Helloooooo!

image from Clipart Library

Yep, I'm still alive and kicking!  I've just found it really hard to get back into blogging and I don't know why to be honest.  I do so admire folk like John at Going Gently who seem to be able to blog virtually every day.  John in particular has a wonderful knack of making all his posts seem like one is having a chat with an old friend.  He may not be blogging about anything earth-shattering or sensational but nevertheless I greatly enjoy reading his blog each day.  As I say, it's like catching up with what's been going on in the life of a dear friend 😊

So what, I hear you ask, has been going on in your life recently Sharon??  Well, my lovlies, it feels like not very much has been going on at all to be honest!  July was a bit of a wasted month as I felt pretty unwell for a good part of it.  I think I have already told you that I managed to pick up a stomach bug, which made me feel rather poorly and washed-out.  And hot on the heals of that came a very nasty cough and cold.  I felt absolutely dreadful for almost a week, almost like having 'flu, and the cough seemed to go on forever.  To be honest, I'm still coughing occasionally but that may also be down to all the dust that has been flying about St Abbs recently!

Actually, I was getting a bit concerned about whether I would be feeling fit enough to travel south at the beginning of August, as it was my parents' 60th wedding anniversary.  Thankfully I was able to make the journey down to Bedfordshire (quite a trek from here!) okay but did find it pretty exhausting.  It was a good bit warmer down there too than we have become used to living up here, but at least we missed the really hot spell they had ~ it could have been a lot worse!  It was nice catching up with family and friends though, as it had been a year since the family had been up here for Mum's 80th birthday.

The roof on my craft shed has finally been finished ~ I don't know who was more pleased, me or Chris 😉  The weather has really not been at all conducive to fibreglassing but we eventually got a couple of good days.  I'm pretty relieved to be honest as I really didn't want to go through the autumn and winter with the roof unfinished.

Work has started on the downstairs bathroom.  Needless to say it hasn't been smooth-sailing ~ post to follow!

We've been building flat-pack shelving for the store room and garden shed.  I'm sure you can imagine the fun we've had with that!  It all seems so simple and reasonable, just slip the tabs into the slots.....yeah, right!  The bloody tabs kept popping out through the back instead of simply dropping down through the slots.  Lots of swearing and frustration ensued but we got there in the end 😉

A fair bit of sorting and downsizing of possessions has been going on (causing a lot of the dust I mentioned earlier!) in the guest bedroom, followed by trips to the local charity shops ~ thank you Lyndi for being our delivery driver for the day 😄

Likewise, more sorting of crates in the dining room and porch ~ generating, of course, even more dust "sigh"  I'm really pleased to have finally got the job done, though, as I hadn't really got to grips with all my cleaning supplies since we moved here!  Most of what is now in the porch is what will be stored out there when we finally get the room done, the plan being to have a run of kitchen units to store bulk cleaning supplies, loo paper, etc.  In our old house the back door opened into a lean-to fitted out with shelving where we stored all that sort of thing.  St Abbs has a distinct lack of storage space, hence the plans for the porch.  By the way, in case you are wondering the store room is destined to be filled with diy-type stuff, plus the electric garden equipment.

No sooner had I got the dining room looking nice than it was overtaken by the stuff for the downstairs bathroom, so no photos to show of my sterling efforts in there ~ hopefully, though, it won't be too many weeks before I can show it off again LOL

The front garden has started to go wild 😡 but now that I'm feeling okay again I'm planning to get going out there once more.  We have done some rearranging in the back though ~ more to follow on that in a later post.

Phew, I think that's just about brought you up-to-date with recent life here at St Abbs!  I guess there's been more going on than I realised LOL