I hate cleaning!

I hope everyone has enjoyed the holidays - what great weather we've had and whatever people think about Royal Weddings, the pageantry was pretty impressive and Kate looked stunning didn't she? They look like one very happy couple.

Sadly we didn't get a lot of time to watch weddings or enjoy the sun, we were decorating and cleaning Mother in Law's house! It was over 16 months ago now that she went into a specialist care home following a sudden onset of seriously debilitating demetia, it came as quite a shock, I wrote about it here. But now, finally we have almost finished the total restoration of her house so that it can go on the market. As usual, our timing is awful for selling a house, but it has to be done, how else will the care home bill be paid.....??? So frustrating. Because of her condition the house was in an appalling state. She did employ someone occasionally to do cleaning, but as is often the case with elderly people, the need for company and a good chat got in the way of housework. So I have been CLEANING!!!

Spot the difference. There are two sets of three of these.

My knees ache from scuttling around washing all of the skirting boards, but you have to get this muck off before you can paint don't you? Everything has had to be scrubbed, bleached, polished and dusted to within an inch of it's life!! (...and that's just my hands...) Some restoration job, but nearly done now. Now we're back at work to have a rest, (hahaha).

A propitious weekend

Half way through the two bank holiday weekends already, hope you're all having a good time. Much to our surprise we were invited to an Antiques fair on Monday, it was organised by a friend of ours that we have known for a long time, she has run fairs in this area for over 20 years. We took along some bits and pieces and two chair seats to work on, it turned out to be a good plan, we achieved a lot!

I guess I worked for about 4 hours, but I'm really pleased to have got this far along with the weaving of this stool. My other half also managed to weave all four stages of another chair seat and he started the diagonals, fantastic!! A lot of folks were interested in what we were doing, a couple of them sat down in front of us and watched for ages - so a good day all round.

And.....as it's Wednesday.......

This weeks word and wisdom:


Propitious - Auspicious; presenting favourable conditions; disposed to bestow favours

"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow" - Albert Einstein

Yes, it was a propitious weekend.

The Bluebell Wood

What beautiful weather - so warm for this time of the year. We decided to make the most of it on Saturday - for years now I've wanted to go to one of the local bluebell woods, but for various reasons the only free time we've ever had was too early or too late to see them at their best. Not this year...........!

The one thing the photo can't give an impression of is the gorgeous smell of hyacinth and fresh earth.

It was wonderful. This wood is a popular spot on the Kingston Lacy Estate near Wimborne. The bluebells were in full bloom and the weather was PERFECT.....one of those days you will remember forever.

Felix Dennis summed it up for me perfectly in his poem The Bluebell Wood. You can hear him reading the full poem here. It is this last section that made me realise that he feels the same way about the woods....

"My mind has marked that afternoon
To hoard against life's stone and sling;
Should I go late, or I go soon,
The bluebells glow- the birds still sing."

Easter and Bank Holidays

The last full working day before Easter, then next weekend there's the royal wedding and May day. So I hope everyone will get the chance to spend time relaxing in the company of family and friends. The weather here in the UK is promising to be warm and sunny for at least this weekend, so........no excuses....... go out and enjoy!!

We have our usual "to do" list so will be kept busy, but hopefully will get a chance to have some fun too. We'll be answering the phone whenever possible this Saturday then as normal from Tuesday until Thursday next week, normal service will resume as from Tuesday 3rd May. Please bear with us, deliveries will be slower than normal because of these Bank holidays, so if you need something urgently, please tell us, we'll do our best!

Meanwhile........ remember the woven sculpt I did a few weeks back, (here).....? It will be included in the silent auction to raise funds for Walford Mill's project to build a new access bridge to the gallery...... and the egg basket (here).....? This will be in another silent auction to be held at Sherborne Castle Country Fair at the end of May which raises funds every year for local childrens charities.

If you fancy putting in a bid and supporting the sterling work of these two wonderful organisations, please keep an eye on the Walford Mill and Sherborne Castle websites for details. Sherborne Castle already have a long list of items to be included in their sale, some really interesting goodies!!

Have a great holiday, have fun - after all, it's always later than you think.......

Word & Wisdom of the Week

Okay, okay, I'm sorry Tom I missed out last weeks word! So this week two for the price of one:

Indefatigable:

Incapable of being tired out; not yielding to fatigue; untiring...........(I wish.....)

 

Pertinacious: 

 

Holding tenaciously to a purpose, course of action, or opinion; resolute......(it helps sometimes.....)

Wisdom of the week:

"The road to success is always under construction" - Lily Tomlin

 

Absolutely agree with that!

Wonderful weather for weaving...?

A whirlwind few days.....The weather has been stunning here, we actually spent some time gardening over the weekend! It's taken three years so far, but we have eaten the very first crop off our asparagus plants.

Okay, so we only had two each! In the background you can see that the crop of Jerusalem artichokes was a little bit more successful - we ate those too, roasted with sweet potatoes.

Work continues to mount up because of my shoulder, I'm still being very careful. The double sided seat is virtually finished, it's a most unusual thing to find. This one comes from a commode chair so even when the seat is up, you are still looking at finished canework rather than the underside. Time consuming work in the extreme, completed beautifully by my long suffering other half!

We're feeling a bit worn out today. Yesterday we had a panic phone call from our eldest son, he was driving home when he had sudden severe pains in his abdomen that were so bad he had to pull into a car park and lie curled up on the back seat! I called an ambulance and to cut a long story short, we finally left the hospital A&E department at 9.30pm last night. He's okay'ish now, but still in some pain. It seems it was an attack of acute gastritis - so frightening, it makes you realise just how fickle life can be.

A fancy fender stool

Light rehabilitation at the moment! The shoulder pain is slowly going away and at least I can use it properly now, albeit with care. I'm trying not to look at the great big armchair that caused the pain with it's torturous seat, (perhaps that should have been word of the week!) and have turned attention to a much more sensible thing.....

The lovely couple who own this said, " make it pretty, you choose the pattern".......oooooh, music to my ears.