Digging my way (back) to China

 It feels that way. What should have been a simple trio of holes for the silver birch has turned into a project that actually required a break for hot tea and finger warming. I just about got that huge rock out of the ground on my own before finding nine more wall bricks beneath it. I certainly have enough for the base of a bench now between these and what I found yesterday while digging the hawthorn hole.

 

Sheets of plastic which wove their way through the buried stones can’t be good for the trees so I am trying to find then dig out as much as I can in this area before the three trees go in. The post-lunch job today is slow release fertilizer application on everything in the front and back gardens, by which time the rain should be here. My muddy clothes have been able to stand on their own at the end of these past few days.

 

I was NOT expecting this

when I dug the hole for my hawthorn tree this afternoon

though I was not surprised. Persimmon is a very sloppy building company – lots of my neighbours have found all sorts of crap (excuse me) in their front and back gardens simply covered over by lazy workmen who couldn’t be bothered to put this sort of thing in the skips. Gloves, soda cans, sheets of plastic – I found it all during my early digging when we first moved in. I dumped a pile of this debris in front of the show house back when one was still on our site and son of a gun if some workmen weren’t by the house that afternoon to ‘tidy up your back garden a bit’.

I think this must be the stuff stuffed in the gaps between the pre-fab stone wall panels. (It looks like horrid slimey worms and will probably be around for another hundred years in a landfill somewhere).  I made the site foreman send a workman to properly fill the gaps but as I have been digging out my levels years later I can see that the foam goes all the way into the foundations of the walls. I did find six of the wall stones once the digging for the tree was complete so that’s the start of a planter or maybe the base of a bench.

Cleaning up this mess put me behind schedule but I hope to get the silver birch in the ground tomorrow.

 

It’s not all black and white

Years ago there was a terrific show on UKTV Style called ‘House Invaders’. The channel itself seems to have disappeared during our time away from the UK and I haven’t seen it on any of the home and garden channels we get on Sky.  I confess to being inspired by a lot of the projects in addition to the overall concept. Using your old paint, fabric and bits of wood (and old furniture when available), a designer and two grunts would revamp three rooms in your house. Guess I am invading my own conservatory. The only difference is I am my own grunt, save of course for the things I will assign to my big strong handyman of a husband. He might dash round the planet on international tax matters for The Bank but I will always see him as a tall skinny 18 year-old back stage hand. He had this real heroin chic look back then. Now he’s just a well-fed handsome dude with more white in his hair every day – caused by me no doubt.

We’re getting off topic aren’t we?

This black fold down table — which houses four folding chairs — has been with us for a very long time. It was essential in our 251 square foot flat in London that everything fit very well into the nooks and crannies. Until the arrival of the retro furniture this was in the kitchen.

I’d originally thought all sorts of ice-cream pastels for this space but the grey painted floor (which looks to be around a bit since I don’t envision tackling the tile job until next spring) needs something to help with the transition to the lighter colors around it. By trimming down the pastels colors to just greens and pinks and adding the black and white items I think I’ve got a more interesting visual theme to work with. The black and white also helps link the kitchen to the conservatory a bit better: it’s not red, white and black fifties retro then – BANG – pastel shabby chic.

A trip to the loft to look through the boxes of items not currently being used in the rest of the house yielded a few things that will work with the temporary look for the conservatory. Always in the back of my mind is the fact things will very likely change once we settle on a proper floor so not only should no serious money be spent in here, neither should a great deal of time and effort.

The white wash on the potting bench helped tone down the oak stain I put on a few weeks ago. I used the same white wash mix on the pink monk’s bench, then added a coffee wash to tone it down a little.

 

The edges are calling out for cord of some sort, which is fortunate since I have miles of number five, four and three to make any number of styles. The phrase ‘plane work’ is popping in to my head.

Best go wake Himself. He’d sleep past noon on a Sunday given the chance.

 

 

 

IWOM Specials (Lite)

When the rain showers drove me indoors this week, I sat at the kitchen table and worked on these:

I’m almost done making up all the CK kits leftover from the Shrimp & Dragonfly Guild Mini SSP.  Things like the IWOM Specials (lite version) above I sell for charity — three quid each or 5USD — but I’ve also been working on the more complex kits to help fund my gardening addiction. See the Chinese Knot Gallery page for the sort of thing I mean — I’ll get some new pictures in there at some point. It depends on how much rain we get in the coming week!

Next up are the dragonfly keyrings (those’ll be for charity as well) then there’s a pile of two yard pieces of number four cut to make good luck knot wine bottle ties which technically aren’t kits but are sitting in the ‘kits to make up’ basket. Once I polish off the for sale or charity pieces I think I will be ready – or to be more precise, my fingers will be ready — to tackle all the knots and projects I never had time for in HK.

 

Best laid plans

Plan A – get the slow release fertilizer on the shrubs and plants in the front today

Plan B –build some more shelves in the garage and pot up the white lilac bush cuttings from Himself’s parents’ garden (it’s chucking it down with rain)

Plan A – paint the skirting boards in the conservatory

Plan B – limewax the potting bench (too cold and damp today for gloss)

Plan A – fried rice for supper

Plan B – lasagne (it’s lasagne weather)

Name me a job other than housewife where you can so easily switch between jobs at such short notice. (OK, British cabinet reshuffles — don’t be a smarty pants).  Sometimes it is ordinary every day things that get slotted around, sometimes it is DB’s dash to the other side of the world for near-on a month. Another tick in the pro-housewife column for us ‘unfulfilled drains on society’ I think.

(Plan A – be over this cold by today

Plan B – suffer a few more days apparently)

 

Cashe and chips

Got some work done on the 40 inch pearls and semi-precious stone twisties this morning while Himself slept in a bit. These cashes (2 sizes), peridots, amethysts and garnets were acquired on my last trip to SSP (with DB, one of my favourite HK people) for the express purpose of making some beach jewellery for the Hawai’i trip next month. I made a necklace of each of the 2 size cashes already – all five will be able to be worn (twisted) at the same time for a big chunky look.

Don’t need to wear them on the LHR-LAX leg; however I will be changing into appropriate clothing on the LAX-HNL route and these will be in my carry-on!

The weekend job list is not ready yet so best get to that next. Himself gets to things very quickly now that the N-gauge layout in the middle of my coffee table is getting interesting. I believe the second level is being cut out today after we set the rest of the points.

 

Not the ‘Bubblegum’ pink though

I’m really getting into this plan for second-hand or recycled items for the conservatory. These worn out bed pillows became 18 inch cushions in no time flat earlier this week but sat for a few days while I dithered over fabrics for the covers. (A few adjustments are being made in the color scheme to accommodate the grey floor but more on that another day).

As mentioned on the Fabric Leftovers blog yesterday, Himself took the camera to Germany so you’ll need to check the post of September 30 to see the pink and green dot, window pane check and green and white floral fabrics that now cover three of these cushions. The monk’s bench, once a bright pink now a duller pinky grey, got a thinned white paint wash during one of the rainy spells yesterday and gets a good sanding later today.

 

Don’t mention the war

The best thing about the retro furniture? Not only did the delivery guy leave me my retro kitchen furniture’s palette last week, he gave me another one off his truck. More scrap wood to make things for my garden! (Yes, I often preferred the box to the toy).

I don’t sleep so well without the Better Half, so between taking these apart and more levelling work in the back garden I should be tired enough to drift off right away tonight while he’s in Germany. The general consensus of his co-workers was that he not wear his poppy….

 

One project closer

to getting the conservatory sorted. Yippee! I can close the blinds and not have to look at the piles of soil in the very bare back yard. Garden.

The floor sealing and painting (a temporary measure until we can agree on the proper floor) went well last week. Wait a minute — week before last. I’ve lost a week somewhere. The blinds came the same day as the new kitchen furniture so that day was a bit of a blur.

My father-in-law was here a good portion of that day to help: we worked in the garden while the sealer dried and I made scones for him. It’s not half bad looking that painted floor. The slightly darker green is now on the walls and all that’s left is a last coat on the skirting boards.

I’ve lost my messy projects workroom. Drop cloths will need to go down in order to paint now. There’s really only the monk’s bench and the HK telly crate to paint and decorate. The soft furnishings and smaller projects can get done in the craft room.  There is a huge Salvation Army furniture store up the motorway in Perth that I am thinking of visiting next time Himself is away on business (which very well could be tomorrow — Germany). It’s revamped/recycled furniture from now on for the conservatory as per my October 10 post and I’ve been told this place has all sorts of possibilities for ‘trash to treasure’.

 

 

Round the corner

from Dress Circle in London is

While Himself looks for the latest recordings of obscure musicals (his only failing), I occupy myself here. In the basement are the semi-precious stones, pearls and better findings as well as the larger bags of seed beads. It’s been window shopping only the previous three trips to London since we returned from HK, but a few things in their sterling silver sale bin caught my eye this time.

Always carrying a full written inventory of one’s stock seems like a good plan, but if one finds on said list that one has enough clasps yet buys them anyway, what’s the point?

Pats 35/Bucs 7. My third NFL game but first Pats game.