Little words of wisdom

 

Use it up!

There comes a point in a yarn-hoarder's life, though, where she does have to actually use up some of the stash.....if only to allow the bed in the guest bedroom to be recognised as a place for sleeping rather than a convenient surface to "store" said stash 😱  I felt I shouldn't shock you too much, my lovelies, by showing you a photo of the yarn hoard.....not least because I also have plenty of the woolly stuff stored in the base of the guest bed, too 😁

So I've decided that the time has definitely arrived when I should make some lovely things with my precious yarn and show you the end results rather than the stash instead ~ and, of course, during the autumn and winter is the ideal time to get cracking on these projects, plus it's a tad less embarrassing 😉  And let's face it, with the weather as it is at the moment I'm certainly not getting out into the garden anytime soon 😏  The teensy wee pile in the photo above is just a smidgeon of the hoard, simply odds 'n' sods that are leftovers from other projects.  I thought I'd start with these whilst I mull over what to make with the other yarns that I have more balls of.

I decided to start with a simple storage basket, which I thought would be handy for the bits and pieces I have gathered for some hand-sewing projects that I'd like to have a go at.

I used three strands of yarn held together: one Aran-weight and the other two double-knit.  I can't remember what size hook I used ~ possibly a 7mm 😕  I must admit that it was a bit hard-going on my hands and if I'd been making a blanket, say, then I would probably have used a larger hook.  As it was a basket, though, I wanted it a bit firmer.

I think I should have made it a tad smaller, to be honest, as it is a bit floppy!  I also managed to add in an extra stitch or two on some of the rounds.  As it's just something simple that I made for myself to use up some yarn oddments, I decided not to bother to frog it and start over ~ not least because of the soreness of my hands LOL

The basket didn't use up very much of the oddments, so I'm currently making another version of the "ordinarily extraordinary blanket".  I'm using a 5mm hook, with the yarn doubled-up, so it's growing quite quickly.  I'm not sure if I will have enough of these oddments to finish the blanket, as it's a fairly large one for the sofa.  However, a few months back I made a start (not that I've progressed very far!) on one of the Special Projects that I mentioned at the beginning of the year, so I'm sure there will be yarn leftover once I've completed it to add to the oddments pile 😄 

And will the next problem.....

 

.....kindly step up to the podium, please 😒  I don't think that I've already told you about our bathroom woes but it dragged on for so long that I may have forgotten by now ~ you'll just have to excuse me as an "old woman" who repeats herself if I've mentioned it before😏

Waaay back in the mists of time you may recall that we had our downstairs bathroom completely gutted and everything replaced.  Fast forward a few years and we were noticing a fair bit of condensation in the room along with mould appearing, especially in the far corner beside the toilet.  Then we noticed that what we at first thought were cracks were appearing in the glaze of the basin.  When we ran our fingers over the "cracks" we realised that it was in fact crazing and we couldn't feel anything on the surface at all.  The crazing slowly but steadily got worse, which was a little disconcerting to be honest.

Then a few months back we found that the basin was leaking so we had to call on one of the local plumbing companies to sort it out for us.  Turned out that something had cracked and we were advised that it would probably be better to replace the basin, especially in view of the ever-increasing crazing in the glaze.  We were happy enough to do this and thought that a basin set into a vanity unit would be better than the arrangement we currently had, which was a small cabinet stood between the basin and toilet.  Whilst we had the plumber there, we took the opportunity to ask him about the condensation/mould issues we were experiencing.  He said that it was most likely because the bathroom was now very well insulated ~ which is a good thing, of course ~ but the water coming into the toilet cistern is extremely cold, hence the condensation building up on the latter and creating moisture to build up in areas where there wasn't any air flow.

We asked him if there was anything we could do to combat the condensation and he suggested that since we were already planning to change the basin, we could perhaps consider changing the toilet to a back-to-wall style set against a WC unit.  He also told us that insulated cisterns were available to fit inside such a unit.

The upshot of this conversation, my lovelies, was that we decided to bite the bullet and go ahead with the changes.  It took a couple of months before the new units had arrived and the plumbers could come out to make the changes, so in the meantime whilst we could still use the shower and toilet as normal, we had to wash our hands in the kitchen.

Finally the grand day arrived and the plumber arrived, along with our new units.  Things were going well and we also decided to have the whole of the wall behind the toilet and basin covered with a wet wall panel to match that in our shower.  To make life easier, the plumber also took down our bathroom cabinet which he later re-sited to sit centrally above the new basin.

Alas, when Peter took the toilet pan out of its packaging he discovered that the corner was cracked 😒  A new pan had to be ordered so we were now without a downstairs toilet for a couple of weeks.  I decided not to put stuff in the basin unit until the replacement toilet had been fitted, but I did give the wall cabinet a good clean and put everything back in it that usually lived in there. 

Ta-daaa!  Behold, our new bathroom fittings!  Don't get too excited, though, my lovelies...

because sadly for us, that wasn't the end of this latest tale of woe as there was a leak beneath the basin 😳  Luckily I hadn't yet got round to putting stuff in the cabinet so all that got wet was the glass shelf.  So Adrian had to make another call to the plumbers, who to give them their due came out quickly to rectify the problem.  We've given it a few days to double-check that all appears to be well, and I've now made a start on sorting out all the "bathroomy" things that are currently in the cupboard in the little utility area beside the bathroom.

The freestanding cabinet that we had previously had in the bathroom had a tiny drawer atop the cupboard space.  Everything that was in the cupboard part is now stored in the small section on the left of the basin unit.  I bought a couple of long, narrow, wooden storage crates from Woodeedoo on Etsy and have used them for holding the bits and pieces on this side of the cabinet.  This section is pretty narrow, so it's easier to pull a crate forward and take what I need rather than trying to scrabble around with everything loose, as it were.

I'm still sorting out the other stuff that I want to move into the large section of the cabinet, then I can rearrange the cupboard in the utility area.  The latter is really full at the moment, so having extra storage space is going to be really useful as I won't have to have everything so squished together 😄

Fingers crossed that we don't hit any more bumps in this particular road!

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)  

Have you been busy, Sharon?

image from Magnific.com

Well, to be perfectly honest I haven't really been busy at all 😏  The weather definitely hasn't been tempting me out of the house, although we did have a couple of nicer days when we managed to get a bit more work done in the garden.  

I mentioned previously that we were going to tackle this border and we have managed to get it sorted out.  Thankfully it wasn't nearly as "weedy" as the border on the other side of the path 😱  I'm just trying to completely ignore that side of the garden at the moment 😄  Anyhoo, we got out the few weeds that were lurking ~ mostly dandelions, so we know full well that we haven't managed to entirely dig out their bloody roots! ~ and Adrian hauled the old sleeper edging over to the stone chipped area near the dining room window so that they were out of the way.  I then raked out the soil to make it a tad more level, although we did also take out a wheelbarrow load.  

As with the new path along the side wall, the weather gods were feeling kind again so laying the weed membrane wasn't too traumatic 😄  At some point we will be laying new sleepers running across from the concrete path over to the new raised bed border, which will separate the stone chippings (to the left of the manhole cover) from what will eventually be a new lawn area.  Unless we're very lucky with how well we manage to get the rest of the garden sorted out, I can't see the lawn being laid for a good two or three years though.  Obviously we needed the membrane beneath where the stone chippings will be spread out, but decided to just continue it all the way down the border to try to keep the weeds at bay.

Even though the sleepers were in short lengths (between 1m and 1.3m) they are still really heavy and poor Adrian was knackered by the time he'd shifted them.  I put them on our local Facebook marketplace page as "free to collect" and had a lot more interest than I thought I would!  Hopefully a chap from just down the road from us is coming to collect them on Sunday ~ weather permitting of course, as we've got Storm Boelo due to hit over the weekend 😳

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)  

Little words of wisdom

 

Reading round-up: September 2026

image from Freepik

A Long-Dead Thing (A DI Harrison Baird Novel): Alex Smith

Northwind (Robert Hoon Thrillers Book 1): JD Kirk

Southpaw (Robert Hoon Thrillers Book 2): JD Kirk 

Oh dearie me, what a pitiful reading round-up for September.....and thus far, October isn't shaping up to be much better either 😳  I don't know why I haven't been putting aside time to read to be honest ~ perhaps I overdid it in August 😏

I thought I'd give the Robert Hoon books a whirl ~ he's a pretty forceful character in the DCI Jack Logan books, albeit a somewhat disgraced ex-officer!  Considering he can be a rather unsympathetic character in the latter series of books, nevertheless I rather warmed to Robert in these books centred around him.  I think I have another couple to read in this little series, not to mention the gazillions of other books patiently awaiting my attention on my Kindle, so I really must try to get myself back into reading mode.

The Harrison Baird books are another series that is new to me.  Thus far I've only read the first but I enjoyed it and will read more in due course.

Now that work in the garden is rapidly slowing down I will try to balance my spare time between reading and some of my other hobbies ~ perhaps I can also finally make some serious inroads into the magazines which are still piling up, too 😄 

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)  

Slowing down

image from Magnific.com

Yup, I'm still here ~ I just haven't had too much to tell you about really 😄  Following on from our rather wet summer it seems we are now in an equally wet autumn, so work in the garden has slowed down considerably.  Even on those few-and-far-between days when it isn't raining the soil is so cold and claggy that trying to do things is really rather unpleasant *sigh*

We're in two minds at the moment over whether or not to order the new sleepers that we want to replace the old ones with.  I think we're both feeling a tad "burnt out" to be honest, and it's becoming really hard to work up the enthusiasm to get on with the work that still needs to be done in the garden.

Between the weather and a couple of appointments this week, I haven't done anything out there at all 😳  We did manage to get some bits and pieces done last week, although I had a dental appointment last Tuesday.  It's a struggle for me to walk to and from town and work in the garden on the same day, to be honest, especially if the appointment is in the middle of the day!

We moved one of the two weigela from elsewhere in the garden that I mentioned previously.  I cut it back very hard before Adrian dug it out from the border which currently runs along the path from the front gate.  You can hopefully see it in its new home, up near the climbing rose.  There is another weigela that will eventually be moved into this border but not until the buddleia has been moved.  I'm pretty sure this won't be done now until next year, as I'm planning on planting it in the last raised bed that we want to put in to finish off the run that we have been working on this year.  If we had some dry days no doubt we could get the bed in place, but the main issue is whether or not we would have enough dry weather to give the bed two or three coats of wood stain before putting it in position.

Adrian put down a piece of fairly flat stone (that was leftover from when the side wall was rebuilt) in front of the climbing rose for me, so that I don't have to stand on the soil when it needs attention.  I also got the area on the other side of the rose completely cleared out.  It was mostly the dreaded crocosmia, along with a few weeds.  Don't get me wrong, I don't hate crocosmia, it's just that it has a tendency to go mad in our garden and tries to take over the whole bloody place!  I still haven't decided what to plant there, although I am contemplating moving one of the ferns that I already have as I know that at some point two of them will need to be moved elsewhere.  We have plans in the pipework for alterations to the other side of the garden, and there will be at least two ferns that will need to be moved at some point.  I think all these changes are going to take us a good couple of years or so to get done, so no rest for the wicked anytime soon methinks 😏 

Once we'd finished what we could currently get done in the front wall border, we turned our attention to the new path area running alongside the side wall.  We were able to get the soil levelled out fairly easily although it was a little claggy.

We managed to get the weed membrane in position without too much difficulty ~ the wind usually seems to pick up when we decide to do this but the weather gods decided to be kind that day 😄  No doubt weeds will still come up along the wall but we couldn't get the membrane any closer.  Adrian may well get some stone chippings delivered sooner rather than later so that we can get the rest of this new path laid.  At least that's a job that isn't quite as horrible when it's wet as digging in soil is!  Hopefully we will be able to get the rest of the wall repointed some time next year.

I know that it's not typical to have a path running alongside the boundary walls, with the garden borders set further in, but it just seemed to make more sense to be able to reach the plants and shrubs from both sides more easily.  It meant that we could have a wider planting area that wouldn't have to be stepped into to keep maintained.  The borders along the front walls are fairly narrow and I can reach across them more easily than the borders along the sides of the garden.  We are planning to do something similar on the other side of the garden, not least because of the issues we have with all the prickly and thorny vegetation that keeps encroaching from our neighbours on that side 😒  

The escallonia on this side of the front wall border ~ which is, of course, comprised of more than one plant ~ had got a bit wild and woolly, so whilst we were in the mood we decided to give it a good trim.

It isn't perfect but at least it looks much tidier now than it did previously!  When it next has to be trimmed, I might cut it back a little more than I did this time.  We don't really need a particularly high hedge as the pavement on the other side is very much lower than our garden.

The sorry-looking little tree in the raised bed is an apple that we moved from the back garden.  I'm hoping that I haven't killed the poor thing and that it will pick up again next spring 🤞

I've made a start on tidying up the area behind the table and chair ~ naturally, I forgot to take a proper "before" photo 😕

Anyhoo, this is how it's currently looking.  I can't remember what either of these shrubs are called and what I wrote on the plant labels has worn away to virtually nothing so they're no help at all.  There was a third shrub between them, which Adrian dug out completely and in the end I decided to discard.  I didn't feel too bad about making this decision as more often than not, I do try to reuse plants and shrubs that I move from elsewhere.

My original idea was to move both shrubs into the front wall border at some point and completely remove the little area to the left that's edged with large stones.  The curved concrete edging on the right was here when we moved into the house and to be quite honest, we really don't feel up to dismantling it ~ plus there's a matching area on the other side of the path which leads up from the front gate 😳

I've now decided to leave both shrubs in situ ~ after having given them a bloody good trim! ~ and just alter things slightly.  I will tidy up the area on the right and at some point will no doubt have some plants from elsewhere in the garden that I can rehome there.  As for the area on the left, I'm going to dig out all the plants (and weeds!) and rearrange the stones, moving them further in to make the area a little smaller.  Then it, too, can be replanted.

The border running along the path, of which a small section can be seen to the right, is now completely empty.  Adrian is going to lift the old sleeper edging and we will temporarily cover the area with weed membrane until we are ready to make the alterations we have planned for it.   

I've been meaning to tell you about the so-called "mystery plant" but kept forgetting 😏  Since I last mentioned it the flower has opened, and I'm pretty sure that it has revealed itself as an agapanthus.  I decided to take a chance and have now planted it in the latest raised bed.

So that's the garden report up-to-date.  As I said earlier, I'm afraid I haven't got out there at all this week.  I had a hairdresser appointment on Tuesday afternoon, so knew it would be too much to work in the garden and walk to and from town on the same day.  Then on Wednesday I had a follow-up appointment at the dentist to have a tooth removed 😱  By the time we'd walked home again (having also called into the furniture shop at the bottom of our road to look for a new mattress en route) the numbness was starting to wear off and my jaw was aching.  My mouth still felt pretty bruised and sore yesterday but it's not so bad today thankfully.  I'm a terrible coward when it comes to the dentist but apart from the stinging of the numbing injections, I didn't feel any pain from the actual procedure itself despite the root of the tooth being a tad more curved than the x-rays had shown!

I must admit that as the year moves further into autumn and with winter just around the corner, I'm finding it difficult to drum up much enthusiasm for gardening ~ when the soil is cold and claggy it's not exactly fun working out there, and even wearing gloves I find my fingers get awfully cold.  I do have a few bulbs left (that have been dug up as we've been working our way around the garden) that I want to get either put into pots or into the new beds.  I recently got three of my ornamental pots planted up with some of the narcissus and tulips, and there is one more that I'd like to fill as well.  The few bulbs that will be left over can go into permanent spots in the raised beds, and the ones in pots will join them after they've finished flowering next spring.

Still, perhaps I'll get a little more work done out there before calling it a day for this year.....although I confess that I am feeling the siren call of the cosy indoor crochet projects that are on my ever-increasing list 😊  

Little words of wisdom