Packed and ready to go!

We’ve had a day out! Agy has been on tour, it was such a beautiful day and out we went across to the middle of the island (ish). It feels so naughty when we are in lock down.

The island is looking beautiful, and we feel so lucky to live here.

However there is a reason for all this adventure. Rubbish. Lots of rubbish. Offcuts of plasterboard, tile offcuts, wood offcuts, random left over plastic piping, metal piping, you name it, building materials galore… all little pieces, all really bulky. We have reached the stage where we have a full garage, but not enough for a skip. We also had some garden rubbish, but I will write about that another time.

This is where Agy steps up and becomes a van, just a normal van. We have our permit to visit the recycling centre (you can’t just rock up in a van, you have to have a special permit unless you want to pay commercial rates), we have a plaster board disposal permit (who knew such things existed?),  and we have a booking, as numbers of people need to be controlled to comply with restrictions and social distancing. We planned our route, all 15 minutes of it and off we went. 

I have to say it is a bit more exciting in a van, and if you have plasterboard, even more so! We did the normal drop off of all the bits in different containers, but then we had to do the plasterboard. First, this meant entering the commercial area, hand the permit to the man in the office, and then swing round onto the weighbridge. We are weighed in, and he records our weight.  Once we have dropped off our plasterboard we are supposed to come back and be weighed again; under 20Kg and it’s free, over 20Kg and we have to pay. Luckily we were well under!

While we were out we popped into B&Q for more supplies – this time for the garden. The old fences need some protection, so the creocote is stocked, and somehow a few solar fairy lights make their way into the trolley. Who doesn’t need a bit of fairy light twinkle in their life? 

Up’s and down’s!

We have had a planned up…….and an unplanned down!

The ‘up’ was a raising of the curtain hem (oh, it seems so long since we were at the theatre with a real curtain raise). Our living room curtains were far too long but it was one of those jobs that needed doing, but really wasn’t urgent. However, with the urgent jobs done, the cotton arrived, so snip snip…..

They are big curtains and not a lot of spare space to measure and cut them, but in the end it’s a good job we didn’t go by tape measure. You see, the pole is attached to the top of the beam that runs right across the back of house, it’s painted, but you might remember me sanding it way back. However that beam isn’t straight, so the curtain height isn’t either. It’s higher at one end than the other, a fair  bit actually. When you look at it, you don’t really see it, but when you measure, you do! So pinning the curtains up while hanging to aim for the same length from the floor was the best way to go. Great unless your back hurts, when in hindsight it probably wasn’t the best way to go!

We re-pinned, cut and stitched and they look so much better! Another job done.

They are also blackout curtains made of a strange synthetic, very easily meltable fabric, so pressing is not and option; even with a damp T Towel, it was touch and go! However, once our steamer arrives back from storage, they will look better.

The ‘down’ was a little less planned (totally unplanned!) and more…. Dramatic. Ian had popped to the local shop for urgent supplies; I was making tea. Pealing the veg, and making use of the waste disposal unit. I absolutely love it. Any food waste goes down it; it is brilliant. No rotting food waiting for the recycling collection, smelling awful as we wait, nope, straight down it goes, ground up and away. Perfect. 

Until…. I have just finished grinding, switch it off and am flushing it through with plenty of cold water and there’s a strange bump and a huge hole appears in the sink. There is a gaping hole where the little plastic guard used to be! I’m in total shock, what’s happened? I quickly switch the water off and peer down, but it’s a black hole, nothing to see. My first thought is the guard has fallen into the grinder, and then I see the floor – soaked, water everywhere! AHH. Open the cupboard door and clearly there is something wrong! Now, Ian in his quest to keep everything tidy has built a shield around the under sink paraphernalia, so I can’t see what’s wrong. Out comes the torch on my phone, I peer down the hole again, and instead of grinder I see cupboard, white cupboard and water.

To get the shield out you need a screwdriver. As you know these are generally all over the kitchen worktops, but we have tidied up, so no screwdriver in sight! Just as I go in search of one, Ian arrives home and for the first time ever experienced the ‘voice’ every nurse will recognise. A calm, but firm and fairly loud. “Ian, I need help now.” For nurses, it is usually to summon help as someone has been found very unwell, but not in cardiac arrest. Fallen, sick, or something else, where you don’t want to alert all the other patients, but all nurses will recognise the urgency. Clearly it works with husbands too! He was in like a shot. By this point I’d worked out the waste disposal had come off, and for the first time ever Ian knew exactly where the screwdriver was (he’s always looking for things and can’t find them despite them being where he is looking), a quick whizz of the screws and the cupboard is revealed. One Insinkerator, dangling, held up by another pipe, so it hadn’t thumped to the bottom and broken anything, but dangling unattached to the sink! Whoops. Fortunately nothing was broken and Ian swiftly reattached it. This time giving the clips a good bash with a hammer to tighten them, and a cable tie or two for good measure. That won’t be coming down again!

You won’t be surprised to hear there are very few photos of the incident itself. But once it was back in situ, I was calm enough to remember to take a shot of it where it should be. 

   

Normal life?

It’s now Sunday morning mid February, the first Sunday since September when we don’t have renovation clothes on. In fact for Ian, the first day at all since September without renovation clothes on. We don’t have jobs we ‘have’ to do however tired or sore we are. We can have a real coffee and relax, we aren’t snatching a quick instant coffee between jobs. There are jobs to do, but none are urgent, except maybe dusting, oh the dust! There is so much. I know it will stop falling out of the air soon, as we are no longer creating it, but it’s clearly happy to be here as it keeps returning in copious amounts!

We have a taste of what normal life will be like; we have started making beer and wine again. We used to make almost all our own before we moved, so it’s fabulous to start again, it’s fun to do, is tasty to drink, and saves a fortune!

I’ve also been baking; I don’t yet have all my baking things back from storage. We need to make space in the garage for the last load of our possessions. Ian forgot when he was sending back garden and garage contents, that container also had most of the baking equipment too! It’s a bit of a guess in terms of weights and I have tried using the American cup system, as we have some as part of a stacking bowl set, but I am thoroughly confused when trying to convert recipes. 

1 cup of sugar, is not the same in grams as 1 cup of flour, so how on earth do you bake using cups? I have not attempted a Victoria sponge... However, rustic scones work well, as does bread. I even managed to make some for the neighbours who have been so welcoming to us.     

One of the things I really love about living here is that every shop, even the big supermarkets have local produce. Local milk, butter, bread, and it is delicious. It is hard to explain, but the butter is so different to mass produced butter. It has flakes of salt you can see, it’s a rich colour, however warm it keeps its butter texture. Not great for spreading on bread, but an amazing flavour, so worth the holes. Fab for scones and pastry!  

We have also purchased (well I say purchased, we converted Avios points from all my copious former work flights, that are unlikely to be used in the foreseeable future, to Nectar points and got them for free!) bicycles, so we can increase our exercise levels and explore bits of the island not accessible by road. Hopefully we will soon be able to cycle to the farm shop across the bridleways and cycle paths, and try out more local goodies. 

I know I have said this before, but normal life here really does seem to feel like being part of a community, I know some of the people we have met will become friends, real friends. One of the first people we met, who lent us the tool to remove the kitchen wall, popped by recently with a gift he had made us. Never before has a neighbour made us anything, and this is perfect. A door stop, in our colours, for our new home. 

I have a feeling it will be well used, propping open the conservatory door in the summer as we (hopefully!) share a laugh and some good times with neighbours and friends.