Pottering about

image from Clipart Library

I really don't know where the time goes, especially since it feels like we haven't been doing much of anything since I last posted.  I guess simply pottering about takes plenty of time, though 🤷  And that is just what we've been occupying our time with, getting little jobs done that don't seem to have much to show for them at the end but still take plenty of time to actually complete!  I had been hoping to completely finish the big craft room tidy-up before Christmas, but that looks increasingly unlikely now as I have to start channelling my inner housewife ~ who, as you know by now my lovelies, tends to keep herself pretty well hidden most of the time 😏  Still, hopefully it won't take too long to get it finished in the New Year, and then I can recommence work on Augusta Lodge. 

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that the patio roses were putting out new buds.  This variety is Emily Bronte; she has more buds than Sceptred Isle, in the middle tub, who I didn't actually photograph 😯

The two blooms on Eustacia Vye that got caught by the snow did in fact open right up, and there are a surprising amount of buds on the plant too, considering we are nearly halfway through December.

It really is a beautiful rose 😊

One of those "little" jobs was to finally get some more of our prints framed.  I bought the one above as a gift for Adrian way before we moved ~ and we've been here nearly seven years!  He lived in Kingsland Road until he was 13, I think, when he and his family moved out of London to Borehamwood.

These two prints were a gift to myself 😉 They are by Rachel Grant ~ I really like her artwork, but was particularly taken with these two.  How could I possibly resist the gorgeous blue and white chickens in particular ~ two of my favourite things combined together 😄  They are now hanging in the kitchen, replacing a set of four prints that I'd grown out of, just visible in this post from 2020.

This is another print that I bought whilst we were still living in Hitchin.  It's now been framed and is hanging in our porch.  When I finally get Augusta Lodge finished (!) and moved out here, I'll move the print further over to the left.

Another gift to Adrian, of our lovely Nikki and Matty who have both been passed away for a number of years now.  The picture was done by a local artist, Donna Spence, who specialises in pet portraits.  I didn't actually have to buy this frame as I found it lurking in the stuff I was sorting in the craft room!

We haven't taken our prints and pictures to a "proper" framer for a good few years now.  Instead we get the frames (and mounts if we decide the picture would look better with one) from an online company called EasyFrame.  I was surprised at how easy the process was ~ I guess the clue's in the name, eh 😏  All you have to do is accurately measure the size of the image, choose the frame/mount, and they do the rest.  Adrian still has a few more prints he'd like framed, so that makes my gift-giving to him pretty easy for a while 😉

I may well not be doing much posting in the run-up to Christmas.  We've got family coming up this year for Christmas 😍 so as I mentioned earlier, I've had to fire-up the 'ole inner housewife to give the house a bit of a spruce-up ~ wish me luck!