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homestEAd ~ a few pleasureable chores

Roses

I woke up to sunshine this morning and no rain in sight – still quite cool though, but I don’t mind that – I can just put a jumper on.  I had a few chores and errands to attend to – the most important was a visit to my friend.

It was so lovely outside I decided to walk over to my friend’s house with these flowers and a card – she has just lost her dad  – I know just how she will be feeling.  It is twelve years since my dad died and the loss never goes away.

I like to customise my gifts of flowers by wrapping them myself to make them a bit more special.  I also like to give small posy sized bunches of flowers rather than large bouquets but these can be hard to find in a supermarket so I just bought a small bunch of those ballerina blush pink roses from Sainsbury’s.  I removed all their cellophane packaging and then wrapped them in plain brown parcel paper lined with the pretty tissue paper that came in the carrier bag with my Neal’s Yard creams and tied them with cord.  I always keep a stash of used tissue paper – it comes in useful for many things – a quick smoothing over with the iron and voila it is like new and this has such a striking pattern I couldn’t throw it away.  I added a little brown parcel tag that I had stamped with a simple message.

Once back home I filled my bathroom cupboard with the stock of lotions and potions I had bought on Wednesday.  Unlike my recent hesitation with keeping too many grocery products I do like to see a good stock of toiletries – I only buy them when on offer and as few of them come from the supermarket stocking up means I can avoid having to go to town or Meadowhall all the time when something runs out.

Neal's Yard

I love the iconic blue glass bottles from Neal’s Yard and the fact that using these means they can leave out preservatives from most of their products.  They are fully recyclable but I often find uses for them anyway. The little serum bottles I wash out and refill with my own mix of essential oils and use this for massaging my tense neck and shoulders after a hard day or my feet when I have a home style pedicure.   Sheer bliss.

Most of the ironing is done now – I find ironing the linen quite rewarding – I love getting into a freshly made bed at night, somehow I am sure I sleep better.  You cannot beat the smell and feel of line dried linen, especially on a windy day – I try to catch it just as it is still slightly damp and then spray with a linen spray and iron immediately – the mix of outdoor freshness with a little scent makes it a pleasurable task – this is my all time favourite with Orange Blossom and Bergamot essential oils – I am hoping I can recreate something similar myself when the bottle runs out as it is no longer available.

Ironing

DH has been working his way up the cherry tree pruning branch by branch – it looks a little stark now but I know come next summer it will be heading for our windows at a rate of knots once again.  What a shame the scaffolding around the house isn’t nearer the cherry tree – it would have served a dual purpose.  As I mentioned to Mary (who is a bit concerned as to DH’s safety)  I think climbing the cherry tree might just be his boy scout side coming out and he will soon realise he is getting a bit past that now!!

Tomorrow if the weather holds we have planned to attend the Bakewell Open Gardens event – we attended a couple of years ago and found some fascinating places we didn’t even know existed.  The nice thing about Bakewell is that the open gardens are in a different part of the town each year so they are full of new surprises.

If by any chance it does rain as forecast then it will be more ironing (yes there is still more to go yet) and maybe some paperwork to attend to (for paperwork read bills to pay!)  I have already prepared the guest room for my mum coming – I might just add a few flowers by the bedside tomorrow.  I think she may well get a shock on Tuesday morning when she wakes up and opens the blind to see the builders staring back at her from the scaffold!!

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clEAn and lEAn ~ dashing away with the smoothing iron

Not the most thrilling of days today – the clearing and cleaning in the kitchen had to take a back seat again whilst I caught up with the pile of ironing.  It really has been breeding in the corner and so I was forced to take action as I have to prepare the guest room bed for my mum who visits on Monday and iron the bedding.  I decided not to have any spares for the guest bed to save storage space but with the recent comings and goings another duvet set would have been useful.

I also ironed all the tops and skirts that I used to wear to work – as I have not needed them they have lingered at the bottom of the basket.  I put a couple of the tops on the charity pile and one of my least favourite black skirts and the rest of them in my wardrobe.  It will be interesting to see how often I wear skirts again now I am at home.  I have quite a collection of skirts because I never wore trousers at work.  I might even throw out all my thick black tights as they are years old and have been washed and worn so many times they owe me nothing.

After sorting my own items I then started on ironing my daughter’s clothes – not the woolly hats and gloves of course.  I intend to get these all done and back round to her house before they come home from holiday.  I will be relieved to get them out of my way – four big bags of laundry is a lot to move around my tiny laundry room – wherever I put them they seemed to be in the way.

DH spent a few hours at our daughter’s house putting the final top coat onto the skirtings, architraves and banister rails.  So only the doors remain and that will be another project complete although we may be called upon to help with the living room when they decide if they are removing the fireplace or not (very messy job).

We have scaffolding surrounding our house now ready for the rendering on Tuesday – weather being fine.  Once this is done we can replace our shed and get some of the stuff that is presently residing in the garage and what will be my pantry put back into the shed – can’t wait.  We will also be able to use the compost bins again – it has been so hard for me to put all the vegetable peelings in the bin and miss out on all that lovely compost.

DH had a go at taming our large Cherry Tree yesterday whilst the weather was fine – it needs more than a prune.  It is in our back garden but when we stand in the front garden facing our house we can now see the top of it above the roof – eek!  I couldn’t bear to chop it down as it gives me lots of shade but it is a bit too large for the plot.  I think he may have to climb it to get to the very highest branches…gulp!

I am looking forward to having at least one of our projects completed soon as we always seem to have a few on the go at once and I am trying hard to keep our main focus on the kitchen and the outside of our house.

Even when I cannot do anything major towards the kitchen decluttering I am making sure I at least do something small each day towards getting the project done.  Tonight I used some of my red sticker items and opened the first jar of Bon Maman compote, the cherry flavour, and made some individual crumbles.  We ate 2 of them with evaporated milk on top and the rest I will freeze.  I think I am becoming less and less of a pudding person I would have enjoyed the compote on some yoghurt so much more.  DH hates yoghurt.  What, I am wondering, am I going to do with my excessive yield of cooking apples if I don’t make crumbles?

Tomorrow it will be more ironing and some paper work to catch up on.  Then on Sunday I am declaring a day of rest and hoping the weather will be good enough to go to the Bakewell Open Gardens in Derbyshire.

What is the likely hood of rain!

have a good weekend. x

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dEAr diary ~ reading matter and a natter

A visit to work today to see my old colleagues – I was late as the town was so busy there was nowhere to park – good job it was only a visit.  I chose a good day as the new lady was out in the Leeds office.  I handed round all my thank you notes, I had intended to make my own but in the end I used bought ones.  We all went out for a coffee and a natter to catch up – but I am still glad I am not there anymore, change is very evident and not all sounding good but I don’t have to worry about that any longer.

After my visit I spent a whole hour in the library, bliss, and something I haven’t done for many years – just browsing and picking up anything that caught my eye.  I tend to read non-fiction more than fiction I have this quest for knowledge – always have and at the moment I am in to decluttering and simplifying my life in a big way, so I am not sure if I will find any new advice in the books I chose but it is always worth a read.

One of the books ‘Simplify your Life’  by Naomi Saunders I have read before but thought a refresh might be good.  ‘Declutter your Life’ by Gill Hasson speaks for itself – if I learn anything new and profound I will let you all know!  ‘Today is the Day You Change your Life’ by Elaine Harrison and ‘Leap Year’ by Helen Russell is mostly about those small steps that can make a big difference.  You might remember my word for this year (which is actually a phrase) is ‘ The Power of Small’ so the books are an expansion of this and I hope I might learn something from them.

My other 3 choice of books are more to do with health – ‘Corrective Exercise’ by Kesh Patel, ‘Vaccines’ by Dr Richard Halvorsen and one that I am eager to know more about ‘The Telomere Effect’ by Nobel Prize Winner Dr Elizabeth Blackburn and Elissa Epel.

So an early night tonight so I can make a start on one of them and I have no doubt the decluttering and cleaning will begin again tomorrow.

 

 

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clEAn and lEAn ~ day 2

A bit of a mixed day today.  At 5am DH took elder daughter and SIL to the airport as the train to Manchester is currently not running from here – not even sure why.  He then came home and went up to their house to put another coat of paint on their hallway and landing doors whilst they are away – they are on to a good thing here I think!

In the meantime I did some more of the washing that has come from the same daughters – 4 big bags of stuff that she has never had time to do on the weekend after their normal washing and I volunteered to help – I must need my head seeing to sometimes.  They are predominantly jumpers, thick socks, hats, scarfs and gloves and when they are washed and clean I am not sure she has any space to put them away.  I had them out on the line yesterday in the sun and they dried very quickly and they will not need ironing thank goodness.Washing

I also watered and fed my planters outside as we need to empty the water-butt to move it – the scaffolders are coming on Thursday and Friday to erect the scaffolding ready for the rendering next Tuesday.  At last we will be closer to getting our leaky wall done and making it waterproof by the winter – it has only taken us the best part of a year to co-ordinate all this as the date has kept moving on due to the really bad weather at the start of the year.  The fact that they will clash now with the Bank Holiday and my mum’s visit next week is not insurmountable just a bit irritating when we have waited so long… but such is life.

I had a quick run round with the Hoover whilst DH was out – DH fixed it yesterday as the handle had almost seized up and would not pull down very easily – now it is working freely once again whatever he did worked.  In fact yesterday was quite a ‘fix-it’ day – the boiler engineer came early with the part for the boiler so we have hot water again which is really helpful when you are doing a lot of cleaning in cupboards – boiling the kettle all the time was such a bind.

Whilst he was here DH removed the outside light ready for the rendering men next week only to find it was rather contorted inside with the heat and beyond repair  – it is over 30 years old so not surprising – so he ordered a new one from eBay.  Meanwhile, I was decluttering and cleaning one of the pull out drawers in our laundry room when the runner broke – drawer (also more than 30 years old) would not move in or out, luckily we had a spare runner and Mr Fix-it stepped in again, maybe it will last another 30 years!  Whilst he was busy fixing the drawer the washer flooded slightly at the end of the wash cycle through the drain cap  – Mr Fix-it managed to screw the cap on tighter as I grabbed a cloth and started mopping up but he reckons the seal isn’t good and has perished slightly so we needed to order a spare.  The Hoover was the last straw and the beginning of a few expletives!  I will say no more.

At 4.30pm this afternoon we both jumped in the car and headed to Meadowhall our nearest shopping mall – they have a Neal’s Yard store there and I needed night cream.  I use the Frankincense Intense with the serum – love the smell and it suits my skin – I also had some Boots No 7 vouchers given to me so I stocked up on the basic face creams that I use to eek out the expensive Neal’s Yard cream.

I was delighted to find the cotton wool pads I use were also on offer in Boots – buy one get one half price so I bought 4 and in Bodyshop the olive shower gel is cheaper if you buy in multiples so I got 4 of them saving £6.  None of these items will go off as we use them all the time.

I was really pleased with myself that I only bought what I went for – I had a little browse in WH Smiths which incidentally is looking much cleaner and smarter these days – they have new lower fitments and the whole place seemed far more open and airy and organised. I can’t help myself with stationery and books it is such a temptation.  Remembering the piles of stuff I have already at home waiting to be sorted I knew I didn’t have need of anything and walked out empty-handed.

A plus point surely.