Little words of wisdom

Peace...

www.allposters.co.uk

Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.

For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.

For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou

(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)

Entertaining!

We had a friend over for Sunday lunch last weekend, the first time we have "entertained" anyone other than family since we moved up here.  It was nice to have Phil round as he is always good company, and for the first time in I-don't-know-how-long we actually ate at the dining table instead of from trays on our laps!

We had a simple roast chicken dinner and I made a steamed black forest sponge pudding for dessert ~ very tasty it was too, even if I do say so myself 😉  It's a simple recipe but I thought I'd share it anyway:

125g (4oz) softened butter (plus a little extra to grease the pudding basin)

125g (4oz) caster sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 tablespoons cocoa powder

2 eggs, beaten

175g (6oz) self-raising flour

3-4 tablespoons milk

4 generous tablespoons cherry jam

Put a pan of water on to boil.  Grease a 900ml (1 1/2 pint) basin and spoon the cherry jam into the bottom.

Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy; add the vanilla extract.  Mix the cocoa powder with 3-4 tablespoons of hot water to make a fairly runny paste; beat into the creamed mixture with a tablespoon of the flour.  Add the eggs a little at a time, along with a tablespoon of the flour, beating well after each addition.

Use a metal spoon to fold in about half of the remaining flour.  Fold in the rest of the flour with enough of the milk to give a soft dropping consistency.  Spoon the mixture on top of the jam in the basin.

Cover the basin with a piece of greased and pleated greaseproof paper, securing well with string.  Make a handle with a length of string to make the basin easier to lift out of the steamer ~ I use a pudding basin net that I've had for so long now that I can't even remember where I got it from!

Steam for about 1 1/2 hours ~ remember to check the water level from time-to-time and top up with boiling water if necessary.  Turn out onto a serving plate and serve with custard or cream.

Needless to say, I forgot to take a "before" photo but here's one after we had all had a generous portion LOL

  

We're off to Phil's for lunch on Wednesday 😊

Little words of wisdom

Peace...

www.allposters.co.uk

Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.

For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.

For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou

(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)

More pottering.....

Adrian was a busy bee before his knee op and got the fence in the back garden stained.  Talking of his op, I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that he had the stitches out yesterday ~ hard to believe that two weeks have gone by already!  All seems to be well and he is gradually increasing his walking.  Hopefully it won't be long before he can get out again on those long walks he so loves 😊

The wheelbarrow was in the garden when we moved in.  The wheel is bent over to one side, so it's not much use for its original purpose!  I got Adrian to drill some drainage holes in it, and I'm going to use it for spring bedding and bulbs this year.  I may plant it up permanently next year with little alpines.

I brought the bay tree with me from our old garden.  It has spent spring and summer in the corner between the wheelbarrow and garden chairs, but since the autumn winds have been creeping in I thought it best to move it somewhere a little more sheltered.  Last year I brought it into the sun porch but I don't think it really liked it in there.  The little erigerons around its base definitely didn't like being in the porch, and I thought I had lost them.  But they gradually forgave me and although they aren't as lush as when I planted them, they are improving all the time.

This galvanised water tank was in the roof space above the downstairs bathroom.  When the guys replaced the roof they took it out and I decided to keep it as I thought I could make use of it somewhere in the garden.  I was originally going to line it and make a nature pool, but I've decided instead to plant it with a small selection of herbs next spring.

I finally got round to emptying two of these pots.  They were filled with weeds and alchemilla mollis.  It took a fair bit of pulling and digging to get the soil and plants out of the pots ~ talk about pot-bound!  I love alchemilla mollis and have now got them planted in the garden where I think they will be much happier.  The remaining pot has got mint in it.  I am going to take it out of this pot and sink it into the garden in another one at some point, probably near the compost bins.

The fairy is sitting in what was a birdbath.  Unfortunately it got cracked, so I planted houseleeks in it.  It, too, came from our old house.  The houseleeks seem happy enough placed here.  I shall leave the other pots empty for now, but expect I will use them for seasonal bedding in due course.

This windowbox is outside the kitchen window.  The erigerons in here have been lovely all year and are still blooming like mad!  They are called "Sea of Blossoms" and they certainly live up to their name!

Not to be outdone by Adrian, I too have been a busy bee and the garden shed is now looking neat and tidy.  We had some vinyl flooring leftover from the craft and store rooms, so Adrian patched the pieces together and glued them to the shed floor a couple of months back.  It makes a much easier surface to keep clean than the wooden floor was.  There is now a battery-operated light fixed above the potting bench, too.  As you can see, there is a window in the shed but it is rather small.  Unfortunately this was the best place for the shelving unit, hence there being very few things stored on the shelf across the window!

Since I took these photos, we have now got a couple of tool hanging racks put up.  It's good to get the tools off the floor and safely coralled on the wall!  The cardboard stash in the corner is for mixing with the grass clippings in the compost bins.  The stool belonged to my Grandma ~ I think originally it was a kitchen chair that somehow lost it's back.  I crocheted the cover for it a few years ago.

I decided to give my potting bench a coat of paint, using Annie Sloan chalk paint in Primer Red.  It's the first time I've ever used chalk paint, and I really liked it ~ not least because no sanding or priming is required!  The lower shelves are dedicated to my houseplant sundries.  Although the bench has a nice aluminium top, I thought it prudent to get myself a potting tray in an attempt to keep mess to a minimum LOL  I decided to treat myself to a handmade wooden tray, rather than one made from plastic ~ I'm really pleased with it and my spick 'n' span gardening shed 😍

How Cooking Can Change Your Life - Michael Pollan

Little words of wisdom

Pottering about...

What with one thing or another the garden both front and back has rather got away from me this year, but I have been doing a little pottering about out there.  Adrian and I moved the compost bin before his knee op, leaving the ideal spot to corral Trixie (my tricycle!).  We were hoping that she could be housed in either the garden shed or the store room, but there isn't room in either for her.  Hopefully we'll be able to build some kind of simple shelter in due course, but in the meantime she is well wrapped up in her snazzy new coat.



The compost bin is now sitting on soil, a much better idea than previously where it was on a hard surface.  Since I took this photo we have purchased a second bin which we have now put together and placed on this bed too, in the front right-hand corner area.  I have ordered a pack of three rhubarb plants, two of which will be planted in this bed.  I think they will enjoy the "compost juice" which runs out of the bottom of the bins ~ one of the reasons we decided to move the original bin in the first place.



This little group of fungi popped up in the bed.  I don't know if it was a coincidence but they are growing where Adrian was cutting some logs down in size.



My outdoor potting bench and the pallet were also previously where Trixie now lives.  I thought it would be a good idea to make this part of the garden, beside the shed, into a utility area.  The pallet is where I store bags of compost, etc.



This raised bed is between the garden shed and store room.  The chimney and two offcuts are from the pots which were originally on St Abbs.  I do like to make use of bits 'n' bobs if I can!  Anyhoo, I gave the bed a tidy up although to be honest it really wasn't that weedy (plenty of bits of rubble, though *sigh*) ~ unlike the rest of the garden LOL



I've got some plants in the bed now, some of which were waiting in pots and some moved from other parts of the garden.  It's rather shady here so I've mostly used woodland-type plants.  Hopefully the bed will start to look better next spring!

I couldn't resist taking a close-up of a rosa rugosa hip which grows in the bed beside the compost pallet, it just struck me as being so beautiful.  Isn't nature wonderful 😍 

Peace...

www.allposters.co.uk

Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.

For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.

For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou

(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)

Tackling the next big job

Work has started on the downstairs bathroom, but needless to say it hasn't been straightforward!  I think we are resigned now to the thought that every room we work on will have some kind of "issue" to be dealt with that we weren't expecting LOL  By the way, in case you were wondering, the wooden battens across the window were an emergency measure earlier in the year when a north westerly gale almost blew the window in 😲

You may recall that St Abbs originally only had this downstairs bathroom ~ not exactly convenient for night-time loo visits!  After the important exterior work had been done, our next priority was to have a new bathroom fitted in the little box room upstairs and that was finished earlier this year.

It became clear that the downstairs bathroom would have to be completely stripped, right back to the concrete walls.  The lath and plaster was not in good condition and there had been a lot of water damage from the leaking roof.



You can see in the photo above that the window surround was rotten ~ no wonder it moved so easily when that gale blew!

Everything was stripped out ~ I didn't envy poor Shug, lath and plaster is horrible to remove!



We had to have a mains pressure water cylinder fitted when the new bathroom was put in upstairs, and I must admit that I was rather concerned about how the guys would be able strip the walls around it. 

 

I needn't have worried, though, as Shug and the plumbers knew what they were doing!



The water cylinder was originally in a cupboard in the little lobby between the dining room and bathroom, but now we have a new "feature" in our dining room 😉  To be honest, I'm just glad that we still have hot water LOL



The expansion vessel is still in situ until Shug and the plumber are both here together, then Shug can sort out the wall whilst the plumber does his plumbing thing!



The photo above shows what would have been the original exterior house wall before the bathroom extension was built back in the 1940s.  Just to the left of the copper pipe was a rather large hole, which Adrian temporarily plugged with a big wadge of bubblewrap!  There was an airing cupboard here, at the back of the chimney, where the old water cylinder was housed.  We think that at one time there had probably been a back boiler fitted, hence the hole.

Talking of holes.....see that one in the floor where the old basin pipes had been?  Well, that was where the next St Abbs surprise began!  The floorboards had to be lifted so the plumber could get to the pipes, and that was when it became clear that because the old joists had had so many bits cut out of them over the years they would not be man enough to support the new shower tray ~ nor the washing machine and tumble-dryer which we are planning to put in what will become a little utility room.  So it was agreed that the old floor would come up and a nice new concrete floor would be layed. 

Whilst the house itself appears to have been built on granite, the bathroom was put up on a dirt foundation which is not unusual in older houses.  There was a mass of lead pipes (which apparently plumbers are now obliged to remove if they come across them during any work they are carrying out) not to mention a root from the sycamore tree we had removed last year!

I think the soil foundation was adding to the damp issues in the bathroom, so although it's been an added expense we could really have done without, I think we would have to say that this particular cloud has had something of a silver lining.  

George and Dylan came to the rescue, and very kindly fitted our floor in around their other work. Thankfully they didn't have to dig out too much to make space for the insulation and concrete. 

This is looking towards the front of the house, into the area where the little lobby used to be.  The hole in the wall beneath the window was an air-vent, which was directly behind the trunk of the old sycamore tree, so not much ventilation was actually taking place! 

Once George and Dylan had got the floor dug out, the plumber came back to fit all the new pipes ~ you may have noticed that the toilet pipe is now closer to the wall.  It was noticeable how the smell of dampness was so much less once the old wooden floor and joists had been removed. 

Once the plumber had done his thing, the guys were able to come back to put down a damp-proof membrane, insulation and set up ready for pouring the concrete floor.  Needless to say, the damp smell dissipated even more at this stage. 

We had to wait a while for the guys to have another window in their work schedule to pour the concrete, but we were really grateful that they were able to fit us in at all 😊

Whilst the saga of the floor was going on poor Shug wasn't well, but he is back on the job again now and the framing-out has started.

Plasterboard has gone up on the ceiling of the new bathroom area, too.  We are now waiting for the plumber to come back again to put the pipework in the walls, then Shug can continue with the insulation and plasterboarding.

This is looking into the new bathroom from what is now going to be a small utility area.....

and here looking out of the bathroom into the utility.  The plan is to move the washing machine and tumble-dryer out of the kitchen,  standing them to the left of the vacuum cleaner, with a small cupboard on the wall opposite.  Shug will also build a cupboard to house the water cylinder, just to keep it all looking neat and tidy.

Obviously there is still a lot of work to be done yet, but now that the framing for the new internal wall has gone up it does feel like things are moving along 😊

A basket of middles

I haven't actually got 18 projects on the go, and I don't think that anything has taken me 27 years to complete so I'm way ahead of the average, eh 😉 That's not to say that I haven't got more than one or two WIPs.....possibly I may have a few more than that ~ I just can't seem to work on one thing at a time 😄

Anyhoo, I got this urge the other day to make a hexagon patchwork bedcover, using up some of my fabric stash in the process.  I tried to resist, my lovlies, I really did, but as you can see resistance was futile!  Originally I thought I would make the patchwork completely random but as I was sorting through my fabric, I decided to make flowers instead ~ hence the basket of middles. 

My fabric stash consists of small pieces of this fabric and large pieces of that, not to mention the odd very large piece oh, and mediums too.  The pink floral and green stripes were fairly small pieces, especially the pink, and have been more or less completely used up now ~ just tiny scraps are left, no idea what I'll use them for but I'm keeping them for the time being at least!  The blue floral (which was an afterthought choice) was a bit larger, so there is a bit left of that for future projects.  

I started off with the fabrics above and although I had decided to make flowers, at that point I was still thinking that I would place them randomly using all the different fabrics. 

After a lot of cogitation, though, I decided to lay out the flowers in a pattern and restrict myself to just the six fabrics with the arrows above.  I completely forgot to photograph those six fabrics arranged together in the order I'm planning to place them, so it'll be a nice surprise for you guys as time goes on, won't it 😄  Mostly the reason for a design rather than random is that I am a somewhat impatient maker.  If I had gone along the totally random route I would really have to make all the flowers so that I could then lay them out together to see which should go where, but by having a design I can make enough for one row at a time and then start to actually sew the bed cover together as I go along.  In fact, after the first row has been done I could even just add one flower at a time ~ like I said, patience is definitely not one of my virtues!

Ta daah ~ my first flower!  One down, only 143 to go!  I think this may well turn out to be a longterm project.....but hopefully won't take 27 years LOL