That Was Last Week

Swimming........... it was busy, lots of over 50's trying to swim up and down, getting in each others way. I had 30 minutes of swimming and then gave up.

Handing In ....................... my filled in form to enter things in a village produce show.

Searching ................................... for my 100 treasures in 100 churches book and not finding it (must have got left in daughters car)

Church Visit .......................on the way home from swimming - without the book- post about that next week.

Organizing .....................the man who is doing the kitchen refurb (not yet and not all at once) came to sort out final details.

Finding........................................................... Half a big tin of white emulsion in the garage which I will water down a bit and use as a first coat over the strange cinnamon colour that's in the bedroom.

Shopping ......... Bought a big ol' tin of  silk emulsion for the top coat in the bedroom and had to buy a new sander too as the other one fell to bits while son was doing his kitchen cupboard doors.

Reading ......................... George Bellairs - The Night They Killed Joss Varran. Crime Fiction.(Originally Published 1970) Another well written story by this prolific author featuring Chief Inspector Littlejohn and set on the Isle of Man

Watering ............................ as much as possible in my garden and about 1000 pots in next doors garden as they are away- luckily I can use a hose with a sprayer nozzle on her pots.

Killing ......................... Flies and wasps - far too many of both coming indoors despite my chain fly screen at the back door. The wasps ignore the screen and get in and the flies come in the windows. We had a proper door screen like they have in Australia at the smallholding and often stuck mesh over the windows too.

Baking................an entry for a show ( more about that next week) and thank goodness it was just the one cake - the kitchen was too hot - and the cake looked awful - not a prize winner.

Picking..................veg, also to enter the show ( and things to eat too of course)

Making ............. a few jars of marrow and apricot chutney  as an entry for the show and then deciding it didn't look good enough and entering a jar from the cupboard instead.

Sleeping..................... in the wrong room!.........son and daughter helped me move everything into the other double room last weekend ready for decorating, it's a bit disconcerting and no cooler.

Visiting........................someone I hadn't sat and chatted to for 32 years! They were our neighbours between 1980 and 84 and godparents to our son and we had kept in touch with notes in Christmas cards but being back in Mid Suffolk meant  I could go and visit easily. From the time we were neighbours they moved just once to where they live now, but we moved 6 times!

Wondering ..................... what a strange noise was, a roaring sort of sound and then realising it was the burners on a hot air balloon. So I grabbed the camera and rushed out. A rare sight around here so it needed a photo.
Hope they got where they wanted and landed safely.
(Tiptree are a company who make posh jams and marmalade in Essex, although they were heading North into Norfolk, obviously lost!)

Hopefully a good weekend ahead, hope you all have a good one too.

Back Monday
Sue

Deeds

It's taken 5 months for the Land Registry to register our title so that the solicitor could finish all the paperwork and get all the old deeds to us.
Trying to decipher all the archaic writing it seems as if this cottage  was once owned by an Estate of a nearby village and was sold in about 1909. There are no deeds earlier than that yet we know the cottage is much older.
I'm not sure how many people have owned it since, the paperwork needs sorting into relevant years. I know Mr and Mrs F bought it in 1979 for £14,000.
 In among all the papers was a death certificate for one of the joint owners in 1975 who committed suicide by poisoning himself in a car in a lane in the village - aged only 21 - how awful.

Along with all the papers came a cheque and note..............

"I enclose a small cheque in your favour being an overpayment on completion.
Although it is a small amount, I shall be grateful if you would arrange to pay it in to balance our accounts"

(I have edited the following paragraph as apparently what I had written offended rich solicitors everywhere!)
Well Of Course I'm going to pay it in! It may be only £8.14 but that's a couple of meals for us

Back Soon
Sue
P.S.Many thanks for comments yesterday and hello and welcome to new followers

I Really Think This Belongs Here

Look at this children's book, I really ought to buy it don't you think?

Back Monday
Sue

Cheerful Colours

Yellow isn't my favourite colour so I'm not quite sure why I went for it for the living room. But now it's done and the new curtains up I'm more than happy with it. (BTW there's no input from Col when it comes to choosing colours or curtains. He'd just have white everywhere and no new curtains - in other words he's not a bit bothered about what the house looks like!)

The photo doesn't do the Lemon Tropics justice because it was just starting to rain as I took this and the colour is much brighter in sunshine.

Treated myself to some flowers after the dentist - thoroughly deserved after my ordeal!

Thank you for nice comments on my last post.

Back Soon
Sue

Thank Goodness...................

...................................the painting of the living room is finished.

Saturday morning and one coat of emulsion on the last wall, then another and then the second coat on the coving. Colin replaced a single plug with a double and swapped one of the double wall lights to the other side of the room. Then I could clear away all the dust sheets that we've been moving around and living around for a week.
The final bit on Sunday was me doing the bum shuffle round the floor again putting down masking tape and painting the skirting boards, and while I had the satin wood paint out I remembered to do the boiler cupboard door. Thanks to the person who suggested a small foam roller to paint the door - it worked a treat.

Curtain poles went back up and the big mirror. We still have pictures to hang when I can work out which to keep. Now I can buy another set of book shelves and the last box of books can finally be unpacked. Most of our books are upstairs, away from the dust of the wood-burner, but I'd like reference books downstairs.
 I've spotted some Dunelm curtains online that I like but really want to see them in real life before  ordering so we'll need to go that way round Ipswich when we are at hospital or when I'm at the dentist (Aaaaaaaggghhhhh....Fillings.........Terrified!) during the week.

I listened and watched some of the bidding on-line from Saturday's bygones sale. The most amazing lot was a box of things that included a handbell. I'd actually circled it in the catalogue to look at when we went on Friday because I quite fancy a little handbell. There didn't seem much else of interest in the box............but obviously someone knew something we didn't as this small box of odds and ends guided at £20 - £40 went for............£470!!! Whatever was it that pushed up the price? We wondered if what looked like a letter opener was a piece of Chinese weaponry of some sort.......but £470! Heck.
(By the way our 3 boxes sold for total of £25 but then take off sales fee and there's not a lot left!)

Sunday before painting we nipped to the local car boot sale and I spent the grand total of 20p on this sheet of foiled decoupage which will make two cards.

 Not really worth going anymore as most of the people there were the same as every other week we've been.

The lads came back on Sunday afternoon to finish the garage roof and just need to track down 60 more tiles, clear up and then the scaffolding can come down.

We've got an in and out week ahead. Dentist, hospital, babysitting and Colin will be helping his sister and brother with funeral arrangements as their Dad passed away in hospital last week. I've not mentioned it on here before as it wasn't appropriate to do so but quite suddenly in May not long after his 86th birthday he started to get confused. He had been living with and having treatment for a brain tumour for many years, and with arthritis for even longer but suddenly he started falling, didn't know where he was and couldn't live at home anymore so spent a couple of weeks in hospital then a few more weeks in a care home then back into hospital for a week where he slept peacefully until the end. Col's sister stayed with him to the end and it really was a peaceful passing. So a funeral to arrange and all sorts of paperwork to be sorted. The funeral will be at the Methodist chapel where he worshiped all his life and he will be buried in the village beside Col's lovely late Mum. As a Lay Preacher on the Methodist circuit he was very well known and had lived in the same house most of his life so was well known in the villages too. The funeral will be later this month and chapel will be packed.

This, from Ecclesiastes,was what I choose to be read at both my Mum and Dad's funerals.  I don't know if it will be read at Dad-in-Laws funeral  but it always seems appropriate......everything passes.

To every thing there is a season, and a time for every purpose under the heaven:

 a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

 a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

 a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

 a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

 a time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

 a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

 a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

Back Very Soon
Sue

We've Arrived

A new blog for a new home..............................seemed like a good idea. 


So what sort of home is our cottage at the end of a lane?

Well, part is very old, but most is much newer and it has all the things we would choose for a home.... ..........a utility room and porch at the kitchen door, a downstairs loo as well as an upstairs bathroom, a wood-burner in the living room and a conservatory. Bedrooms for us and visitors and room for my craft things............and space for bookshelves of course.

The inside doors are all solid wood with Suffolk latches but the windows and outside doors have been replaced and are double glazed

There's a greenhouse and a garden with 4 vegetable beds that just need weeding.

Some fruit trees and bushes and space for more

A garage and a workshop for Col to keep all his might-come-in-handy stuff and wide open field views.
A small meadow surrounded with trees  will provide us with firewood and then we will plant more and fill up the space to make a wood.

Pity it's so scruffy and everywhere needs painting

and we haven't got a cooker until we get the pipework done for an LPG range.

One bedroom has an old random shower cubical in the corner, so  we'll need to find a builder to make us an en-suite.

There's enough to keep us busy for as long as we like and one of the first things we did after Storm Doris was to pick up all the twigs from the Ash tree ...........free kindling wood.

It felt right to be doing something with a purpose after a year marking time in town.

(Storm Doris also knocked a tile off the garage, pushed the Bay Tree over and broke its huge terracotta pot and put the electric and phone connection off at the cottage.........but not in town).

We've had questioning looks when we've told people we are moving out to the country when we don't know what the future holds health wise for Colin.

But I'd rather be here than in a small bungalow in town.

Thank you for all the best wishes for the move and thank you for putting up with my moans as we ploughed through all the hold-ups.

Hope you enjoy reading the new blog, which will probably be just like the old one!
Back Soon

Sue