Is there anybody out there that has 6500 chairs for re-caning??

We've just had a delivery of rattan materials, enough to reweave about 6500 average bedroom chairs. The order arrived this morning, just as the first couple of customers were leaving and another set arrived, so needless to say today has been bedlam - lorries, cars and people everywhere!

This is what that quantity of materials looks like.

Then we had to move all of this lot from the delivery van into the store - don't you just love Fridays!

Lovely weather for ducks.....with strong wings!

Well I don't know about hurricane Katia supposedly arriving overnight, but if yesterday is anything to go by then we don't need any more hurricanes, we've had quite enough bad weather thank you very much!!

It seemed like a very long day yesterday at the show and overall it was lovely, except for the weather. Why has virtually every event this year been blighted by the cold, heavy rain or high winds?

Anyway, just for a change I didn't take any photos at all, but I did make a little film, it's on youtube here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkDoOx0EXP4

A day in the life of me, my better half and Bernard, (of course).

I felt so sorry for some of the stallholders, the wind was incredibly strong at times and wickedly blustery. One minute everything would be calm then the next, a great whoosh, clatter and bang, someone else's gazebo would be bending or breaking!

We're glad to be home.

And on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, memories drift back to that awful day when it seems the whole world stood and watched in disbelief at the unfolding events. My thoughts and prayers are with the families of the victims.

What on earth was I doing moaning about a bit of bad weather!!

Last minute job

Still a bit tacky, but finally I have got around to repairing, cleaning and refinishing this French medallion table top that we have had for years. At last it can be reinstated in pride of place at the back of our stand, (without me feeling embarrassed that it is grubby and unloved!)

Now we really are ready for the show tomorrow - I think!

Footstools for Frome Cheese Show

Just three new ones for the show tomorrow, (so far....).

A little wartime CC41 frame with an "antique" colour paper fibre rush seat with chevrons.

A taller "Arts & Crafts" green stained stool with a "river rush" paper fibre seat.

And finally a pitch pine framed footstool with a whacky stained rattan splint seat.

Another little job that was really enjoyable this week was this woven pot handle.

It makes a nice change!

Hope some of you can make it to the show tomorrow, fingers crossed for better weather hey?

It's been a good year for the marrows.....

Well strictly speaking, it's been a good year for the overgrown courgettes! The constant rain we've had has meant that they could be neat, modest, little courgettes one day and massive marrows the next - we're drowning in them and we've only got five plants!

So some creative cooking required. We very quickly exhausted all of the usual fried, steamed, stuffed and curried recipes so are now onto the more exotic.....chutney, soup etc.! Then on Saturday I saw a recipe on the telly box........

Not a very good photo I know, but it was yum. Fillet of fish lightly fried in olive oil and served over part boiled then olive oil fried seasoned new potatoes and courgettes with a sauce vierge made from some really unusual tomatoes donated by our next door neighbour, masses of parsley from the garden, shallotts and a small dash of juice from a lime. Ooooooh.

There are two more huge (2 foot long) marrows to cut and about fifteen courgettes......any more ideas anyone.....please? I've given loads away already, even the neighbours are "marrowed out"!

Not exactly a day of rest.

It's Sunday....so I must be cleaning - again. The only consolation is that these are the last of the books from Mother in Law's house. Yippee!

It's taken all day to hoover, wipe and dry them, then they were sorted into history, novels, gardening etc. and boxed ready to take to auction. It seems an awful thing to do to break up one person's lifetime collection, but I don't know what else we can do really. It's a very difficult situation to be in, it seems wrong to dispose of someone's possessions whilst they are still alive and physically well, but equally we know that dementia doesn't improve over time and these are just things after all, things that she can no longer use.

The rest of the week has been successful, we waved our youngest son off to a new job in north Somerset for a couple of months, (he's enjoying it so far...) And we also waved goodbye to a lot of finished furniture so the workshop is much tidier and more spacious now.

These were two rush seats woven for a restorer friend of ours, the rest of the work was mainly cane panels. Next weekend we'll be at Frome Cheese Show on Saturday, so most of this week will be spent replenishing our stock of finished footstools for the display.

And just for a change, a word and wisdom of the week - because today in by book cleaning I came across a Thesaurus and a Book of Quotations, so I thought I'd make use of them!

Ephemeral - Brief, evanescent, fleeting, momentary, passing, transient.

Hmmm, just like life.

"I want to go ahead of Father Time with a scythe of my own" H. G. Wells.

I'm with you on that one H.G.

 

What a superb and extraordinary weekend.

More about last weekend.......

The morning after Stock Gaylard we were up at 7.30am to set off for the Cotswolds. Within 5 minutes of getting there, the first man arrived to collect some of Mother in Law's furniture. With the house now (hopefully) sold, we have to do the final clearance of the remaining bits, so we advertised them on Ebay. From 11am onwards it was non-stop collections until about 3pm! We had such a laugh with the lovely folks that bought the furniture. The first family turned up with their nephew - a lovely man, he was so polite, very sweet and luckily also very strong, which was just as well because when they tried to take a wardrobe downstairs, it wouldn't go, so my other half, nephew and uncle had to dismantle the whole thing moreorless into matchwood!

Meanwhile the second set of people arrived, two ladies with their elderly but very spritely mother who had joined them for the trip as she loved the Cotswolds so much. I made mother a cup of tea and she sat in the garden enjoying the air. The two ladies had arrived complete with toolbox and were dressed in very sensible "furniture removing" clothes. The three of us then "set to" dismantling another bigger three door wardrobe, (well actually some of it dismantled itself when the shelves and back fell out!) Between us we managed to get the whole lot downstairs in pieces, then as they were loading it into the van, one of the ladies stepped on the mirror and cracked it! They didn't mind too much as the wardrobe was for their teenage nephew - (does he seriously want to look at himself in a full length mirror!!)

Anyway, as it turned out, none of the people collecting had ever used Ebay before. The nephew of the first family is a musician who had a massive hit record a few years back. The two ladies are currently building their own eco friendly house, (out of marine ply and newspaper according to "Mum" who I would have been quite happy to bring home with me because she was so lovely!) and their house build will be on Grand Designs next year.


Once everyone had left, we decided to make the most of the dry weather and have a "tourist" trip to Stratford Upon Avon. We used to live in a little village called Alcester a few miles from Stratford when we were first married, so it was like stepping back in time for us. It has changed over the passing years, but is still as beautiful as it ever was. It's hard not to be impressed by the Tudor achitecture and the river. I didn't have my camera with me, but I took a few snaps on the phone, this is Shakespeare's house:

And this is a row of Tudor buildings now used as shops.

What a superb and extraordinary weekend we've had. But now it's back to the mundane - work!