decorating

Things are happening!

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The oven has continued to work ok, so that’s a mystery.

The decorator has been and we should get the quote shortly. All starting to fall into place now.

I have an appointment for a nerve conduction test, and another appointment for ultrasound and x-ray scans of my hand, when they will also do a steroid injection into my thumb. Then I get to see the consultant the following week to decide what to do (joint fusion or joint replacement).

Today my back is dreadful. I’ve had back problems for over 40 years, surgery 28 years ago which helped, but am all bent over to one side. It’s improved from this morning, when I was bent over sideways and frontways as well! still, painkillers, hot/cold packs, not doing anything for more than 20 minutes, and tomorrow it should be better. If not, I’ll try and get to the osteopath this week.

Part of the “not doing anything for more than 20 minutes” included a potter round the garden, in the rain. Took a few pictures because the colours cheer me up so much! and made me feel better even though I couldn’t manage a shower this morning. (I’ll deffo have one tomorrow, though!)

From top left: bluebells, ajuga (bugle plant), acer with forget-me-nots, more forget-me-nots with foxglove, then three different heucheras. The heucheras are known in French as “désespoir de peintres” because they never stay still enough for the painter!

Recovering

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So. The fridge is working fine, and the fan oven mysteriously just started to work again all by itself. Strange.

However, hubby’s hi-fi is definitely dead. So we’re getting new kit. No small matter, and he’s very excited about it.

Visited a new cattery this morning. The one we used and loved for many years was Compulsorily Purchased (it’s a thing) because of the HS2 railway. Very sad. So she went to a different one which the cat liked – I can tell because she came back happy and not clingy. That one is now closed because, well, Covid. The owners were a bit anti-social, but the staff looking after the animals were just lovely.

So we had to find a new one. It’s excellent, although the satnav let me down badly. It took 35 minutes to travel 9 miles there, and 12 minutes to get home. But now I know. They have a wooden log in each cat-room, standing on end, leaning into the corner. For a scratching post. Genius! I’ve asked where they get them. Our cat has ruined our carpet. But only in certain places.

I slept for most of yesterday, and half of Sunday, but am feeling a little less shaky and knackered today. Found a nice easy crochet pattern for a shawl which will be good to do when I’m fixed. https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/one-row-fishnet-shawl

The weather here in the English Midlands is changeable, to say the least! today we’ve had the complete gamut. Rain, wind, sunshine, cold, warm. British weather, I guess. Sigh.

The planning for the decorating of the lounge has moved up a notch. Waiting for a decorator to come along and quote us. Exciting.

And May The 4th (fourth, if your first language is not English!) be with you all 😉

Time to blurb a little.

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I’m not going to talk about the election, because it’s just so depressing.

But I have been working in the garden, in bits and dabs, 20 minutes here, 30 minutes there, and it’s been lovely. The weather has been kind, the sun has shone, and it’s been very therapeutic. I’ve planted a nepeta (catnip) plant in a pot, which Bertie The Cat loves. Also a red hazel. I’ve weeded, dead-headed and cut back massively. Still stuff to do, of course, but the garden is currently looking wonderful. The pink dicentras are going bonkers. The bluebells are out, the tulips are lovely, and everything is budding or in leaf. One of my Christmas presents was a medlar tree, which I left in its little pot to winter in the cold frame, and have not long potted that up in a large pot. It’s going mad. Even fruiting. I dug up a lovely bergenia because the slugs and snails were eating all the leaves. I made sure the roots were clear of any soil and pests, planted it in a pot, protected the pot against invaders, and it’s going berserk. Leaves growing out of every available place. Beautiful. It’s like it’s saying “thank you”.

And we’ve had our wonderful decorator in to do our bathroom and en-suite. I’m so pleased with how they look. He always does an excellent job. He’s quiet, methodical, neat and tidy. He clears up every night before he goes home. With a vacuum cleaner. Yup.  He’s been doing our decorating for nearly 20 years now. Although we don’t have decorating done very often (to put it mildly). I painted our ensuite last time and I’m just crap at that stuff. All of a sudden the vileness of the colour hit me, then I started noticing anew the mess I’d made, so it’s just lovely to have a fresh, new, light colour. It was a peachy sort of colour and is now Dulux “Violet White” but is less white and more lilac. Lovely.  We’ll get him in next year to do our kitchen and utility when we’ve had the kitchen done (finally).

Tomorrow I’m going to try a “folk” size guitar. The 3/4 classical is a good size for me, and has a lovely sweet tone, but has a fat neck, and it’s very difficult to strum. So I’m trying an acoustic with steel strings and will see how that goes. If it’s too big still, I’m going to try a 3/4 size acoustic. Exciting.

Knitting is going well.Finished socks and matching fingerless gloves for YD.

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Logan is coming on apace. We saw him last Monday and Tuesday. He’s wonderful. Very smiley and giggly, and loves being sung to and jiggled about. Tonight he’s had his first solid food – a sweet potato chip. Looks like he enjoyed it . . . he’s already in 9-12 month age clothes, and he’s just 5 months yesterday. We don’t do puny babies in our family. I was a very puny baby, but first hubby was tall, so ED and YD are much taller than me.  IMG_2730

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That’s about it I think. Might take/post some photos of the plants if the weather allows.

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 . . . .

11th January 2013

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Things have moved on a little since my last blog. I have finished decorating the craft room – although it was a major task for me, and took several days. I could only manage 30 minutes per day, and then I was absolutely exhausted, and needed 3 or 4 hours sleep in the afternoon – and woke up in exactly the same position as I went to sleep in! I needed hubby’s help to move shelf units about, but once that was done, it was relatively easy. I’ve moved all my craft stuff upstairs – again with hubby’s help – and it’s meant that there is a lot more space downstairs. All my sewing stuff, cross stitch stuff (not yet used!), all my card making things, all fitted in the craft room.ImageImageImageImageImageImage

Next job – Ikea to get a sofa bed and some curtains. Sounds simple, but has taken hours of research on their website, and measuring up in the craft room. I have a list, which I have done in a spreadsheet – god I’m such a saddo – so that it automatically adds up the cost as I add/remove things.

There may be more photos when we’ve got everything from Ikea, and it’s all set up.

I have been treating myself most nights to a slice of the absolutely delicious fruit cake I made before Christmas. I actually made two, and froze them in slices, because nobody except me likes it. It’s dried fruit, soaked in orange juice overnight, then some self raising flour added, and because it was Christmas I added a slice of marzipan in the middle of each cake, as if it were a Simnel cake. It’s just delicious. I get it out of the freezer at lunchtime, and think about it all afternoon and evening until I just have to eat it, about 8 pm or 8.30 pm. Lovely. But will refrain from making any more until March I think, and minus the marzipan, delicious as it is, so that I can make that the Christmas version.

The cat has to have her meals in two parts – 1/4 of a sachet each part, so her breakfast makes 1/2 a sachet, and so does her dinner. We have to leave at least 10 minutes in between each fraction of a sachet, or she wolfs it all down and vomits it all back up again, and is then hungry and skittish for hours. And that happened tonight. I’m just about to give her some more biscuits and hope that shuts her up.

Pain in hands – dreadful when I was decorating, but has eased now.