Tales from The Shire

savingholmes

Love the curtains and the paint colour and the furniture shuffle. Best of all is you getting an art nook. Your slate pictures last year were lovely.

Fortune_Smiles

Cheery_Daff said:

Lovely blinds Fortune! Those tiles look blue to me though (am I looking at the wrong thing?) I always think yellow is a lovely sunshiney colour for a kitchen 😊

It's just my camera @Cheery_Daff - they are definitely dark brown.  The yellow has come out true though - it really is that bright 😎

Fortune x

Fortune_Smiles

savingholmes said:

Love the curtains and the paint colour and the furniture shuffle. Best of all is you getting an art nook. Your slate pictures last year were lovely.

Thank you @savingholmes 😘  I made those for Christmas presents.  Must think of something to do this year 🤔

Fortune x

savingholmes

I did a similar thing to your slate thing but on recycled glass bottles and then just put a bottle light in each

Fortune_Smiles

savingholmes said:

I did a similar thing to your slate thing but on recycled glass bottles and then just put a bottle light in each

That's a great idea @savingholmes 😁

Fortune x

Fortune_Smiles

Wash Out

Our walk with FDawg this morning was a very soggy one - not helped by a DPD driver driving past us at speed and spraying us with puddle water 😠 Lovely to come home to a warm house, a cup of coffee and a biscuit though.

Young Decorator has now painted half of the landing ceiling and started cutting in some of the wall paint.  He's off on another job today but will be coming back Monday with some trestles and boards so that he can do the high parts of the ceiling - I won't be watching 🙈  He should be finished by the end of next week.

The new bowls arrived 🙂 However, although they are first quality, they are not as high a quality as the bowls I already have 🙁 I've written to the manufacturer to ask whether they've changed their processes.  I suspect a cost cutting exercise has occurred somewhere along the line. It's supposed to be a premium product so I won't be buying any more new.

I carved my pumpkin last night and went out in the rain to put it by the front gate.  I'd slipped some mules on as I was just going to the gate and back but I made the mistake of walking down the lane a little to see how it looked.  In the dark I didn't see the enormous, deep puddle that had appeared 😲 The water was very cold 🥶 The pumpkin looks good although it is slowly filling up with water ☔

We had Chorizo & Spinach Frittata for lunch made with fresh spinach from the veg patch.  Supper was Courgette Carbonara made with one of the three last veg patch courgettes.

Mr F has been round to check how many of our fence posts need replacing.  He thinks 25 and a further 2 gate posts 😲 I've said we'll put those into our goals for next year.  We still have the rest of the decorating to pay for along with the repair of the remaining windows and a replacement macerator.  Work on the windows may not get started until the Spring now but I've still got to set the money aside for them.  Plus... I found a desk for my art nook 😁 I've been looking on FB and the Bay for ages for something suitable and the perfect one came up yesterday 🥳 It's just down the road from us and comes with a little set of drawers that can fit underneath.  We pick it up Saturday.  I can't wait for the decorating to be done now so that I can set up my nook.  I also bought some sundae dishes on the Bay so that we have enough for Christmas.

Hope you're all warm and dry (I know @Cheery_Daff is now 😉 - congratulations on the central heating switch on x)

Fortune x

Cheery_Daff

All good stuff there (apart from the wet feet!! And the slightly shabby bowls - what a shame)

Good news on the decorating though, and good to start planning next year's goals already, very impressive! 

beanielou

Yuk to the wet feet.

savingholmes

I felt the icy water in your description

Yay to new desk. Sounds lovely

Fortune_Smiles

Holiday

It feels as though we've had a little holiday today although that was not the intention.  We went to pick up my new to me desk which is perfect and really good quality.  There was one small mark to the top which the seller had mentioned and I managed to disguise with a combination of sandpaper, sharpies and boot polish 😆

On the way back we passed our little local supermarket and stopped off to post a Bay parcel and pick up some eggs and bananas which I'd forgotten to add to my grocery shop.  Mr F also requested bacon for his breakfast tomorrow 🥓🥚🍞

Then we paid a visit to our local antiques centre and had a good old browse around.  We bought two small pictures to hang in the annex (we'd put some extra hooks up so that Uncle F could hang his pictures and, of course, they were left empty when he moved) and a beautiful arts and crafts brass framed mirror to hang on the landing.  I love these mirrors and they are cheap because no one else seems to want them - probably because of the cleaning 😲  This one was absolutely black but I cleaned it with a toothbrush using some lemon juice and bicarbonate of soda and it came up beautifully.  I did leave it with some patina as it is an antique and I didn't want it to look new.  I've given it a couple of coats of wax to help to stop it tarnishing.  The pictures were a few pounds and the mirror was £18 so I thought we'd leave without causing too much damage to funds.  However... we also found a huge staddle stone.  We've been looking for one for ages to stand outside the front door but haven't seen any large enough or cheap enough.  The dealer came down 25% on the cost so we went for it.  It was a completely indulgent purchase so we've made it our Christmas present to each other this year.  And then... I treated Mr F to lunch in the little cafe upstairs.

So it's been an expensive day.

As well as cleaning up our finds I also washed, ironed and hung the net curtain in the annex and cleaned the fridge and mini freezer in there.  Uncle F bought the freezer but didn't want to take it with him.  I've discovered it's suitable for use in outbuildings so Mr F is going to put it in the barn on top of the existing freezer we have out there.  It will give us some extra space which will come in useful for Christmas.  There isn't really the space for it in the annex and it was taking up a lot of counter space in there.

We had Romano Peppers Stuffed with Paneer & Peas with rice for supper and have opened a bottle of red.  Wish we could take advantage of the clocks going back and have a lie in tomorrow.  However we have a canine alarm clock and he doesn't understand the concept 😆

Enjoy the extra hour all

Fortune x