Happy New Year (yes I know it's nearly spring, don't start!).
It seems somehow fitting that the first post I post after my previous incredulous age post should be a post about the age of my blog post-blogiversary (how many times can you get a way with writing "post" in a single sentence?).
It came as a bit of a shock last weekend, with sinuses bunged up with mucous and phlegm that I should realise that it was exactly twelve months since we went to Vienna, and this little adventure began.
I'm really sorry it has been so dull since my return! I will endeavour to try harder in the future, even if that only means posting posts about nice pictures and odd songs that happen across my path.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Going downhill #1
On the bus on the way to work the other day, I was sat in front of a couple of young professionals (yp).
Not that I was ear-wigging or anything... but, they were graduates recently moved here who were musing about acceptable areas to live in.
YP #1 was saying: "Apparently, Jesmond used to be really quite a smart area. You can understand why the people who have bought houses here are irritated by the increase in student accommodation"
YP #2 agreed "Yes, I think if I was looking to buy somewhere I certainly wouldn't want to live in Jesmond".
Not that I was ear-wigging or anything... but, they were graduates recently moved here who were musing about acceptable areas to live in.
YP #1 was saying: "Apparently, Jesmond used to be really quite a smart area. You can understand why the people who have bought houses here are irritated by the increase in student accommodation"
YP #2 agreed "Yes, I think if I was looking to buy somewhere I certainly wouldn't want to live in Jesmond".
Monday, December 1, 2008
In the bleak mid-winter
We have had gloriously cold winter weather here for the last few days. Air frost has descended on air frost until frozen surfaces look like they've been hidden in the back set of the lion the witch and the wardrobe.
This kind of cold weather, for me, is almost as satisfying as a hot summer day (it's winter, it's cold and frosty).
Yesterday we ventured down the frosty, wintery hill to the allotment with the bags of vegetable matter that have accumulated in the yard over the past couple of weeks, and guess what? our new tools are still there!
Oh how my faith in humankind is restored.
This kind of cold weather, for me, is almost as satisfying as a hot summer day (it's winter, it's cold and frosty).
Yesterday we ventured down the frosty, wintery hill to the allotment with the bags of vegetable matter that have accumulated in the yard over the past couple of weeks, and guess what? our new tools are still there!
Oh how my faith in humankind is restored.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Things that are no more #2 - #10
After the theft of the greenhouse frame, the solar powered oxygenator for my pond, the (aforementioned) water lily, the garden fork, the spade, the hoe, the rake and a plant support, the thieving b*stards nicked my sea holly too!
I can't post a photo of it but I can post a photo of the hole it used to live in (though, just to be pedantic, it wasn't a hole when it was still there)!
I can't post a photo of it but I can post a photo of the hole it used to live in (though, just to be pedantic, it wasn't a hole when it was still there)!
the Zen of decorating
When we had the double glazing fitted in August on or return from Vienna, the surveyor revealed that our rather shoddy windows were rather more jerry built than we had at first thought. All the windows upstairs on the front of the house had been boxed in around the window recess with bits of plank and skirting board and would need restructuring once the windows were put in.
I decided that in the spirit of not increasing the amount of dust harbouring curves and nooks and crannies that architrave presents, that we would keep it simple and do what they do "on the continent" and have the recess plastered and papered rather than boxed in.
This has meant that over that last few weeks that the offending bare walls have had to be sized, re-papered and painted (I'm not complaining by the way, I actually enjoy decorating). I painted the walls without much ado and then cast my eye over the rather grubby yellow ceiling. I decided that I would paint the ceiling the same colour as the walls on the landing. This was mainly fuelled by the spirit of purging and clearing out which has afflicted us both since our return, as there was still some paint left in a big tin in the cupboard at the top of the stairs.
I was unsure how far the paint would go as there was only what looked like a teensy amount left, but I set to. I was amazed that by the time I had scraped the bottom of the tin for the last vestiges of pigment that only this small patch was left unpainted (though with no notion of scale in the picture below, that patch could as easily be feet or inches wide*). I couldn'r decide whether it was irritating to run out of paint at this point or gratifying that the small amount had gone so far in the first place.
Still an excuse for another trip to John Lewis isn't a bad thing is it?
*it was actually about 1sq yard
I decided that in the spirit of not increasing the amount of dust harbouring curves and nooks and crannies that architrave presents, that we would keep it simple and do what they do "on the continent" and have the recess plastered and papered rather than boxed in.
This has meant that over that last few weeks that the offending bare walls have had to be sized, re-papered and painted (I'm not complaining by the way, I actually enjoy decorating). I painted the walls without much ado and then cast my eye over the rather grubby yellow ceiling. I decided that I would paint the ceiling the same colour as the walls on the landing. This was mainly fuelled by the spirit of purging and clearing out which has afflicted us both since our return, as there was still some paint left in a big tin in the cupboard at the top of the stairs.
I was unsure how far the paint would go as there was only what looked like a teensy amount left, but I set to. I was amazed that by the time I had scraped the bottom of the tin for the last vestiges of pigment that only this small patch was left unpainted (though with no notion of scale in the picture below, that patch could as easily be feet or inches wide*). I couldn'r decide whether it was irritating to run out of paint at this point or gratifying that the small amount had gone so far in the first place.
Still an excuse for another trip to John Lewis isn't a bad thing is it?*it was actually about 1sq yard
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Things that are no more #1
My waterlily in my pond on the allotment, stolen (sob) earlier in the summer.
This frog now has no pad to call its own :(
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