Saturday 10th

 Random Stuff..................

• Heating oil is really being saved with the warm weather most of the week. So far this autumn the heating has only switched itself on on a few mornings but off again less than an hour later. We had rain on two days this week, more than there has been for months.

• BiL got here to cut the yew hedge out the front - it took less than an hour to cut and clear up, it would have taken me days with my small hedge cutter. He stopped for a coffee and a chat which is good - he has a very busy schedule for a retired person!!

• Thank you for all the comments about charity shop clothes last Tuesday. It was interesting but I'm still puzzling about the comment from anon who actually came back to explain his/her comment but I still didn't understand their assumption that buying secondhand means I'm denying myself the pleasure of buying new or I'm somehow implying it is wrong to buy anything other than second-hand.............. They don't know me at all!

• Remembered to go and find a diary (NEW!) from The Works when I was in town. I'm ready for the new year.

• I've actually watched England playing football on TV in the Nations League - they do seem to be playing well at the moment. I really prefer watching rugby but when Harry Kane etc are scoring so many goals it's easier to watch...........guess that makes me a 'fair weather' football watcher.

• Finished reading Phillipa Perry's first crime fiction book 'Shrink Solves Murder'. It was a good story. It's always interesting to see a well known person writing fiction, sometimes they are successful and this definitely falls into that category as she is writing about what she knows. I'm sure there will be another book to follow.

• It's EGD's 10th birthday this weekend so off to see her and meanwhile down in Surrey YGS is settling in at school while Daughter sorts out a High School application ready for EGS . Many schools there are HUGE, she said that their nearest has a ten class intake each year! So funny to think back to my schooldays with just 6 children the same age at my primary school and a 90 pupil intake at Grammar School. A whole different world.

• Hope mentioning a house move wasn't a mistake, maybe tempting fate? The housing market is very odd and I wouldn't be surprised to get a phone call to say someone had pulled out. I'm primed for disappointment but hoping for success. Please forget I mentioned it!

• Imagine watching a live streaming of execution by a firing squad in 2026 - no thanks.

Have a good weekend ..........I hope to be back Monday.

On the Move Again?

 Yes! 

After the 2020-2021 move to here which dragged on for 7 months including nearly 9 weeks in holiday homes in between, I thought it best not to mention moving until I was sure it was happening, but, fingers crossed, all seems to be going well.

After just a couple of years here I knew I shouldn't have downsized so drastically. After living on 5 acres at the smallholding and then 1 acre I really missed the space and open outlook of Clay Cottage (the cottage at the end of the lane).

My bungalow has been for sale for 18 months and finally found a buyer who then pulled out after 4 weeks just as I found something I liked (I viewed about 10 properties in that summer heat, most were too tatty or too expensive.) Luckily just as I'd almost given up hope,  a new buyer was found for this place and  a bungalow I liked and could afford and had viewed in August came back onto the market, and it all fell into place in the space of 3 busy days. 

So now I'm heading back toward the East coast, just a few miles from the sea, and just 4 miles from YD and YGD. Son and DiL have their house for sale and hope to move nearer the coast too.

Mad?    Probably!.................. I'm excited but nervous.

No idea how long it will take but the chain is short - just 4 people. So maybe before Christmas?

Something To Stitch

 I wanted to get back to a hobby that I'd not done for a long time and have been looking on ebay for a tapestry to stitch.

Eventually this came up. It said " Has been opened but not started" and looked as if it had all the wool still included. It's just the sort of picture that I might have bought to stitch years ago but are now a bit out of fashion.

It's finished size is 12 inches by 18 inches which seemed a size that I would be able to find a picture frame for.

My small stitching frame has those twisty clips to fix but the big frame is very old and the tapestry has to be attached by stitching it to a canvas strip at the top and bottom, which isn't the easiest thing to do. Eventually got it onto the frame.

Now I need to sort the wools.

But in the meantime I'd started on the small X stitch Christmas tree decorations and had all those 15 library books to read, so the wool tapestry has been put on hold for now. 

This tapestry to stitch is one would have been apt for this year, with the Bayeux Tapestry (which isn't a tapestry and probably not stitched in Bayeux) being here in this country for a while.........but not at £86!