled Windows 10 three times, to no avail. Luckily I was able to find a very old fashioned mouse with a PS2 (small, round) connector – with a ball in it! Haven’t seen a mouse with a ball (so to speak) for years! but I had one so was able to use that and installed Linux Ubuntu 14.04.3. All working really well now. How frustrating it was though. I realised it was the Windows drivers when I went into the BIOS (Setup), and a USB stick was recognised in there.

So I’ve needed to re-think my strategy on certain things, for example cloud storage. After much searching and testing, I’ve settled on MEGA which allows you 50Gb free storage. Yep, 50Gb. And it was simple to install on my computer and on my mobile phone. Just need to get it set up on my (Android) tablet now. I was using OneDrive (MS) but it just won’t work on Ubuntu. Dropbox you only get 2Gb free. And so on.

And it’s been such a long time since I posted. Mother’s knee which needed 19 stitches has healed well. Her shin is still bandaged up though. She’s going to meet ESW this weekend, YD + hubby are going over to see her, my sister who lives nearby, and at least one of my nieces. Lovely.

 

Finished!

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Finally. It’s taken me 12 days elapsed time, but I didn’t do any painting over two weekends, so that’s 8 days altogether. So every weekday for the past eight days I’ve got up, put on grotty old working clothes, moved stuff, painted, got hot, sweaty and covered in paint, moved stuff back, and had to have a scrub in the shower.

All worth it though. Done now. Finished the last wall today. Hubby likes it too.Image

My friend made me this cork board. I love it. It’s unusual, artsy, and looks really nice.

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You can see the contrast in the above photograph between the two different colours.

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You can see my old glasses drying – I don’t wear my nice funky ones for painting in. I had to give these old ones a good wash as they were covered in paint speckles.

The colours look much better in real life. Three walls are a pale sky blue, the fourth wall is a pale Wedgwood china colour (and is called Favourite China!). It’s a clean look, which we both like. But I’m absolutely exhausted now and don’t plan on doing any more decorating, ever.

I also cleaned the oven, which was sorely in need. Half an hour of Mr Muscle sprayed on to it, then wiped and scraped until we can see through the door now. That’s something I will be doing much more often to keep it reasonable.

just a quick one

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Nearly finished painting the kitchen. So far it’s taken me 10 days. But I can only do about an hour a day, so it’s taking much longer than I expected, and is much harder work and more complicated than I expected. I needed to use three coats of primer just to cover the horrible peach.

Tomorrow I’m going to retouch the three walls I’ve done, then Tuesday I’m hoping to do the final wall, which is a different colour. I don’t do any at the weekend, because the room is constantly in use, and hubby does all the cooking. (I do all the baking). It’s looking ok so far. Photos when I’ve finished.

We’re expecting a humungous wind and rain storm tonight/tomorrow morning. Trains are cancelled, all sorts of panicking going on.  Headline news. Thank goodness we don’t have to go out in it. We have a willow tree in the garden, but I’m hoping it’ll be ok because I think the roots go very deep to get all the water it needs. I guess it will be much worse at the coast, and my cousin in Cornwall can hear the sea roaring, even though they don’t actually live that near the shore.

Expecting family this week – three grandchildren + ES Thursday – Sunday, other two grandchildren + YS (youngest son) Saturday, and we’ll have all five children to stay over till Sunday, when we’ll return them to Malvern. Exciting. All the beds are made, all the baking is done and in the freezer, and the cupboards/freezers are bulging with food.  😀

That’s it. Photos and news as it happens . . . .

It’s October already?

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Goodness how time flies.

Planted up the winter pansies – they’re lovely. Also lifted two lavender shrubs and moved them to a bed with more room.

New project – to repaint the kitchen. And here’s why.

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Note hubby’s expression. Not sure he actually likes it. When he opened the box, he said “Red? . . . . . Red? . . .?”  ha ha ha. He didn’t laugh. I did.

That’s not the only reason, though. I’ve been thinking about it for a while. I’m fed up with the peach coloured walls, and love red. So I’m off to  B & Q tomorrow for some tester pots. I’m not going to paint the walls red, though, no no no. A step too far. Probably a mid-grey. It all needs washing down first though with sugar soap, and in fact there isn’t very much wall to paint really. Updates as it progresses . . . which will be slowly so I don’t crash.

Lovely weather today, and set fair for most of next week too. Excellent. Washing can probably go out tomorrow.

Made a blackberry and apple crumble the other day and it’s in the freezer waiting for the end of the month, when ES arrives to stay for a couple of days with his entourage (girlfriend and his three children). Can’t wait. Cakes to make too and possibly a trifle.

Lost another battle with a spiky tree today and bled profusely.  Looks ugly and bruised and horrible. Long sleeves tomorrow I think.

Had our flu jabs on Saturday so we’re all ready for the winter now. Bring it on!

That’s about it for today.