frayed at the edge

Superman!

A bit of fun!  This was 1984, Stuart's 6th birthday, when he got both the outfit and the Polaroid camera

 

 

The work goes on

Back to the Victorian house, and this time we are in the hall, looking towards the front door.  I bought the fabric for the curtains from a shop which was closing down.  The shop was busy and the woman serving me didn't want to measure out the many yards that I needed, so she simply sold me the whole roll for a very, very cheap price - I stll have some left!

 

when we moved in, the porch was parting company from the house, so we demolished it .......

 

........ but we got builders to do the new one

Up North

Yes, we were "up North" ..... but not, as this usually suggests, the north of England!  These were taken when we had a magical holiday in Cairns, Queensland

Arches

We employed a wonderful plasterer to do a lot of work for us in the Victorian house.  One of the major jobs was to turn some odd shaped doorways/openings into arches.  It was a joy to watch him work, as he made the frameworks himself, rather than using preformed ones

 

this is through the arch into the dining room - the previous owner had raised the level of most of the room, forming a hall on the lower level.  We replaced the heavy dark spindles with thinner light colored ones.  In the photo on the bottom right, the new carpet had just been fitted, and Honey the spaniel was enjoying the view from the window

 

 

Hard work!

When we bought a Victorian house in Falkirk in 1990, we knew that it needed a lot of work done on it - we didn't quite realise what a labour of love it would turn out to be!  The first job was to install a proper kitchen - the previous owner had made one out of bricks and old floorboards

 

it's hard to believe that this is the same room some weeks later!!

Oceans

More holiday photos.  This was when we went to Western Australia, when we were living in Indonesia.  We recently saw someone on a tv programme posing beside this very sign - huh, been there, done that!!

Bravery

Only two photos today - Malcolm wasn't brave enough to have his photo taken with a snake!  We were in Florida in 1990 (you might have noticed my hair was a somewhat different colour back then!)

Window dressing

As well as working in the garden, I have over the years also spent a lot of time making curtains and blinds.  I made these blinds for our house in Cambridgeshire

 

The blinds went with us to our next house, then the ones in the top photo went to the flat that Stuart lived in when we were in Indonesia - that was in 1997, and thhe blinds are still there!! 

This is Christmas 1989.  I still have the beautiful Laura Ashley dress and jacket, but unfortunately they don't fit!

 

Gardening

When Malcolm took early retirement, he took over the gardening duties, but I thought I would show you the work I did in our first garden.  This heap of rubble .......

 

.....became productive vegetable beds

 

and I cleared, leveled and sowed the lawn, as well as planting up the borders

 

Olive oil?

When I was walking across the garden on Saturday, on my way to the studio, I detoured to have a look at Malcolm's olive tree, that he bought for a whole £3 at the start of the summer.  There are lots and lots of olives on it .......

 

...... however, as they are about the size of peppercorns, I don't think we will be producing our own olive oil!  We also have two grape vines, and we have had a few grapes in previous years, but this is all that has appeared this year

 

we gave Malcolm's Dad this little hardy fuchsia - it sat at his back door in a pot.  When he died we brought it home and planted it in the back garden.  Every year we think it has died, then suddenly in late summer it appears and starts to flower

 

when I was sewing on Saturday, I decided to watch some of our country music CDs

 

I was singing along as I finished the quiting on my New Zealand Vineyard walhanging.  As it has been a bit warm over the summer to wear quilting gloves, I have been using these rubber grips

 

they cam in a packet of 3 blue and 3 yellow ones - but as you can see the yellow ones are jsut a bit big for my fingers!

 

I have finished the quilting, so all that remains is to put the binding on