Stranger in the Garden

 

Here's one we don't get often in the garden - a green woodpecker. The other kind comes to the feeder a lot, but the green ones like to feed on the ground, and though they can often be seen leaving the fields behind our house when you are walking back there, they don't come in the garden so much. They like the short grass (they love to eat ants) and Geoff mowed today, so perhaps that's why this fella came along...

Long-tailed tits

....are a pain to take a photo of, as they are very ephemeral on the feeder - really like to flit and fly. But here they are, holding still for just about long enough to snap a picture...and then they were off again!

Autumn cheer

A bit of redecoration on my kitchen windowsill today, while cleaning - decided it was time for some Autumn stuff instead of the very summery arrangement I had before. Soon it will be time for Hallowe'en decorations - but we only put them up for about a week. Just long enough for a little fun, without it getting really tedious...

Olivia's room

Finally, the last piece of furniture (the bed) has arrived for Olivia's room, which was the last in the redecoration saga earlier this summer. So I guess it's about time to show some photos.  Very hard to take photos of a room which show the whole thing...  Here's the wall across from the door - the chimney breast has a feature wallpaper, but the rest of the walls are simply off-white.

She has a new dressing table and chair to suit the more grown-up, vintage style to the room

and a very simple wardrobe to replace the yucky built in cupboard, which was flush with the chimney breast, and thus not deep enough to actually hang a proper, adult size, clothes hanger in. You can also see the new floor (same as in the rest of the house), which is a big improvement on the carpet. The only rooms now without this type of flooring are the kitchen (vinyl), hallway & steps (carpet, but nice carpet chosen by us, not left by previous owners) and the loft bedroom/Sarah's room, which still has the rather granny carpet left by the previous owners. But it's in good shape still, so it's staying at least for the time being.

Here's the view towards the window, showing her new bed - we kept the existing curtains as they were actually quite new and in good shape, and even though the colours aren't quite perfect (they have blue in them) they are nice...

This is the new bed - a white metal day bed, in a vintage style, which looks very sweet. 

And of course some storage space - a set of shelves and a bookcase. She's very happy with it, not surprisingly. And it's so spacious, compared to what it was like when the girls were sharing it.

First of the tomatoes

Finally, after aeons of waiting, the first of our tomatoes are ripe (there were two, but we ate one before I took this photo!). More will hopefully ripen soon, as we are away next week and will miss the best of them, otherwise...

...mind you, all these tomatoes are serendipitous anyway, as I didn't intentionally plant any- these are some from my class last year, which hadn't ripened enough to eat before the end of school, so we took them home so as not to waste them.

A Day Full of Boxes

One of my summer projects is going through all the stuff stored in the loft and deciding whether any of it can go, and rationalising what's staying to take up fewer boxes, etc. This photo doesn't show a few items of furniture, which are in the least accessible part of the loft (and which just went in there when we redid the downstairs, so I know they don't need to be got rid of yet) and most of the Christmas decorations, which are still in the loft - you can see the access to the loft through a cupboard in Sarah's room - it's quite a big space, despite the fact that there's a bedroom taking up most of the loft...  We still have to sort though some cupboards, but mostly, it's done. Which is nice!

Tidying the garden

A visit to the Garden Centre (well, two over a week or so, actually) to pick up some new plants for the summer, and a little time spent emptying old pots and adding new plants... And hey presto!

We didn't do a lot with the plants last summer, as we knew we'd be away the whole summer, but as we are here for most of this one, it's nice to have some plants to enjoy. 

Alex's room - update

We've got furniture in the room (the bed being finished now) - and no, there's not much space, but it will do - luckily, Alex is a boy and doesn't have a lot of stuff.  There is a dresser and a tall bookcase - we've just sort of put everything on the shelves (as he's away at PGL with school this week), so he may want to rearrange when he gets back!

Here's a view of under the bed - there's a desk space

-  a bit crowded at the moment, as he'll need to sort stuff and put some away in places when he returns.

Under the bed, looking the other direction, is a wardrobe - bigger than it looks, as it's quite deep - we stuck some storage drawers at the back of it, as he only needs about half the hanging space, even with hanging his school shirts...

There's a little bookcase, etc, to the right of and behind the ladder up to the bed. Not luxury, but it works.

Can you tell what it is yet?

Still a ways to go. Luckily for me, my lovely builder friend is putting it together for me. Hopefully, I'll be able to show a finished picture tomorrow!

Marvel-ous

A bit of a change of plans for Alex's room - the orange walls went right out the window (so to speak) when our builder friend brought over a sample of this wallpaper he found at B&Q - it's Marvel comics paper. And it's very cool.  But orange didn't go with it - we've picked out the blue instead (the wallpaper only being on one wall, as an accent).  Personally, I think it looks great (though it would be nice if this room weren't so hard to photograph!)

Floor!

So the floor is done in the little room, now. Then it's a matter of papering & painting, and then time for furniture, once we've ordered (and received) a bed...

Rug time

And finally, a rug. The room is pretty much now sorted!  Sarah and I found some blinds for the dining room windows/doors yesterday, too, but they aren't up yet (unfortunately, it's not sunny enough to need them anyhow. sigh.).  One more photo when they are!

Bye bye paper

And all the old paper is now gone - next task will be to smooth out the walls, fill where necessary, and put up new lining paper, as well as adding the coving mentioned yesterday. The floor is being done on Friday, so our builder will do as much possible tomorrow, and then Friday is set aside for the floor. It's a small room, and it won't need levelling compound, so it might not even take the whole day...

What's next!

Now that the downstairs is done, it's time to start on the upstairs. There are no major building works here, but the small room which was formerly my sewing room will get new wallpaper (and paint) and the rug will go to be replaced by wood flooring (same kind as downstairs, which is also what Geoff and I have in our bedroom). Our builder has also sourced some coving which was being thrown out, so it will get that around the ceiling - just makes a nicer finish...  

This is the room which will become Alex's room, and he's chosen a strong orange for one wall and a pale orange for the other walls. There won't be a lot of wall showing, actually, as we will get a nice high bed to help with the space issues, but as it's his room, it's his choice!

A few more bits and pieces

A trip to Ikea meant we finally got another chair - a nice, comfy armchair - for the room. And a few small tables for putting drinks and stuff on. 

I picked up the filing cabinet which we needed (which for some reason, wasn't available to order online - strange, but what can you do?)

And I picked up the correct hinges for the last cupboard door.

Alex had an excellent time playing inside the box for the chair (which is a little squished now because of lots of rain) - guess it goes to show that you are never too old to play in boxes...

The Finished Room (well, nearly)

And here we have it - the space, with the furniture back, and the books, and most of the decorations.  This is the view into the dining room from the other half of the room. Nice to have my books back - I missed them!

Here are the two new workstations with storage, on either side of the chimney breast. We will also get an armchair (possibly two, but as we think it might be cramped that way, we'll get one first and see) for in front of the chimney breast. And eventually, two desk chairs (this one is old but ok, so we'll make do for the moment).   Also, the new photo frames on the chimney breast - the girls and I had fun filling these!

This is standing near the chimney breast looking into the dining room - you can see the cookbook bookcase in this photo. I missed those books, too!

And here, standing in the dining room looking back at the other room. There will be some pictures/whatever on the walls - not huge numbers, but some. And there will be a rug on the floor (and of course, the armchair I mentioned before). 

Here are the photos on the wall now - the choice of photos was largely dictated by the size of the frames - all the photos are 4x6, so unless I want to fiddle around resizing (which I may do someday) some of my favourite photos just won't go in there. There's only one picture of my mother, for this reason - most of the ones I have of her which I like are the wrong size. Same with my favourite photo of my Grandma Taffy and two of my cousins...  

top row: My friends Michael and Jennifer at my wedding, my grandfather and my mother, Olivia, Alex & Geoff

2nd row: my great-grandparents (father's mother's parents) on their wedding day, the girls when little, me holding my baby neice

3rd row: family photo 2012, Geoff's dad as a very young sailor; my brother & sis in law back when newlyweds (with JR the dog)

4th row: my friend Cathi & me in univeristy on a boat; kids with Cathi's kids in Cornwall a few years ago; baby Sarah on the swing

top row: Family photo under a tree in Cambridge, March 2014; Geoff's dad as a young man; my gorgeous neice

2nd row: the girls when Olivia was about 1.5; my dad shaking hands with President Clinton; my wedding photo

3rd row: my stepdad; Geoff with Sarah at my friend Barbara's wedding; Alex and Olivia in a typical pose

4th: Sarah feeding a swan at Hampton Court with my dad; me & Sarah a long time ago; my dad's mother on her wedding day, with her parents

top row: me & Sarah on Chesil Beach in 1997; my grandmother Friedel; me & the kids at Kew Gardens, 2003

2nd row: my friend Barbara & her husband Brian on their wedding day (couldn't get the glare off that photo); with friends in Cambridge, March 2014; my grandmother's cousin Dorothy

3rd row: family photo a number of years ago now; Sarah when small; Geoff & his brothers in about 1995?

4th row: my brother with his new baby last summer (at the Grand Canyon!); Alex's birthday recently; Geoff's mum as a girl

The furniture comes back

Moved some bookcases - I'm sure that for a few days, it will look really crowded, but then we'll get used to it with bookcases again. There is one fewer bookcase on this wall than before, so it won't be quite so cramped anyway.   The books will wait until a little later, but I wanted to get the furniture back in place so we could begin to move the books (this time, without doing my back in!)...

This one is for some of my craft books - as you can see, they don't all fit, so I will have to find somewhere else for some of the magazines. I might get rid of some, of course.

Bookcases back in the dining room - on the table is mostly CDs, which Sarah is helping me put back

And here's where my cookbooks will be - I've missed them - they've all been packed away except a small handful.  Of course, half the time, we haven't been able to cook properly anyway, so I suppose it didn't matter much!