Views from the Doorstep

 

I stepped out of the door to take the picture below, but first I simply couldn't resist taking this first shot, a panoramic picture of the view from the side of the house.

 

 

Stepping onto the front porch this is almost directly opposite us.  This 'puff' of mist is what we get all over the hillside opposite after it has rained, pockets of mist rising from the dips in the hill.  The first few times I saw this I thought there were little fires burning, as sometimes it is even darker grey and very smoke-like

 

Little wisps of rising mists evaporating and rising at their own leisure.  Some mornings the band is thick and solid and stretches like a white banded horizon, sometimes dispersing quickly before a camera can be sought out, and other days rising magically until it fizzles out high above the hills.

 

Lower down the view was different, the gates for the paddock drying off on the grass in the sunshine .... HA!!

 

Who were we kidding .... they got wetter and wetter, so we carried them over to the field and stood them up to see if they will do any better there.  Lovely Hubby has the 'furniture' already to go on them.  The hinges, catches etc etc.

 

It will look so neat and secure compared to how it all looks now, another step forward that has not been helped at all by our traditional UK Bank Holiday weather.

 

Sue xx

Snoozy, Rainy Sunday

 

Yesterday it rained, virtually all day.  We dashed out between the heavy downpours to see to the chickens and quickly walk the dogs around the paddock.

 

In the house we caught up with some jobs that have lain unfinished since the move.  One of them was putting blinds up at the downstairs windows, so we can pull them down when the sun shines on the television screen on the lovely sunny nights we hope come back after all this rain.  They will also add a layer of insulation in Winter, double glazing, blinds and curtains together are a good way of keeping the heat in the house and not simply warming up an ungrateful Welsh hillside.

 

Of course the flipside of this meant that we do not now have three roller blinds in their packs cluttering up the corner of the living room. Space.

 

 

We also gave the conservatory a good clean, hovered the rugs, washed the floor of all the doggy footprints and then re-laid the rugs but with the green rug from our last place as a layer in front of the doors to hopefully dry a bit better the doggy paws when they dash in from the wet.

 

They've never learnt to wipe their feet these lovely little sleeping beauties of ours.

 

Of course laying the green rug meant that now to the corner of the bathroom doesn't have a rolled up rug in it, so the place is looking cleaner and tidier.  More space.

 

Once all this was done Lovely Hubby gave in to what was obviously a day for sleeping and crashed on the sofa with the dogs quickly cottoning on and moving from their beds to drape themselves all over him.  Then sun then came out and was shining directly in his eyes, he could of course have pulled the newly fitted blind down to cure this but the two dogs were already snoring and he was loathe to disturb them,  so when I came down to the living room I found him fast asleep with a cushion over his face joining in with the chorus of snores.

 

The smell of freshly baking scones and a beef casserole brought them all back to join me in the land of the living ;-)

 

Sue xx

Running Water on a Welsh Hillside

 

Can you hear banging?

 

 

... " I can .... where do you think it's coming from?"

 

 

" It's that man in the flat cap doing things again to our world again!! "

 

 

" He's vanished ... with the job half done .....

 

... oh it's okay he must have snuck back and finished it."

 

Yes we now have running water in Chicken World, and as the chickens noticed Lovely Hubby managed to do the job in two halves, the first half with materials we already had and the other half after he had nipped off to the merchants to buy the connectors he was short of.

 

It's surprising how something as simple as a rain barrel makes life much easier.  No more traipsing over to the house and having to take off wellies to get a bucket of water and then carrying it back, we have rain water on tap.

 

Now we just have to hope that we continue to get the occasional rain we have had up to now on our Welsh hillside ...... did you see the sarcasm dripping from that sentence!!

 

Sue xx

 

Improving Things

This weekend we spent a lot of time improving things or tarting the place up a bit.

 

 

We decided the oil tank sat on the hill , completely visible from the main road is not a good thing so some trellis went up to disguise it a bit.

Lovely Hubby somehow managed to get the tank of creosote up there too and sat that on it's homemade tilted trestle next to the oil tank.  It did mean draining out many buckets full of the stuff and then pouring them back in once the barrel was in it's final resting place.  Good game, good game!!

 

 

We've planted a couple of Clematis and a Jasmine to grow up and around the trellis to give a bit of colour as well as screening to the area.  We are trying to put flowering shrubs and plants in wherever we can with the long term view that they will provide food for our bees in the future when we get the hives.

I think he's done a really neat job and it will look great once things start growing.

 

 

While he was working up there I managed to talk him into putting up a washing line for me, one hook on the side of the shed and the other on a post at the side of the oil tank.  I think it was me threatening to put a hook in the fascia board of the house that finally made him spring into action with this one.  As Lovely Hubby said it would most likely pull all the fascia boards down if I had towels flapping in the strong winds we get here. 

 

Time I think to get some washing on and go and try out the line for the first time, you just can't beat towels and bedding that have dried in the warmth of the lovely sunny days we have been getting recently.

 

Sue xx



Painting Almost Done

 

 We've almost reached the end of the painting, it's been a long hard slog with every room needing it's ceiling doing, two coats of paint on the walls and all the woodwork gloss painted, but at last, thank goodness, the end is in sight.

 

Lovely Hubby did the first coat on the walls in the conservatory last weekend.   We didn't get around to assembling the new henhouse as I originally said we would, which hopefully will be done this weekend instead, otherwise the chickens who are coming with us next week will have nowhere to sleep, instead we decided to concentrate on the inside of our house rather than the hens!!

 

 

Telling him he looked like he was worshipping his paint tray on the first picture he decided to actually do it on this one :-)

 

It's all looking very bare and clean in the conservatory now a completely different story to how it was before,  we used it as our store for all things DIY and without a place of their own.

 

 

The kitchen however, is a different kettle of fish, the worktops keep filling up with all the bits and pieces we are using over the course of each day and it's an on-going struggle to make space to eat every now and then, but one that we do do otherwise it will all get out of hand. 

 

In the brown paper box is my surprise Christmas present from LH, delivered to the house last week, I have no idea what it is .... but it doesn't rattle at all, is quite lightweight and smells of nothing in particular ;-)

Little finishing touches are being added all around.

 



 

I'm in two minds whether to paint the little gate that stops the dogs from going upstairs or leave it 'rustic' as it matches the carpet so well.  The dogs by the way do not seem at all bothered that they have no access to the upstairs, they sneak up for a peek every now and then when the gate is left open when our arms are too full to be able to close it behind us, but finding no doggy toys up there or nothing of interest they usually come down without even being asked.

 

Our lovely new mirror has now gone up on the bedroom wall, as well as the lampshade that we have brought with us from the bungalow, it matches the bedside lamps we already have and looks just as good with the new curtains here as it did with the ones back home.   Hopefully our king sized bed will fit on this weeks trailer load so we can finally sleep in our own bedroom rather than the guest room.

 

  LH has a friend coming round tonight to help load the trailer with some of our heavier items and is hoping to phone around some of our new contacts at the other end to help with the unloading.  So I better get off the computer now and go and get some more packing and shifting done in readiness.

 

It's nice to know that we're on target for our Christmas move.

 

Sue xx

 



Plans, Wires, Cats......

 

My head is full of plans at the moment, they whizz round in the most disorganised fashion. 

 

I tried making lists in my large desk diary but now my handwriting has gone to pot, even I can't read everything I've written and usually I'm the only one who can!!  I have a notebook in my bag at all times and scribble away as things come to mind.  Only the other day I found myself thawing out in a café drinking a huge mug of coffee and planning the Blog for next year.   Notes, plans, diagrams, if I don't catch them on paper they will vanish or be taken over by other equally important ideas for the future.

 

I have plans for the new house, which as you have seen have almost come to fruition now, so as I'm painting the final surfaces and walls I find my mind wandering to poly tunnels and rhubarb patches edged with strawberries.  Fruit bushes line the edges of the central bed with an apple tree standing proudly in the centre and the net tunnel is full of the most delicious berries .... Ooops there I go again......

 

I have to drag myself back and tell myself to do one thing at a time, get the edge of the paint line neat, wipe up the spills as they happen, forget planning the next meal in the Aga until I have actually finished eating my breakfast.  I'm two pages ahead of myself and three pages behind where I want to be.

 

Reigning in other people and planning a working day is something I was trained to do, reigning in myself is a whole other matter!!

 

The wires? ..... oh yes, this is a picture I found on my camera when I was downloading the sheep pictures yesterday.  I'm guessing it's the socket of the central heating controls, Lovely Hubby was about to fit a timer to the heating so it can come on while we are still in bed and take that vicious chill off the air before I push him bodily down the stairs to make me a hot cup of coffee in the mornings.   He took it all off the wall, studied the pencil drawing the guy that fitted the new boiler drew for him, pondered for a while and then quickly reattached it all and decided he needed a conversation with him before going any further.

 

 

And cats .... well I couldn't have a Blog post without a cute and furry face after yesterdays lovely shots of a dreaming Suky, so I thought I would include a photo of Ginger, and looking very serious he is in this one.  I guess he knows we're still waiting to hear if we can take him with us when we make the final journey to North Wales, I do hope we can, after all he's family now.

 

He actually belongs to our landlords family and we said we would foster him while we lived here and hand him over on their return, but they have decided to stay away for another year and we don't know who will be here next.   Anyway, she says stamping her feet in the most stroppy of stroppiness way ....... he's one of us now!! 

 

Those sheep have a lot to answer for, they have me yearning for more furry creatures around the place ..... I wonder what Santa might bring ... did he get my letter .... :-)

 

Sue xx

The Kitchen

 

 

The kitchen took us longer than anticipated but only by a week, and that was only due to the last minute change of mind to do the extra green wall, which needed two coats of paint.  I'm so glad we did change our minds, it looks fantastic now.

 

 

The kitchen all started with a change around of the units, moving this base unit from where it had sat next to the previous owners cooker, into the space vacated by their washing machine and tumble dryer.

 

Lovely Hubby could then tile the wall behind where the Aga would sit ...

 

... and then it was installed in just over half a day.

 

The next step was to make good use of the worktop that had sat on this unit, so we had it sliced into three to make lovely chunky shelves to go on the side of the kitchen where there are no wall units.  Two to the left of the Aga and one to the right.  The kitchen was then painted, the worktops and shelves were sanded and re-oiled, and then last week I found a bargain that finished it all off perfectly.

 

 

LH had asked me to call to Homebase top pick up a double socket blank to go on a socket that is hidden behind the freezer that actually has no wires running to it !  When I pulled up I was amazed to see the car park absolutely full, it's always quiet at our branch of Homebase, then I saw the signs 'Closing Down Sale'  'Everything 50% off''.

 

I was very good I only bought the light bulbs we needed and a couple of other bits and pieces and then walking down the aisle to get to the checkouts I spotted a flat pack radiator cover, slightly too large but just what our kitchen needed.  It was mine for half of its £109.99 price tag.

 

It was very sad in Homebase to see the shelves being picked clean, people were piling their trollies high with bargains but the staff were being as just as friendly and helpful as they had always been.  I chatted to the nice man that carried it to the checkout for me, he had been working there for 13 years and they had just been told that half of them would be unemployed from the end of this month, the other half have been promised jobs at the new Ikea which will open soon on the same site, but in the meantime they would all be out of work just a month before Christmas.

 

I'm really pleased with how the radiator cover looks in place,  LH got it together very quickly with just a couple of little alterations.  I am going to be using the top ledge of it for storing some of my large dried food storage jars.

 

With the wall now painted behind the shelves I'm loving the way it's all coming together, there will no doubt be a bit of arranging and re-arranging of the things on them until I have everything I need to hand and it also looks good, but that's the fun part of finishing the kitchen off.

 

This weekend was spent putting things in the kitchen cupboards and seeing what we have and if there is anything else we need, although I really don't think there will be.  We are planning to whittle things down until we have just what we need and then a car boot sale will be done in the Spring to get rid of any excesses.

 

As well as the kitchen this weekend we were concentrating on the hall, or rather LH was.   Manfully climbing high on the ladder to do the stairwell walls and ceiling, I couldn't watch, so I didn't .... I nipped off to Manchester to spend a lovely few hours with my Mum and to pick up some Blueberry bushes and garden ornamentals that she can't take to her new bungalow with her. LH did have strict instructions to take care and keep his mobile phone handy in case of accidents, which thankfully didn't happen.

 

While I was away for the day he also nipped in Llandudno and picked up all our now stripped doors, so soon we won't be as open plan, and the rooms will feel cosy again.

 

When I returned from my travels on the wet and windy night we went round to visit our nearest neighbours, she lives on the other side of the  hill to us but rather than climbing over it in the dark we took the easy option and drove the 100 or so yards along the road to get to her driveway.  We had a lovely evening chatting, drinking coffee and eating homemade cake and finding out all about her and some of the local characters in the area.  We left clutching a piece of paper on which she had written the names of all local tradesmen that she uses and while we were there she called a friend of hers to  let him know that we had a field of very good grazing on offer for a while, it seems such a shame to leave the lovely lush grass to lose all it's nutrients over the Winter when a few sheep could be fattened off nicely on it.

 

So yet another productive weekend and now back 'home' it's starting to look very bare, the balance has now very firmly tipped and I can honestly say we are longing to be home in Wales full time.

 

Sue xx

 

Green and White

 

This was a corner of the kitchen on Saturday night.

 

 After much umming and arring and negotiation, when we left there yesterday the wall behind the radiator was painted with it's first coat of green.  Now I know why I call my Lovely Hubby my Lovely Hubby .... the man has lots of patience he'll do anything I ask of him, but then it works in reverse and I do the same for him, it's called love :-)

 

There was lots of prep work needed in the kitchen and it was still being done just before we opened the paint pots.   It's funny when you view a house things look so neat and tidy and well presented, but when you get down to the nitty gritty you find all the botch jobs, all the loose plasterwork and all those things that you know you have to put right as you find them or they'll just get left much longer than they should be left or you won't get round to doing them at all.  Which is why we're doing everything that needs doing NOW, before we move in fully, because the way the timing is going when we do move in it will be time to really set to with planting and organising things outside if we want to continue to feed ourselves.

 

So the kitchen is almost finished, just the second coat of the second green wall to do, and already we can see it's going to look fantastic.  I can't wait to set to this week with packing up lots of things that will be being put into the kitchen cupboards and onto my lovely new shelves when we go back next weekend.

 

While LH was painting downstairs I was busy upstairs painting round all the door frames while the doors are away being dipped, next week we will paint the walls and ceiling of this landing area and then work our way down the stairs. 

 

The end is in sight thank goodness, did I ever mention that ...  I HATE PAINTING !!

 

Sue xx

The Living Room is Almost Finished ... but What's Missing?

 

After another good weekends work with the Living Room almost completed, the curtains are up, some of the boxes of books are unpacked .....

 

 

... we even have pictures on the walls. 

 

Here are the pooches posing with their new friend the door stop ...... who is currently unemployed !!

 

 

The large gap in the left hand corner is where our tall bookshelf will sit, but it's one of the few things that doesn't fit in the back of the truck and will have to come up when we are bringing the big animal trailer in a couple of weeks.

 

The cupboards are now all painted, white inside and our gorgeous green outside.  But what's that flash of blue to the right I hear you ask, it looks slightly out of place ....

 

... it's a shower curtain in the bathroom doorway !!

 

Had you spotted that we are missing a few doors, well ALL of them to be exact.  On Friday we took off all the doors and delivered them to the door stripper who will be dipping them in his solution and removing years worth of paint, and hopefully bringing them back to their former glory.  We have no idea what they will look like, but it most definitely cannot be any worse than the lumpy bumpy layers of peeling paint that was on them.  If they come up well we will be staining and waxing them, if they look dreadful it will have to be a fresh coat of white paint, I have my fingers firmly crossed for the former option.

 

I can't wait to see them, but it will take a total of two weeks until we can go and pick them up again, so I will have to be patient.  In the meantime we are completely open plan, and the only bit of privacy is our shower curtain to the bathroom, which the dogs have now discovered is absolutely no barrier whatsoever , so every shower, bath or visit to the loo is accompanied by two little doggies, who are absolutely fascinated by this new viewing delight.

 

Oh well we do our best to keep our animals entertained :-)

 

Oh, and although we remembered to put back the clocks while we were in Wales, we got home, did various jobs and then sat down to some television on Sunday night not realising that we hadn't changed a single clock back here.  Sooooo another glass of wine and another hours tv it was then ..... most welcome after that long journey home battling wind and rain and slow slow traffic on the motorways. 

 

Sue xx

 



The Spare Bedroom

We are so lucky every room in the house has the most amazing view.

 

 This is the view from the newly decorated spare bedroom window, framed by our lovely new curtains.  These curtains are at every window in the house, we just fell in the love with the pattern, the simplicity of the heading and of course they contain our favourite shade of green.  In fact the colour of the paint we had mixed was taken from the mid green leaf in the pattern.  I went to Homebase armed with a cushion cover in the same design and they had the machine scan the colour and made it up for me.

This was an easy room to do, once the insulation had been pushed up and laid in the loft (the hatch is in this room) we set to and painted everything white, cleaned the blackout blind left by the previous owners and put it back up and then put up our new curtain pole, bought to match the brushed steel rings in the curtain header (every room has these poles too).

 



 

Our new lightshade, which is green of course and matching bedside table lamps, which although bought from different places, co-ordinate perfectly and to my amazement buying things at the right time for once were bought at knock down prices from Dunelm and Sainsbury's respectively.  The bed is our old spare bed brought from home which currently has it's normal bedding on but which soon will be resplendent in brand new bedding, when I find the cardboard box it is all packed in.

 

This bedding was bought way back in 2004 when I kitted out my very first home after my divorce and has been in constant use since then, I truly did get value for money.  It was bought in the sale at Debenhams, two sets both at half price and although I have updated the sheets every couple of years the pillowcases and duvet covers have lasted really well, it just shows that it is usually worth buying really good quality bedding when it is on offer rather  than cheap sets that fall to pieces or go bobbly in the wash after a year or so. Once we find the new bedding this will be washed and donated to a local charity shop and then hopefully someone who really needs it will benefit.

 

So in this room there is just the new bedding to go on and then some of our pictures and photographs to go on the walls to make it feel even more like home.  We did this room as a priority so we would have a lovely refuge to come back to after a day's labour and it worked wonderfully.

 

Sue xx



The Saddest Before and After

 

This is the saddest before and after.

 

This beautiful old oak tree, estimated to be over 150 years old had to be felled to give us access to Satellite Broadband and the daylight to power the solar panels that we will be installing on the garage/workshop roof, which will be built directly under where it stood.

 

 

We brought in a local tree surgeon 'Dai the Log' to do the terrible deed and with his team of four guys it took just a day for this beautiful old tree to be stripped of it's branches ....

 

.... and brought to the ground.

 

This to me is the worst thing we have had to do, she was a lovely healthy old tree and in my opinion completely gave a wonderful backdrop to our land.  I miss her already and I barely got to know her.  The one glimmer of happiness out of it is that Dai knows of a local guy with a mobile sawmill who will come once the wood has seasoned slightly and cut the main trunk into planks. 

 

Lovely Hubby has promised me that he will use every last bit to manufacture stools, benches and other glorious wooden items that will honour the beautiful tree that had to go to make way for modern technology.

 

And of course in a couple of years when the wood has seasoned we will have lots and lots of lovely oak to burn in the log burner to warm us and the house.  I already have all the smaller branches chipped and these will be used in the chicken run as a winter surface for the birds. 

 

 

The stump has been left at a suitable height to make us a table on the edge of the woodland, and we will be placing a couple of benches there so that after a hard days work we can sit with a mug of coffee and drink in the view before us. 

 

It's not all bad, we will be making full use of every part of her .... but I'd still rather have kept the tree.

 

 

Inside while the tree surgeons were doing their worst we were painting away and yes, behind the log burner just had to be green didn't it :-)

 

And on the final day of our 'holiday' our lovely new sofa was delivered, at last comfort and boy did we enjoy sitting on it for the last evening.  This weekend when we go back we will be painting in the kitchen, but I will be sure once the living room is fully straightened out I will get a couple of shots for you, so a proper before and after of the Living Room on Monday.

 

Sue xx