Bargain Sunday!!

Went to Elsecar on Sunday and found exactly what we have been looking for the conservatory. I wanted a smaller table than the old Ercol we had in there - to give us more room and small enough that we could eat at it and I could sew small things at it!.

I am off today on a flexi day - what is this weather like - I have been washing and cleaning today and I cant get it out fast enough before it dries. Bad news though that means I should be ironing now instead of going off into town.

The table was originally £125 reduced to £85 - Elsecar has a collectors fair once a month but there is a building full of booths and cabinets that is there permanently and it was in one of those. The guy had left his phone number on the wall so Alan gave him a ring to ask his best price - which I thought was cheeky when it was already - he said he could have it for £75! I nearly fell over. He then rang one of the ladies who work there so she knew what he had said - it fitted in the car so off we went clutching our gorgeous table.

I have also managed on Saturday to rearrange the conservatory so I now have my two sewing/crafty boxes handy and have moved some of the books to the front room. Two of the pics are of the shelves Alan has added around two walls of the conservatory - it is 96degrees in there at the moment and I would love to spend the rest of the day in there fiddling about and reading but I have to go to the butchers and the bakers etc! so we can eat.

We went to Bedale on Saturday and were pleased to see that the shops we liked had got better. There is a shop called the Red House and it had the most gorgeous stuff in it. I saw some lovely Art Deco original border tiles that I really want for the bathroom I was going to go off white and aqua's and F&B greeny blues, but then I saw these tiles they are just off white with a soft checkered pattern on them in a soft black sounds silly but they were it wasnt a harsh black - they are lovely - need to persuade Alan now. Bedale is only about 5 miles away but we havent been for ages we have had DIY free weekend because of the weather this might be the last weekend like we had.

We were thinking about going to the Vintage & Handmade Fair but its a lot of petrol and we need to stay two nights - so we are thinking its a lot of expense. It will at least £300. I would dearly love to see all the bloggers in person but its a long journey for us Northern Ladies! I am going to very jealous when eveyone is blogging about the day and how they met up - my friend at work is going to ban me from reading blogs in my lunch break after the 22nd November because it will put me in a mood!

The trouble is that money would buy me a bath and taps and maybe even a basin for the bathroom wouldn't it. I have to get on and get it done asap because the carpet for the stairs is waiting to be fitted and ther is no point until all the mess has been up and down them from the bathroom.

Right I must go - I have just added my old Ercol table and two pine chairs to Freecycle - so I have no excuse now to be on the laptop.

We are decorated and carpeted - blissful nights ahead

Another post that is a bit upside down - ie I wrote the bottom bit first so the title refers to further down in the posting. Just a few pics around the house and some of this weeks creations.

I got these little tiny cupcake candles in Whitby this summer and the little hive candle in a charity shop in Pickering - I have had the other bits of china for a long time but they all live happily side by side in the dresser
This pretty cup and saucer was a recent bargain isn't it lovelyThe two little black bowls were Nana's, one is glued together very badly but I still love them and the little jug was a charity shop buy this year - I think it was 99p This is what is on the top of my bargain dresser - we haven't really had the weather to get it outside, strip it and paint it this year but I have high hopes of using the garage later on though I haven't told Alan he thinks its a job he has got away with doing yet! The original Roberts radio was picked up about 5 years ago in a fleamarket for £4 - it gives perfect reception and will go in the conservatory at the weekend. I must get that picture hung up on the wall - there is a velux above the dresser so its lovely when the sun shines - whats that you say? I'm afraid I should have zoomed in on the image a bit more.

This is the gorgeous box I bought off the very talented Lucy Bloom some time ago - I was so thrilled with it aren't you envious???

This is our printers tray in the kitchen it hung in the hall in the other house - I think we probably have enough stuff to start another one! Alan got loads of printing bits from a bin that were being thrown out at the Police HQ - they are brilliant and very different. There are lots of old police badges and lovely signs - see the direction ones on the top of the tray and there is a bobby with his hand up to stop on the top left. There are tiny teddies and little ornaments that were in my Mam's jewellery box in the bottom underneath the tray. I have the box and when its unpacked will post it - her Dad made it for her and it is so simple - she didn't want it but I certainly did. I wear a lovely old gold ring that was my Nana's instead of my wedding ring which grew too tight(!) and this weekend it snapped luckily I was at home and felt it fall off - Alan is going to see if we can get it mended. I am not a jewellery person at all but do love that ring very much as she always wore it and she loved Alan and I getting married very much. She was almost 99 when she died and left me with lots of lovely memories and things ......... She was a perfect Nana when Peter and I were little - she always had time for us - she even had a bag of sand which ashe would haul out onto a blanket for us to play with in winter!! and she always gave us tinned strawberries with evaporated milk - yummy I can taste them now.......................

These are guilty purchases from LA - I know I can make them but I am never going to get round to it and those chairs are hard!!! I got 6 pads and they are so soft

3 reversible cushions not 6 different ones! From my fabric stash - to match Arundel (LA) curtains that are now three widths wide not two - what a job it was like hauling a sail around the table. The carpet is down, the curtains are up and there are even cushions made for the bed! No pix up on the walls nor shelving for my bits yet and no bedroom door on as it needs planing post carpet being fitted and we forgot to do a second coat on it as well.

Apart from spilling 750ml of F&B oil eggshell paint on the floorboards, down my blouse, trousers and shoes - through the floorboards as well the job went fine. I had to remove my trousers in the bay window! to drop them onto the newspaper that David ran and got for us as the disaster took place. I had to scrub myself with turps on my leg in the shower before it would come off and everything had to go in the bin!

We have no wardrobes yet either as they need building in - Oh but the bliss of carpet under your feet and we even freecycled the big old dirty rug.

We finally fitted the shelves in the downstairs front room after making carboard templates and then cutting the shelves to suit. Worth it and a useful tip for fitting shelves into old alcoves.

We could hardly get out of bed on the Monday am after working flat out all weekend but it was worth it. We are tempted to find a little bedroom fireplace and cover the badly finished wall then it will stop me filling the room with more furniture but then a little narrow table would be nice instead................. we will see.

Its the auction again this Friday so we will take a look - we are looking for a small table for the conservatory instead of the old Ercol round one we have in there now - something we eat on and I can do my sewing on as well. I was able to extend the kitchen table and position the ironing board at the end of it with a piece of plywood on top to give the me the length to turn back up the curtains. I sewed one triple width hem and lining during Saturdays Strictly and the other during the Sunday results show. We were lucky with the bay window in our room as someone in previous years had painstakingly cut and fitted wood around the curve of the bay ceiling so we could hang tracking from there, instead of at the window itself so we put up new tracking and thought it was all going too smoothly.

When I went upstairs on Sunday night after Alan had hung the curtains ( I was determined to go to bed with curtains up that night! and then I closed my eyes to get the full effect...............Hmm - the bay window seems to lift at the right hand side as it gets to the end nearest Alans side of the bed thus the curtains seem to rise up and they are two inches too short at that side because of it - I could have cried but I was too tired and panic if I can't get to sleep on a Sunday night. So I gritted my teeth and went to bed. Its only a room I know but I sweated doing it all!!

We are facing the problem at the weekend as its no good attempting jobs during the weeknights - plus the rerun of Goodnight Sweetheart has started again and when I get in Alan is watching the tele - whereas he would do a job in the time before we had tea - no more alas - he must have seen that series at least four times all the way through.

Now on a complete chage of subject

Has anyone ever had a glitch with a subscription with Country Living - I finally got my subscription started after writing to them several times - then I only got two issues - I have to be honest I havent read many mags they were sitting in plastic wrappers until about August - so I started ploughing through them all and noticed there werent any American CL's since the May isssue. I got out all my correspondance tonight and went on the website - when I checked my details it said it was undeliverable due to incorrect details and the account was suspended. Why didnt they email me and say something. The strange thing is that the details they hold are correct so I emailed Customer Services to ask what is going on. I will keep you informed but has anyone out there had problems.

Right I must go to bed and continue to try and catch up with my magazine backlog - its now one hour later it took me all that time to add the pics at the top and a bit more blurb

Good night all

Bunging on some pictures and not much text

As usual got the pics in the wrong place!!

I am not going to go on the internet this weekend as we are having a blitz on jobs and once I get on thats's it - hours disappear and so does the weekend. We hope to get upstairs and sand and paint our room. Some of the pics are the back room finished with the wall lights finally up and the front room fireplace with the offensive oak sides removed, painted and shortly (Sat am ) to have new glass uplighters added. Also the promised picture of the lovely bargain chair which is so comfortable I sat last night in the conservatory on it with Karen Black singing to me it was blissful.

So here goes - but I bet I sneak on to read blogs secretly!

My other house

This is one of our hobbies that has been neglected over the past year but it is finally in place in the conservatory. It is a house with a shop at the side and the shop belongs to a man who makes and repairs chairs - hence the workbench - this room is my husbands work and is the only room we have done to date.

We have four boxes of things we have collected for the house and now we just need time (!) and we may get some more decorating in the house done (the dolls one of course)

I came home tonight to a surprise - Alan had come home in his dinner hour and fitted my wall lights in the back lounge they are lovely - he will attempt the centre fitting tomorrow but my daughters floorboards have to come up to fasten the fitting to the ceiling - there is a ceiling rose and it is wrong in the 30's house but its far too much work to remove it now.

We now have some small spot lights to attach to the beam in the conservatory and then at last we will have lights out there as well.

My friend and I went to the local auction in our lunch hour on Friday and saw some carver chairs which I wanted for the kitchen. I knew Alan was coming back from Skipton and finishing early so I rang him and asked him to look at them and bid if he thought they were OK.

Anyway he rang to sayhe hadn't bought the pair but had bought the other chair that we had raved about and sat in and thought would go for a lot of ££££. He got it for £40 - it is a real chair for Father Christmas to sit in or Grandads to read books to children in. Its coming into the kitchen when all the light boxes have gone and the shelves and brackets for the conservatory are not being stained and the shelves for the front room aren't being painted etc etc. I will take a photo soon and show it off on here. We aren't going to touch the colour of the chair its lovely and worn in all the right places yummy.

I am off to read one of my mags now with a cuppa and then an early night I think - the last few nights have been long and uncomfortable as I woke up with sciatica on Sunday morning - can't seem to shake it off - a visit to the osteopath would do the trick but as the local diy stores and lighting shops have gobbled up the ££ this month I am putting up with it.

Night night

Update on 'Bloody XL'!!

Adam has re-booked the flights and Vicky's Dad has been assured he will get some of the money back but not before the holidy. I just hope that whoever they have the flights with doesn't go under before they get there!!

Bloody XL Holidays

My son Adam and his fiancee Vicky and6 other memebrs of her family were off to Florida in 5 weeks - they have lost everything. They didnt want to have credit card debts so they have been planning this for 18 months - her Dad paid for the flights and accomodation so he has lost £6k. Adam and Vicky paid for the minibus for the lot of them for 2 weeks and bought their attraction tickets in advance so they have lost £1400.

Adam has never been anywhere like this so he was so excited to be going. They are all gutted and I don't know what to say. They might get their flight money back but not in time

Back after a long blogging break.......................

Sand sculptures at Filey - this is another upside down post - its late now and I need to think about adding pics - I will fathom it out another day!!

Hi there to everyone - I have returned after a long break. I felt that my postings were just about everything that was going wrong - so I have been there reading and commenting on others but just getting the bad things out of the way. In the greater scheme of things they were not important but at the time they seemed so.

Anyway in the meantime I am pleased to sat we now have new laminate in the hall and front room and a new carpet in the back lounge - the carpet is heaven after so many months of hard flooring. The sweet peas above must have been the first ones from the garden as I have had the Laura Ashley eau de nil polka dot table covering on for several weeks now - up to now I have had twelve jugs of them and even taken some for my desk at work - they have been glorious. We have munched the beans - eaten the strawberries - with difficulty I might add to say they were tart would be an understatement!

We have the composter bubbling away after moving to a better position and have cleared another small area for more veg - the beetroot and carrots are looking good - though my Mum will be given the beetroot to 'do'!!

At last I have a chest freezer in the garage (which we can access through the utility) I spent many winters trekking across the garden to the freezer in the garage in my last home so this will be bliss. It is at last filled the ginnells - now we can start enjoying the smaller shopping trips - I hate grocery shopping so the less trips the better for me

Alan and I have been on leave since the bank holiday - we havent been anywhere except for days out. I am happy to be at home quite honestly - I sit at my desk longing to be there reading or doing a jigsaw ( my unwinding time) so that is what I have done these last few days.

We went to Filey one day and I went to 'Summer by the Sea's ' lovely shop - her very well behaved and very polite children were there. She is lovely and it is so nice to meet a blogger in person. I can read her blog in a different way now - we had a lovely day in Filey - its a lovely seaside town with a tremendous beach- huge, clean and very very long................. Here are some pics of the sand sculptures people had made - the day was a bit overcast but lovely and warm

We went to Reeth yesterday in Swaledale and then over to Barnard Castle - the day was lovely but very windy - then onto Alan's Mum for a visit. Forgot to say we went to visit the Fat Sheep where Marmalde Rose has some of her lovely bags on sale but it was shut - I was just telling her in a comment that I had said there wouldn't be much open on a Monday and it occurred to me that that may be why Alan was so keen to go out!! No he wouldn't do that - would he??