Stress Free Zone

I am informed by the builders that this is the last day of mess! As I am writing this there is a fog of dust in the air as they remove a ceiling and install a steel in the room beneath me. The whole house (apart from one room) has been disrupted as I store the contents of the three rooms they are working on. Friends have been lovely inviting me over for lunch and excursions out and yesterday I treated myself to a day of shopping and bought two pairs of trousers and three tops!

I am beginning to get excited as apparently the new kitchen should be finished in three weeks.

I was sorting through some old papers this week and came across something someone once gave me on ''Stress Management and Ways of dealing With Burdens in Life' (though I have to admit that the whole experience of this building work has been comparatively stress free!)

• Accept that some days you are the pigeon and some days you are the statue.


• Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them.


• Drive carefully. It's not only cars that can be recalled by their maker.


• Never put both your feet in your mouth at the same time because you won't have a leg to stand on.


• When everything's coming your way you are in the wrong lane.


• You may be only one person in the world but you may also be the world to one person.


• Birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live.


• We could learn a lot from crayons. Some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull. Some have weird names and all are different colours but they all have to live in the same box.


• A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.


• The second mouse gets the cheese.


• It may be that your sole purpose in life is to serve as a warning to others.


• Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once.

I hope some of these have made you smile. Pass them on to anyone you think would appreciate them.

Whilst writing this I have just had a phone call from my daughter who is on holiday in Thailand for five weeks and tells me she has some amazing photos. In the absence of any other photos, here she is, camera in hand.

Building Update

This is now my old kitchen!

and this how the back of the house now looks with its new pitched roof.

Today internal walls started to come down so it's all starting to become exciting (and dusty). I have spent the last two days painting and sewing things for the website marooned in my office as there is little point in dusting or doing much housework at the moment. I painted and recovered this stool.

I have also painted this old cutlery tray. I love to use them for toiletries and makeup etc as it keeps them so tidy. I am also in the midst of painting a pretty child's rocking chair I bought ages ago so it's good to be catching up on painting projects.

I bought a pine scrub top table and cupboard on ebay recently. I love the colour of the legs on the table (it is exactly the shade of Farrow and Ball's 'Blue Ground') and I shan't change this at all. So now I think I will have red and blue accessories in the new kitchen. Isn't it funny how one thing can determine a whole room's look? I have chosen a very modern white kitchen but want the dining and seating areas to be ohsovintagey!

I'm not sure about the cupboard as it needs a complete makeover so I shall either paint and distress it or have it dipped. Unusually, it has little wooden casters on the base.

I also bought this French cupboard which I have had dipped and stripped but when it was painted I hadn't appreciated just how much woodworm it had had. It's a good job I like the shabby look! Apparently French woodworm are much larger than the English variety and this is evidence of that.

Weald & Downland Museum

A couple of weekends ago we had a wonderful day out at the Weald and Downland Museum in West Sussex. We've been several times before but took some friends who hadn't. It's a fascinating place where about 50 buildings from around the country dating from the 13th to the 19th century have been rescued from destruction, dismantled and reassembled here in their original form. Christmas is a great time to visit as some of the buildings have roaring fires, there are madrigal singers, roast chestnuts for sale etc. etc.

This 17th century barn was rescued from the village where I live (Lee-on-the-Solent).

Grain stores had to be raised from the ground to prevent mice from visiting.

I love this little metal chair hanging in the forge.

Tagged

I have been tagged by Overdue to list my top ten rules for life. I am finding this quite difficult and am not sure if I will make it past number five but here goes.

1. My number one rule and maxim would definitely be 'Do as you would be done by'. If everyone treated others as they would wish to be treated themselves then the world would be a vastly different place.

2. Never buy clothes that are too big for you - you will grow into them.

3. Buy the one item that you really want, not two at each half the price. It's taken me a long while to learn this but 'Quality remains long after the price is forgotten'.

4. Learn to say no. Be assertive. (This does become easier with age!)

5. If you're not enjoying a book, give up; you don't have to finish it. Life is too short to be reading rubbish when one considers how many brilliant books there are to be read.

6. Have dreams. Aim to realise them. 'Tis better to have tried and failed than failed to try'.

7. 'Don't be sad that it's over, be glad that it happened'.

8. When trying on clothes if it doesn't grab you as soon as you look in the mirror, if you have to think about whether it suits you or not don't buy it.

9. Always keep the receipt in case you do!

10. And lastly, take my advice. I'm not using it!

According to the rules I now have to tag some other people to list their top ten rules for life so I choose

Mel at Country in the Town

Michele at Cowboys and Custard

Sue at Vintage to Victorian

Kim at Ragged Roses

Confirming my love of eiderdowns I leave you with a photo of my screen saver collage.

Merry Christmas

I have just watched 'Carols from Kings' which was beautiful, as always. Now I am definitely in the Christmas spirit and wish all of you and very merry and peaceful Christmas. Here is a photo of our tree, rather late in being put up, and some daphne picked from the garden this morning - the scent is gorgeous.

The builders are here!

This evening I have been going through all my photos on the computer and deleting a lot of them. I thought I would share a few of my favourites with you.

This step is outside a shop near here, one that has been well patronised by the look of it.

A very old tree trunk.

Original and authentic crackle glaze.

The builders have been here for 3 days and, so far, it has been completely stress free! The back of the house has gone and I have a perfectly useable half a kitchen with everything I could need except for the dishwasher. This is what the house looked like before ...

and this is how it looks this morning!

Hopefully it won't be too long before I can show a photo of the end result with the pitched roof with velux windows and glass doors all along the back.

Being Creative

I saw a lovely lampshade in an interiors shop recently and thought, 'I could make that' so I did. I'm really pleased with the result and plan to make more in other materials. I covered a small lampshade I already had with white muslin, then made a 'skirt' in the same material.

I much prefer hand sewing; I find it very calming and therapeutic whereas sewing with a machine can have the opposite effect! I have turned part of the upstairs loft room into a sewing area. This is the view this morning from the window where I sit. In the distance can be seen the Isle of Wight and you can just about make out a trawler and the search and rescue helicopter.

I can thoroughly recommend the film 'The Changeling'. It was amazing especially as it is a true story. Tonight I am going out with my reader's group for our Christmas dinner. Let's hope I feel a bit more Christmassy after this as I don't feel at all in the festive spirit yet! It just seems strange to be thinking about buying a Christmas tree when I am still picking roses from the garden today.