The end of 2024

Needle-felted pumpkins

 I thought I’d better squeeze in one more sneaky blog before the end of 2024, as I seem to have been very lax this year!

September continued in pretty much the same frenetic way as the previous few months as there were the regular gardening jobs and two markets in the Town Hall.

I had agreed to do a weekend farm sit for the alpacas, even though I have said that I can no longer do the longer farm sits, as I find them too tiring and stressful. Just to complicate matters, Jeni and her partner, Adrian, had the trip-of-a-lifetime offer to accompany Adrian’s mum to visit his godfather who is very ill in Canada. I agreed to cat sit for the 10 days that they were away but it clashed with the alpaca sit, so they had to get a friend to feed the cats until I could get there on the Monday evening. I drove straight from the alpacas to their house, even though I passed the road to my village on the way!

Before the Canada trip had come up, I’d agreed to look after my friend’s ponies and chooks while she went away to Croatia on holiday so, having picked up the Canada contingent from Bristol Airport in a minor monsoon, I headed straight off to her house for 5 days! My best friend teased me that I slept around a lot! She’s right – 3 different beds in two weeks, and none of them my own! 😊 I did begin to feel that everyone was going away on holiday, apart from me. I must try harder to get away more in my camper van next year.

New porch

Suddenly, October was halfway through, and my porch door and window arrived. I’d decided to bite the bullet and have all of the rest of the windows replaced at the same time as the front had been double-glazed about twenty years ago, and some of them were beginning to fail, and the back of the house was still single-glazed which meant, once the cooler weather came, they ran with condensation. I’d found the double-glazing guy via my brilliant builders and his price was very reasonable, plus it only took him and his mate (Kev and Trev!) two days to fit everything. Within a couple of days of their completion of the installation, the builders came back and finished the porch, matching the render really well with the existing render on the house. I still have to paint it to match but that can wait until better Spring weather, but I have now painted the inside walls and ceiling.

Back in the summer, Dave had been given notice to quit his rented property in a secluded spot on the Mendips. He’d tried hard to find something similar but private rents have gone through the roof, as they are in such demand, and he couldn’t find anything in the area in his price range. It seemed as if he might be about to be made homeless, when it suddenly occurred to me that my friend, Mary, was looking for someone to take on the tenancy of the little annex that I’d inhabited for 6 years. She didn’t really want a stranger so was more than happy to let Dave rent it until he could find something else. It’s very small so quite a lot of Dave’s belongings had to go into a storage unit nearby, but we managed to shoehorn in the essentials and he seems to be quite happy for the moment.

And so to November! I decided to have a bonfire on the evening of the 5^th as I had a whole heap of hedge offcuts, some old lengths of timber, the sitting room door, etc and decided to invite my next-door neighbours and Jeni, Adrian and Dave for a party! I was going to cook jacket potatoes in the ashes of the fire but, on reflection, decided that that would be too hit-and-miss, so cooked them in the oven instead. We also had mugs of homemade soup that we drank whilst watching the fire consume the vast amount of material I’d accumulated. We did move the entire heap of twigs and branches so that we didn’t accidentally cremate any wildlife, but there was no sign of anything hibernating in the bottom.

Snowy Bristol in November

Blossom tree on the same day!

Jeni had to have an operation at a hospital in Bristol in the middle of November. She was due to be in and out on the same day but wouldn’t be able to drive herself, so I volunteered to go with her and wait until she was ready to go home. As we drove over the Mendips, it began to snow and it got more persistent the nearer to Bristol that we got. Jeni had to be there for 11.00am but, after she’d registered, I wasn’t allowed to stay with her, so I wandered off to the coffee shop in the reception area and spent a bit of time there, reading the book that I’d put in my bag. I then went out for a walk around the area which turned into a rather long walk all the way down into the centre of Bristol and then back up what used to be one of the main shopping streets. It’s a very long time since I trudged the streets of Bristol and I was surprised to discover that Park Street is now mainly coffee shops and barbers! I decided to get some lunch, but most of the venues were packed with students, so I eventually wandered into a Wagamama, not having a clue what sort of food I’d find there but, in the event, I had a lovely plate of little spicy meat dumplings and a delicious cup of lemon and ginger tea, made with sliced lemon and grated ginger. Jeni texted me to say that she was still waiting to go to the Operating Theatre and so I went back out into the snow, trying to find something else to occupy myself. I stumbled (almost literally) into the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery and spent an hour or so there before making my way back up the hill to the hospital, where I once more took up position in the coffee shop. The day dragged on and, at about 7.30pm, the coffee shop closed, and I had to resort to a seating area in the hospital foyer. Finally, at about 8.30pm I got a phone call from the day bed nurse to say that Day Beds were now closing and that they were transferring Jeni to a ward as she hadn’t long come out of Recovery! I was allowed to see her at about 9pm when we decided that it would be best to leave her there overnight and I would return in the morning to collect her. Apparently, she had gone down to theatre at about 4.30 so she had been more than 12 hours without any food – no wonder she was feeling so wiped out and weepy when I got to see her!

The fallen beech tree

Another weekend farm sit for the indoor/outdoor cats, Reg the Labrador and some poultry rounded off November. I went there after Storm Burt had ripped through the area and Reg and I went for a walk in the local wood where we had to clamber under a huge beech tree that had succumbed to the wind. The streams were full and it was easy to imagine that the area once hosted water-driven grain and paper mills.

Swollen stream near the ruined paper mill

When Jeni and I were driving over to Cheltenham at the beginning of November, my car’s wing mirror, which had been making the most constant, horrible noise ever since it had been hit in a supermarket car park 3.5 years before(!), suddenly went eerily quiet – I thought I’d gone deaf for a moment! However, the relief was short-lived as I then began to notice another worrying noise from under the bonnet. After a week or so I plucked up the courage to take it to my local garage and get them to take it for a test drive. The verdict was not good – they thought a bearing was going in the gearbox and, with a Christmas drive to Sheffield on the cards, I made the decision to find a new car. Amazingly, I quickly found another, later model, Honda Jazz being sold by the same garage where I’d bought my last one. They had a Black Friday deal on but, unfortunately, it clashed with the weekend farm sit, so I asked Dave if he would go down and test drive it for me, which he gladly did. He managed to persuade them to hold the car at the reduced price until the Tuesday, when I could get there, and we both went down to Yeovil and I took it for another test drive. It has rather a lot more ‘bells and whistles’ than I’d like but in most ways it’s very similar to my previous model, which has stood me in good stead for 8 years. A week later I drove my old car to Yeovil, bid her a fond farewell and picked up the new one. I couldn’t think what to name her as I couldn’t make a name out of the registration letters but, in the last two weeks, she has named herself - Hyacinth. This is because she is blue but also tends to be like Hyacinth Bouquet in Keeping up Appearances in that she is constantly trying to make me aware of non-existent hazards and keeps trying to tell me how to drive! 😊

Jeni and I travelled up to Sheffield together for Christmas, at my long-suffering sister’s and brother-in-law’s, together with the rest of the family. We had a lovely time; too much was eaten and too much was drunk, but we had a lovely walk in bright sunshine on Boxing Day afternoon in the Peak District which is only a 10-minute drive from their house.

The view from Higgar Tor

Unfortunately, the weather on 27^th December was nothing like as pleasant as we all said our goodbyes and headed homewards. Dave took Jeni back to Somerset and I brought Mum back to Cheltenham where I aim to stay for a few days. We were heading for the M1 but, as we neared Chesterfield, the fog rolled in and when we got to the motorway it was absolutely stationary with the joining queue starting on the roundabout! I changed my mind, went round the roundabout again and took off towards Mansfield, briefly stopping in a layby to warn Jeni and Dave about the holdup, but also to program an alternative route into my Google map app on my phone (My new vehicle doesn’t have built-in satnav, which is just as well as I have only just found out how to turn the radio on!). I have no idea exactly where we went as visibility was awful but eventually we found the Fosse Way, with which I’m familiar, and headed back. The fog only lifted significantly when we were about three miles from home and by then it was pitch black, but at least we were home safely.

The next time I communicate with you all it will be 2025, so I hope you all had a good Christmas and that the New Year is a peaceful and a healthy one! xx

Needle-felted fox

Summer 2024

My birthday cake, made by Jeni

 

This summer has galloped past at such an alarming rate that I feel like I’ve had no time to draw breath, let alone write a blog!

At the same time as doing a cat sit for Jeni, I also looked after my friend’s two ponies and chickens while she was away. Luckily, she only lives a few minutes from Jeni’s house, so I was able to base myself in Shepton Mallet and drive to Pylle each day after I’d fed the cats. I was also being really busy with gardening clients, as the weeds just keep on growing whatever the weather is doing!

Back in May Jeni had lost her job so I recruited her into the gardening business to see if it was something she would like to take on when I feel the urge to fully retire! Within a couple of weeks we had found two new clients, purely by word of mouth, so were busier than ever. But it proved great fun for me to have a gardening buddy and therapeutic for Jeni who seems to be rising to the challenges presented by each garden. Our clients are all lovely and very appreciative of what we do and we even get to do some hard landscaping too, as we have built some rustic steps for one client and are about to take down an old shed and re-model that area of the garden.

The site of the old steps

The new rustic steps

At the beginning of July it was the 75^th birthday of the WI that I used to belong to in Draycott and, as a past President, I was invited to attend the celebration. I was made very welcome and met up with some people that I haven’t seen for many years (and also caught up on all the local gossip!). It was a really fun evening – I had forgotten how much I used to enjoy WI meetings. Unfortunately, the WI in Binegar closed last October due to dwindling membership and the next nearest one is a few villages away. ☹

Rodney Stoke & Draycott WI

Then it was off to London for a long weekend to catch up with my brother and his partner, as I haven’t been to stay at their house for several years! I went up on the Berry’s Superfast coach service which is based in Taunton and picks up in Shepton Mallet in the early morning. A period return ticket was only about £26 for a Senior Citizen and there is courier service and, depending on the coach, WiFi, to make the journey more pleasant. The coach terminates at Hammersmith Bus Station and from there I made my way across London on the Underground, which I now find far less daunting than I used to. We had a lovely weekend, going to an excellent theatre production on the Saturday afternoon in central London and then for a walk around Shooters Hill on Sunday. On Monday, with time to kill before my coach home, I spent some time at an exhibition in the National Portrait Gallery on the six wives of Henry VIII and came home feeling quite cultured!

Less than a week later I was off again, this time to do an eight-day farm sit for the alpacas. There are now 30 alpacas and about 25 sheep plus chickens, geese and ducks plus the 3 Labradors and a cat, so I had my work cut out! My daily step count went up from an average of about 3,000 to about 15,000, which was quite a shock to the system!

This poor alpaca broke his leg a while ago but is now almost fully fit

Meanwhile, back at home, the builders turned up to start building my new porch. This is something that I consider a necessity as, at present, I have nowhere to hang outdoor coats or take off outdoor shoes which is a real nuisance if it is wet and muddy – a frequent event this summer! By the time I got back from the farm sit they had dug and laid the foundations and started on the actual wall building. The porch won’t be finished for a while yet as I am having a new front door which is on a 5-week lead time and a double-glazed window and only then can the builders plaster the interior walls and render the outside walls, but I’m hopeful that by the start of winter I will have a fully-functioning porch.

The new porch under construction

I also asked them if they could make me a hard standing at the back of the house, something that I was initially do myself but realised that it would take me forever to complete! I wanted to re-use the old, redundant concrete coal bunker, that stood outside the back door, as paving slabs. Although they looked very dubious about this idea they said that they would have a go. I went off to work and when I returned they had done a wonderful recycling job - what stars!

My new hardstanding area

Having made the decision to fell my poorly ash tree I had booked the tree guys to come at the end of August. They duly turned up and spent the day climbing the tree and taking it down from the top, cutting the useable wood into rings to be split later and chipping the brash into a big heap at the bottom of the garden. As before, they were efficient, friendly and very tidy so that you could hardly tell they’d been there apart from the missing tree. I’m hoping that my sole remaining big tree – an alder- is not too devastated by the loss of its neighbour. I realise that, as well as a couple of small field maples, in my collection I also have several small oak trees grown from acorns picked up at my favourite farm in the Tamar valley, so I may sneak one of those into my planting scheme for the boundary hedge!

By now we were into early August, which could only mean one thing, my annual trip to the Fairport Convention’s music festival at Cropredy in Oxfordshire. For the second year running I’d managed to persuade Jeni to come with me, so we duly set off in Bunty (who’d come through her MOT quite well earlier in July) and headed to Cropredy via an overnight stop in Cheltenham with my mum. This year we took the awning with us so that Jeni didn’t have to perform heroic gymnastic feats to get into the roof space bunk designed for small, agile children! We managed to put up the awning quite quickly (we’d had a practice at Dave’s before we left) which was just as well as the day was rapidly deteriorating, and it was soon raining and blowing quite hard! Luckily, the weather did improve significantly over the course of the festival, and we had a great time and listened to some good music as well as having the obligatory stroll along the canal and an ice cream made from water buffalo milk. Same again next year? I think so!

Practicing putting up the awning!

My birthday spread

The arrival of the cake!

Once back at home it was full steam ahead to organise my 70^th birthday party on the 18^th August, the following Sunday! I seem to be only able to deal with one event at a time these days, so had really done nothing towards the event apart from invite a few people to come. Eeek! There followed a panicky buying spree of party food from Iceland, the baking of two large quiches, random drinks buying and the tidying of a house already bulging at the seams with boxes still waiting to be unpacked. The hobby room very quickly became the ‘dumping ground’ so that I could turn the spare bedroom into a habitable space for my mum, who was coming to stay. My bedroom was turned over to my brother, Richard, and his partner, Jo, Bunty became my bedroom and Lynda and Paul brought their campervan, too. The weather, which had been wet and miserable, miraculously cleared for my party, which was held in the garden, but not before it rained in the morning fulfilling my doleful annual prediction of ‘it always rains on my birthday’! Nearly everyone came that had been invited, there was enough food and drink, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. However, that is the last birthday party I shall host for another decade (at least!) Stressful is not an adequate word for it!

Party in the garden

And now, here we are in September and I’ve just completed a dog sit for one of my gardening clients, attended a market in Wells Town Hall and done a spinning demonstration at a local Village Show – when does this retirement lark start? I seem to be busier than ever, so now you can see why there hasn’t been a blog for a while – if I sit down for any length of time, I fall asleep! 😊

Red squirrel & Mallard drake

plus Badger, Fox and Hedgehog

Hand-knitted socks and hats plus hand spun yarn

New Home!

Moving day!

 

Well, this is a blog that I have waited to write for over a year!

I officially completed on the sale of my house in Glastonbury and the purchase of my house in Binegar on Monday, 10^th June but, as some of you already know, I have had access to my new home for quite some time due to the generosity and trust of the owners. This has enabled me to decorate some of the rooms prior to moving in and employ builders to try and make the building watertight, as the sitting room particularly has a bad case of damp. (I took readings with a damp meter – a dry wall registered 5%, which is well within the acceptable range of 0-15%, the obviously damp wall registered 45%!!)

Before

During

After!

Moving day was not without its minor dramas! I may have mentioned when I moved in that my 7 foot sofa would not go through the front door because of the right angle in the porch and the height of the porch ceiling, so had to be lifted over the flat-roofed extension. Obviously, it hadn't changed size in the last three years so we had to do it again in reverse order and this time I got photos!

Getting the sofa out the back door

Passing the sofa across the flat roof

I suppose I took a bit of a risk spending so much money on a property that wasn’t yet mine, but I decided to trust in the innate goodness of people, the gods, the universe, my gut instinct (delete all/any of these choices!) and believe that everything would be fine!

There is still a lot of work to be done, both in the house and in the garden, but I will try and pace myself sensibly and work on one project at a time. The dreadful shed, that nearly broke me, is pretty much finished and is, at least, watertight which is just as well as I have had to fill it with things that really have no business in a shed and need sorting out and more appropriate homes found for them.

The oddly-dimensioned shed!

It was only when I emptied the wardrobe cupboard and the loft at Glastonbury that I realised just how many fleeces I have amassed over the years! A few of them have been washed, dried and stored in vacuum sacks, but there are many that are still in their raw state, including three huge fleeces – a Cotswold, a Wensleydale and a Lincoln Longwool. I am not looking forward to the washing process as they are quite heavy when dry, goodness knows what they will be like when wet!

All set up at Wells Town Hall

I have been continuing to go to the twice-monthly Community Market in Wells Town Hall and taking my spinning wheel, which creates a lot of interest and draws people into the building from the outdoor market, which is held on the same days. This means that at least a small proportion of my fleece is being used on a regular basis – you never know, if I do this for the next few years the fleece mountain may become a lot smaller! 😊 Unfortunately, even though people are very interested in the spinning and some take photos and videos, I am not selling much and have failed to cover my pitch fee recently, which is a shame.

Newly laid hedge

The hedge in full leaf

The hedge, that was laid back in April, is looking so much better now it has come into full leaf and I have continued to plant new hawthorn and hazel plants to fill in the gaps, protecting them from any marauding rabbits with those clear plastic spirals. Where there were large gaps in the hedge bottom I have put in stakes and woven a temporary hazel hurdle in situ to protect the new plants and also to encourage other plants to grow around them. I am thinking of introducing a honeysuckle plant, that used to be in a pot, into the hedgerow to encourage bees and other pollinators. I have also scattered some wild flower seeds in the hope that they might germinate and set seed this year for next. Wherever I come across an attractive ‘weed’ (a wildflower growing in the wrong place) in one of my clients’ gardens I am carefully digging it up and bringing it to a new home on my wildflower bank! Even my mother’s bete noire, Alkanet, is being allowed to colonise a small area as the blue forget-me-not style flowers are really pretty and, as it is related to Comfrey, can be used to make a nutrient-rich ‘tea’ or put into the compost.

The poorly ash tree😢

Sadly, the remaining large ash tree in the garden is showing early signs of ash die-back so I have made the decision to have it felled at the end of July, before it becomes dangerous for the guys to take down and before I put in any more infrastructure at the bottom of the garden, such as another shed and the chicken house and run. I have two or three field maples in my collection of hedge plants and I will probably plant those along the boundary line instead. The ash will not have died in vain, however, as I will have the bulk of it cut up for logs for my log burner and the brashy bits will be chipped on site and left for me to use as mulch for pathways and the chicken run.

A day after I officially owned the house, the scaffolders came back and removed the scaffolding, revealing my home in all its newly-repaired, newly-refurbished, newly-painted splendour! I am so pleased with how it looks now! However, three days after I officially owned my new home I decamped to Jeni’s house to cat sit for two weeks while they gallivant off on a road trip through France!

You can take the girl out of Glastonbury.....!

Oh Dear! Only the 2nd blog of the year!

 

Huge swathes of wild garlic in the woods

I’m very sorry that it’s taken me so long to write another blog – I used to be good at writing regularly! I’ve tried several times to write something interesting and entertaining but the muse seems to have deserted me.

Having gone back to Somerset at the end of February to do a weekend farm sit for the alpacas and be ready to start back gardening for my clients at the beginning of March, the weather had other ideas! One of my clients was in the process of moving house so did not envisage needing me until late April and of the other three I think I managed 4 visits in the whole month! However, there were other things to keep me occupied.

Having reviewed the state of the remaining shed (there were 3 originally) at my new house, and taking advice from several (male) acquaintances, I decided to take it down and order a new shed online – that was my biggest mistake! The shed I ordered was 8 foot x 10 foot, the same size as the one I was replacing, and I decided to erect it on the paving slab patio to deter rats from making their home underneath it. The shed duly turned up on 4^th March, flat packed in the back of a transit van. The driver was only supposed to deliver kerb side, which is what he did, took a photo of the heap of parts and drove off. I then carried all of the panels and sundry plastic-wrapped bits and bobs round the side of the house and laid them out on the grass. The instructions came in the form of a downloadable computer file which I decided to print off – all 31 pages of it! Being a female, I duly read through all of the instructions, but found them difficult to understand as quite a few were in the form of line drawings. However, I felt quite confident as Ade and Karen, my lovely neighbours, had offered to help and Ade has put up loads of sheds.

The flat-packed shed

A few days later, at about 9.30am, they arrived and we made a start. At first we couldn’t make head nor tail of the panels that we had laid out all over the grass. They seemed to be the wrong size and some appeared to be missing. After about an hour the penny finally dropped – the shed was 10 wide and 8 foot long, with the door on the 10 foot side and the windows on the shorter 8 foot side, which was totally different to a ‘conventional’ shed which normally has the door on the shorter side and the windows on the longer one. All of the pictures and diagrams on the website and the instructions showed a ‘conventional’ shed which made it difficult for me to visualise what bits went where. Karen realised that, after the initial assistance with the floor panels, she couldn’t really usefully do anything so went off to make us coffee and bring cake.

We battled on throughout the day, not stopping for lunch or further drinks, and the day got colder and darker and windier, but we couldn’t stop because, until the roof was on and secured, the structure was not rigid. None of the panels went on easily, there was one large kit of fixings missing, nothing lined up and none of the angles of the roof trusses was correct, which necessitated Ade trying to saw slots in them whilst balanced on top of a step ladder! As darkness fell, we lifted the final roof panel into place and, of course, it didn’t fit properly but we had no choice but to secure it as best we could and give up. I was cold to the bone and shaking with exhaustion, and I think Ade probably felt the same. I was so fed up with the whole thing that I couldn’t bring myself to even go into the shed for days as it sat like a large hump-backed whale beached in the centre of my garden!

Weeks later I managed to get the windows in (they didn’t fit either) and the doors on (ditto) and still haven’t been able to leave a review on the website because it would contain too many swear words!

I now have three separate piles of dismantled sheds in my garden from which I hope to build one other shed at the end of the garden to house garden tools and chicken paraphernalia – it surely won’t be as difficult as the new shed, will it? Did I mention that I am going to have a few chickens? I have been given a chicken house from my long time farm sit clients at Dundry and I intend to have four of their chickens, too. All I have to do is, modify the hen house a bit and build an enclosed run with a clear corrugated roof so that it is avian flu-proof, should we have to keep them confined again in the future. The intention is that, on days when I am in the garden and can keep an eye on them, the chickens will be able to free-range around the bottom third of the garden which I am intending to turn into an orchard and wildflower meadow!

A beautifully laid hedge - North Somerset style

In March, the local hedge laying association held a competition on the drive leading to Dave's place on the Mendips. We went along looking for inspiration and tips as I intended to lay the overgrown hazel and hawthorn hedge at the bottom of my garden to open up the view of the fields beyond. Enthused by what I'd seen I set to a few days later but quickly realised that I was not going to be able to achieve my aim with only my trusty pruning saw, as the trunks were too thick. I called in Jeni's partner and his chainsaw and we soon had some semblance of a laid hedge. Over the next few days I did a few tweaks and adjustments and it doesn't look too bad. I have also planted a few of the hedge plants that I have been nurturing in pots for several years. Most of these have been found as tiny seedlings in my clients' herbaceous borders! Some of the others are almost big enough to plant out soon and I intend to carry on the hedge down the right hand boundary of the garden as well.

The overgrown hedge in my garden

A rough approximation of a laid hedge!

Another new venture has been to attend the monthly Community Market in Wells Town Hall. I took my spinning wheel and, as it attracted people into the venue, I have been asked to bring it each month and sit in a prominent position to lure people in! It has been lovely sitting there, spinning and talking to people about the whole procedure from fleece to yarn, although I have not sold huge amounts of stock! However, I look on it as a bit of a social event with hopefully, enough sales to cover my pitch fee and parking!

On lamb watch duties

In April my farm clients, with the alpacas, asked if I could go and spend an afternoon on lamb watch duty, as they had a birthday event for their daughter and lambs were due imminently. Luckily it was a sunny afternoon and I sat, with binoculars at the ready, on the hillside and knitted socks to pass the time. Typically, there was no lambing action and I didn’t really know what to charge them for my time so we bartered instead – I got a trailer load of alpaca poo for my new raised vegetable beds and some joints of home-reared pork!

New veg beds lined with alpaca poo

A few years ago, if you remember, I created a new, large herbaceous border for a couple who live near Stoke St Michael, on the Mendips. Well, out of the blue, they got in touch again and asked if I would be prepared to house sit for them for a week in May, so that they could go on holiday. Being a ‘gal who can’t say No’ I agreed and went off to meet my charges – there was one Labrador, four cats and some geese, ducks and chickens. The meeting went well and so I went to them a couple of weeks ago and had a restful week, in a beautiful valley with a clear, rushing stream through the middle of it, walking Reg, the Labrador twice a day, and keeping an eye on the cats, two of whom were not allowed outside for various reasons.

Waterfall that powered the paper mill

I discovered that the waterfall I found and ruined stone building were part of a paper mill that flourished here in the early part of the 19^th century. There was even a small village of about 20 houses where the workers lived and a pub and of which there is very little evidence now. I love a bit of industrial archaeology – it must be in the genes, as my Dad was very interested in old mills, mines, steam engines, etc.

Old mill building on right hand side

I didn’t come away from this farm sit empty-handed either, as I was given a Lloyd Loom chair for my bedroom - I’d been looking for one for ages and they happened to have one languishing in a barn! I also have the promise of some 1930’s wooden doors to replace the hideous sapele doors in my sitting and dining rooms.

one of the 1930's doors

I was home for precisely three days before heading to Dundry  where I am doing my annual farm sit that I’ve now been doing for about twelve years! As well as the usual bevy of cats, dogs, tortoises, poultry and sheep that I look after, I also have a few chicks – 4 of which are earmarked for me! I’d better get on with that poultry pen when I get back so that I have somewhere to keep them!

A busy start to the year

 

A selection of Spring flowers from Mum's garden

Well, we’ve made it into 2024! The time seems to be rushing past and my intention to publish at least one blog a month has already failed!

There was a flurry of viewings of my house in January which resulted, finally, in an offer. It was spectacularly less than I’d hoped to get back in the early part of 2023, but I accepted anyway as I need to move forward. I assume that the whole process will take the usual snail’s pace to complete but I am allowing myself a small glimmer of hope that sometime, in late Spring, the transaction will be done and dusted.

The Hobby Room (note dust on lens!)

The finished Hobby Room

Meanwhile, back in the ‘new’ house things have been moving along. I finally hired the sanders – a big, heavy brute of a drum sander and its little cousin, the edge sander, for a weekend in January. My first challenge came when I went to get them out of the car – I couldn’t lift the drum sander at all and had to ask my friends to come and help me and then carry it up the stairs, as I was going to start on the two rooms upstairs, before tackling the two reception rooms. Even then things did not proceed smoothly. Karen busied herself in the main bedroom attempting to scrape off the remains of the old, double-sided carpet tape that had virtually become part of the floorboards, while Ade got to work using the edging sander. Meanwhile, I started using the drum sander in the smallest room (henceforth to be referred to as The Hobby or Craft Room!) and it was all looking good until, inexplicably, the machine suddenly stopped and refused to start again. I knew that it probably had a thermal cutout to prevent overheating of the motor but couldn’t understand why it would have overheated so quickly, but I decided to leave it a while to cool down before attempting to restart it.

The Main Bedroom (note dusty lens, again!)

The finished floor

Back in the front bedroom things were also going badly – the tape was welded to the floor and the only thing that seemed to loosen it at all were copious applications of WD40 and vigorous scraping, and the edge sander kept ripping off its sanding discs and destroying them. I’d been given armfuls of sanding discs and sheets in three different grades and would only be charged for the number that I used, but at this rate, we would run out before the job was half done! Ade discovered that by using two discs, one on top of the other, and also the judicious use of gaffer tape as a strengthener across the back, it improved the life of them, but it was still a worry.

I’d collected the sanders at 9.00am on the Friday morning and by lunchtime we’d made very little progress: the drum sander was still refusing to start; the edge sander was still occasionally destroying discs, but at least most of the double-sided tape had been removed from the edges of the room. At this point, Karen and Ade had to go home as they had other commitments for the rest of the day, and I rang the hire company and asked them to replace the drum sander with one that would actually work. Fair play to them, they drove over almost straight away with a new one, came up the stairs and checked the first one which, of course, started straight away, leaving me red-faced with embarrassment! They took that one and I proceeded to use the new one which seemed to be a lot more enthusiastic about the job and kept trying to pull me across the floor!

The heavy drum sander

I’m very glad to say that my son, Dave, volunteered to help me over the weekend and did a sterling job with the heavy drum sander whilst I wielded the edge sander. It was a messy, dusty, frustrating, energy-sapping job but by the end of the weekend we had managed to sand all four floors with three different grades of sandpaper and had some beautiful floorboards awaiting varnish. It was at this point that I returned to Cheltenham to spend some more time with Mum.

During the latter part of 2023 Mum had developed arthritis in her left ankle and this was making walking painful, so that she was struggling to keep up her level of fitness. The wet and windy weather that we had endured during the autumn and winter had also curtailed her outings, so she was feeling very frustrated. Her podiatrist suggested a course of laser treatment which meant two appointments each week for three weeks, so I was very glad to be on hand to take her to the majority of them, saving her a bus ride or a taxi fare. She also had a couple of hospital appointments – one in Cheltenham and one in Gloucester, so I have become very familiar with hospital car parks and waiting rooms in general. Unfortunately, the weather was still wet and windy, so we didn’t stray far from home but the weekend that I went home again the weather improved and Lynda and Paul came down from Sheffield so were able to take Mum for some nice drives in the Cotswolds and to see the emerging snowdrops at Rendcomb.

Back in Somerset for a couple of weeks I got on with the floor varnishing – 3 coats in every room plus a light sanding between coats 2 and 3 and am thrilled with the results! I’ve tried to ignore the new signs of damp on one of the walls in my freshly decorated bedroom, the exploding damp plaster in the sitting room and the internal drip of water onto the windowsill in the dining room – all these things can be sorted when the house is finally mine (I keep telling myself!). I have also finished the wardrobe cupboard that I created by blocking up one of the doors and doubling its size – it will now be a useful storage space with shelves on one side and a long shelf with hanging rail beneath.

My newly created wardrobe cupboard

In my spare time(!), I managed to go to the first Craft Fair of 2024 in Wells Town Hall. To be honest, it was a good excuse to sit down for a day and concentrate on something else! It was a slow day as the weather was not great, but there was a trickle of customers, and I made a small profit whilst networking (chatting!) with my fellow traders. One chap made owl and other bird boxes, bat roosts and bug hotels out of reclaimed timber so I am hoping, at some point, to buy a couple of items from him for my new, wildlife-friendly garden. Next time I have a stall, in early March, I am going to take my spinning wheel with me as this always creates interest.

I am now back in Cheltenham for a week or so, where I have managed to repair the larder floor which I put my foot through the last time I was here! Dad had made a false floor over some old, disconnected gas pipes using chipboard covered in vinyl tiles, not long after they moved in some 40 years ago and one piece of the board had obviously aged more than the rest! Cue a trip to B & Q in Cheltenham to buy plywood and new stick-on vinyl tiles and a day later I’d managed to make good the damage I’d done. Phew! I’m supposed to be here to help Mum not create more jobs that need sorting.

Mum's reinstated larder floor!

I’m off back to Somerset soon as my gardening jobs will restart at the beginning of March, and I need to do some work in my own garden, too.