February already and I’m only just making the first post of the year! I have a number of excuses, the biggest being all the house renovations. We’re still not quite finished, we only installed a light fixture in the sitting room yesterday, and a blind on Sunday. We now need a couple of couches, one needs to be a sofa bed to replace the sagging futon, but we’ve run out of money, so I’m keeping my eye out for used ones. And there are some wonderful ones on eBay, but they’re all too far away to view or pick up.
Here are some photos of where we’re at:
Looking from the window to my workspace at the back of the room. I’d like a small, wood framed couch between the coffee table and work table, just to separate the areas, it feels a bit too open like this. (The Coop bag on the right is full of snotty tissues, we both had horrible colds at the start of the year).
We got this couch from Habitat on Christmas Eve, in a slight panic, because the beautiful one I’d ordered from Anthropologie, and that was promised to arrive by Christmas, hadn’t turned up. It had been with a courier for weeks so it wasn’t their fault, and they were great when I emailed to cancel the order. This one is a rather unpleasant navy blue, the only option in the Dumfries branch of Argos, hence the blanket.
I love the painting on this wall, the blue grey of the sky is exactly the same colour as the kitchen walls, which, from certain angles, I can see through the little window in the door (right), so it provides a gentle link to the kitchen.
The kelim was my final extravagance, and I was only able to afford it because the Habitat couch was half the price of the Anthro one, which was itself half its original price, so everything worked out. It makes a huge difference to the feeling of the room.
Other excuses for being slow in posting this year include my hands. I have suffered from arthritis on and off since I was in my twenties, but I’ve never had such painful thumb joints as I have now. Sometimes I can’t even take my glasses off without being sent into paroxysms of agony. So typing is not a comfortable activity, I’ve had to invent a weird technique in order to be able to do it at all! I’d go to see a doctor, but our surgery is in crisis (no doctors seem to want to work here, goodness knows why it’s a perfectly delightful little country town) and I’ve heard stories…
Also, that cold: I was so snotty I couldn’t even read a book, and it lasted for weeks! I just sat here groaning quietly to myself.
But I’m all better now and trying to catch up on everything. Yesterday I did my accounts so I can be organised for when I next have to do a tax return, and today I’m doing website stuff. I’m going to close down this site, it costs a couple of hundred a year for hosting alone, and I can’t remember the last time I updated it. So I cancelled automatic renewal of the plan today, and have till April to find an alternative. I still have my old blog, so I’m going to try to resurrect it and use this url, I just need to remember how to do that 🤔
That’s it for now, I need to go and nurse my hand, but happy new year to you all 🥂
Wow! You have been busy! I love that bright new rug! Well I like a lot of things, but that really held my eye.
There has been a little more activity here, too. Like, 3 moves in a year, or thereabouts. We finally decided that we really should off-load some of the stuff we’ve amassed over the years and down-size to a smaller place.
Which we did, sort of…almost 2 months in the new place and only one picture is hung and I still can’t find some things. But the apartment is lovely and I’ll get into doing the garden (at present, sod-all and far too hot for planting. So, if you want to visit you’ll have to enter through the garage as the front porch is crammed with plants!
I love other people’s garages! I’ll come over right now 😊
Thank God, there she is ! Great to read you again !
I am sorry to learn about your joints, and have absolutely no clue about what could ease the payne, sorry.
Home renovation has the tendency to get out of hand, doesn’t it ? It is all joyful, colourful in your room, of course the flying carpet contributes.
Reducing costs is an important thing. I should end a website for a failed project that still sits somewhere and costs me monthly money – pure lazyness on my side … maybe combined with a little bit of sentimentality.
BTW the big snirfl came to Franconia, at least I have a kind of cold now, just to keep it running. I am thankful for the doctor(s) here, but this is not a really rural village, but one next to a “city”, so they will always have enough customers. On the countryside it is a problem here too – some towns come up with schemes to lure young doctors in. Nobody wants to be a country doctor any more.
May I ask you a question ? I can not understand how the window could be opened ? Or is it not meant to be opened ?
Thanks for the good wishes – may it all return to You !
The windows open up, or down for the top one, with sashes to slide along. These ones are a bit decrepit and the weights have come away from the cords, this makes the bottom one very difficult to open so I tend to use only the top one, which I pull down using an old boat hook, or I will once I’ve reinstalled the brass loop.
I hope you don’t have the same cold I had and recover soonest.
I love it all! I want to redecorate my house, but I am very lazy – and sorting through the junk puts me off.
You say you have joint pain in your fingers? Same here. I too have the dreaded arthritis, but I have been lucky enough to stumble over what causes a dreaded flare-up – food intolerance. In my case Durum, or Semolina wheat. It’s used in some unlikely places. I bought some cheapish breaded fish from Waitrose, and after eating it for a month my finger joints were bright red and extremely painful. I quit Durum wheat completely as I’d been suspicious of it for a couple of years and after 2 months I am pain free – even my knees are happier. It takes a while to clear the culminated toxin from the body. Anyhow, you might have a food nemesis – your mission is to find it!
Sx
Thanks, Scarls, that’s incredibly helpful, I’ll start detecting!
Oh dear… how to make someone jealous. You’ve got a lovely sense of colour in your room. It looks almost soporifically relaxing. I only worry that I might tread something in, even in my socks.
Btw, for some reason I can’t get to your Spong post. It’s been sent to me by email but I’d like to comment on it. Here’s what I see when I click on the link in the email: http://loobynet.co.uk/images/spong.png
What have you been doing in your socks?!
I think I somehow managed to unpublish the Spong post, so I’ve now republished it. Here’s the link: https://curiousauthenticink.com/2023/02/13/spong/
I don’t know, it’s just that worry about soiling other people’s homes. My auntie used to have these fluffy white carpets everywhere and having a cup of tea was a fraught fifteen minutes.
Thanks for the repost — I’m heading over now!
No worries in this house, Dave brings river mud in pretty much daily, and I have moppable floor.