Knitting to Downton Abbey

 

I wanted to finish off the jumper I started knitting last year after mum died and was searching for something to have on in the background that I could peer over my needles at. I find period dramas are great for that kind of thing. Modern programming has too much going on to wring as many dopamine hits out of the audience as possible but period drama series move nice and slowly through the story at just the right pace to match the needles. I decided to watch Downton Abbey. 

Everyone went nuts when this came out in 2010, so much so I avoided it completely. It was like mass hysteria, which I hate, so I resolved to not be drawn in but watch it one day when I felt ready. That day was last Tuesday evening eleven years later. I'm quite enjoying it and am on season 4 now but finding the whole drama with the Bates' getting a little irritating. I feel like it is really being strung out and from what I understand it continues right into series 6. There are other characters it would be nice to see more time devoted to. 

I’m not particularly happy with the fit of the jumper to be honest. The gauge swatch is spot on, and when tested my knitted piece matches the gauge but the jumper will be fractionally too small. Obviously I won’t know for sure until I wash and block the final piece but this yarn seems to have very little positive ease. I deliberately knitted the next size up so I could have some room and feel comfortable but realistically I’m unlikely to wear it if it going to be snug, especially around my middle. I cannot stand the feeling of being restricted. Still, as the wool only cost me £1.50 I'm not that much out of pocket and it's good practice for doing the pattern again with a different wool.

-oOo-

I had brother in law Staying over on Friday night, as he and Martin were going to Silverstone all weekend and it was easier to go from here then his own house early in the morning. That gave me the perfect opportunity to give the bathroom a deep clean so it was visitor ready. Being in lockdown I had let my standards slip a bit, after all, who was going to see it, but I hadn’t appreciated the psychological impact that has on me. I like seeing something tidy and clean. Starting with a bucket of hot slightly soapy water I cleaned the walls, the panelling, the door and the tiles. I descaled the taps, plug holes, shower head and toilet. I cleaned the window, windowsill (inside and out) and mirror. The cat litter trays were sanitised. The floor was scrubbed, as was the sanitary ware. It was very satisfying, and made me realise I actually don't need to repaint the paintwork, just attack it with elbow grease. It took me two hours but should take me a lot less in the future as I intend to stay on top of it. I’m setting my sights on deep cleaning one major room each weekend, with ad hoc sessions on smaller areas. 

Part of the problem with cleaning this place is clutter. Each week I’ve been sorting a box to go to the charity shop and dropping it off on the way food shopping, and trying not to replace the items with new purchases. I did buy this wine rack though, as I needed one for the pantry. We have a lot of bottles left over from Martin’s birthday party and guests also brought some as gifts. We're not big wine drinkers so we have about one bottle a month, if that. They’re currently stashed haphazardly in the pantry and every now and then I kick one one over. Luckily never broken but it's an accident waiting to happen. 

-oOo-

I'm back on the diet again as of today. Plenty of salads and vegetarian food to see if I can shed another 10lbs before the autumn.  I've managed to keep off the last 10lbs I lost so I'm quite chuffed. The salad greens are massively prolific at the moment, the tomatoes are just starting to turn red, the mange tout and green beans are coming into their own and the cucumbers are getting to a nice size so I shall have some big fresh salads in the coming weeks.

-oOo-

Had another shooting lesson on Saturday. Managed to hit 14/17 and got all excited but then the instructor tested me to see if I was any good at tracking clays above me and I managed 0/8 😂 Brought down to earth there but in his opinion I was doing incredibly well for only my second lesson. However, this time I am covered in bruises just in the crease of my arm, above my armpit, where the edge of the gun butt pushes in. I also have a big black one on my jawline, so I obviously wasn't holding the gun as firmly as I should have been to prevent it bouncing up after firing. I'm having to wear make-up to cover it up in case someone thinks Martin and I have been fighting. I'm going to make myself up a pad for my arm/shoulder and face this week to help prevent the bruising.

-oOo-

I managed to squeeze in a trip to the garden centre yesterday, which was next door to the blood donation centre. It was time for my quarterly outing to give blood and I like to have a putter beforehand. I photographed this wonderful stag that I would love to have in the garden, but I'm afraid £800 is out of my price range. 😵

To prepare for giving blood, I started taking time-release iron supplements last week and will take them for another couple of weeks to make up for the worst of the iron loss. Each donation amounts to a loss of about 200-250mg of iron, which is made up at a rate of 1-2mg per day afterwards. Supplementation can help that process go faster. I've been investigating becoming a plasma donor recently, donating every two weeks instead of 12 for whole blood, but have been declined. I do not weight enough apparently. At 5ft 3 I need to weigh more than 13 stone (182lbs) to have enough blood volume to take a pint (560ml) of plasma. Not sure why they can't take smaller quantities from women, perhaps a third to half a pint. I suspect they would see their donation levels rise considerably but perhaps the whole process is an expensive one and they need to maximise every donation.  

-oOo-

So, this week is set to be a quiet one. Work is much less busy, as my clients are on holiday, and my evenings will be full of Downton Abbey, knitting, and garden pottering as I make up my iron levels. I'm going to take a leaf out of Georgie's book and nap a bit at lunchtimes. He's an expert napper, especially on my knitting bag.

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Steel Kitten

Country pursuits and grime busting

 

Happy Monday all. Another week down, plenty achieved and feeling good.

The experiment I was doing at work has been a success. I've almost entirely caught up with everything I was behind on and I'm finding a lot of peace in my day now I've cut off the timewasters. Each morning at 8am I'm at my desk and instead of firefighting and fixing other people's issues I'm reading a personal development book or working on one of my assignments for my leadership diploma. A month ago I could not have predicted I would be doing that or feeling so positive about my work future.

It's good to have boundaries.

-oOo-

Friday was crop harvesting day in the fields around the property. Good job the weather wasn't stifling because we had to shut all the windows due to the dust and influx of thunderflies coming off the crop. The farmer had grown linseed this year for the first time since we've been here and for about a month we had the most amazing field of blue flowers. But then it turned to yellow and the farmer came along and sprayed it off so for at least a month we've been looking at dark-brown dead stuff. 

As only the linseed at the top of the plant was wanted there was a lot of chaff left over, which he piled up and set fire to, leaving big patches of scorched earth. That was a first. Normally he plows the chaff back in to function as an organic soil conditioner but there must be something amiss with the chaff from linseed. Or perhaps it was the herbicide they used?

-oOo-

On Saturday morning I did something I had been thinking about doing since 2003 - I went clay pigeon shooting. In 2003 I went on one of those corporate shooting events and while I missed just about every shot, there was a particular position that I scored 9/10. It was quite flat and the clays came straight across from the left. I've always wondered why and resolved to go back and chat to an instructor to find out. It's taken me 18 years. 

Anyway, I rocked up at the shooting range first thing Saturday so I could squeeze it in before the Sainsbury's shop. I had a great instructor and managed to hit 14/25, which both he and I were very pleased with for, effectively, a first attempt. And his opinion about why I managed to hit 9/10 before? I am left-eye dominant so I was quicker to track the clays coming from the left, and being flat and low I didn't have to move the gun much, just mostly hold still and judge when to pull the trigger. 

I'm going back next week for second lesson. My bonus is due at the end of July so for once I'm going to spend a little on myself, take some lessons and see if any aptitude I have could turn into a new hobby. I have to say, I found it surprisingly relaxing. I mooched around the supermarket in a very laid-back manner and when I got in had a nap. If it's going to be that good a stress reliever I'll be up there every Saturday morning to shake off the working week.

-oOo-

Sunday morning I was up with the lark and doing battle with the nettles in the paddock. Absolute beasts around 7ft high now. We have a petrol brush cutter but my shoulder is annoying me at the moment and I haven't got the strength to pull the cord to start it up. Instead I had to resort to an electric strimmer that my father gave to us months ago because he couldn't get it to work properly. Then Martin tried and he couldn't get it to work well either so back into the tool barn it went. Enter me who actually read the instructions and fixed it. I find strimmers don't work well if you put the line spool on incorrectly and haven't noticed that grass has wound around the main shaft and is throttling the life out of the motor. Once the line and spool were mounted correctly, and the years of fibrous material prized out it worked quite well. Shhhh...don't tell Martin. 

Then Sunday afternoon was spent cleaning the kitchen. The warm weather has given us such problems with flies this year that we have pulled out all the stops - no food left out (not even under cover), no washing up in the bowl, fly papers, fly killing clings for the windows and the usual fly traps outside on the patio. Still, I opened the food waste bin at lunchtime to find maggots around the lid. They'd got in. So everything was cleaned and sanitised around the cooker and sink within an inch of its life. Then I thought as I have the cleaning bug I might as well do the log burner side of the kitchen. It's not often I give that side a good clean. I pulled everything out or down off the shelves, got out the soapy wood wash and gave it all a thorough scrub from top to bottom, including the doors, drawers fronts and floor. Afterwards, there was a distinct echo in the room. Does dust absorb noise because the room sounded empty afterwards? Embarrassing to admit, as it might give you some idea of the scale of dust on those shelves but there you go. One day both sides of the fireplace will be boxed in with cupboards to prevent the build up of dust and grime. 

I've also made a couple of changes to try and improve things. I'm getting rid of the door blinds that you can see in the picture. They are difficult to clean and the plastic beading at the bottom is broken. I'm going to find some gingham curtain material and make up a set of curtains. Not sure what colour yet, possibly grey, blue or light green if I can find some at a good price. That way I can wash them periodically.

I've also decided to get rid of the plastic drip tray and cutlery container. I bought black to match in with the microwave and tea/coffee/sugar containers but it has been a pain from day one. Because we have such hard water, every week I have to spray vinegar and bicarb on it and scrub it down (the bottom picture is after the cleaning). Then I have to do the same to the taps and sink, which are coated in it. It was so bad on the draining board this week I used the caustic mix I usually use for descaling the kettle. 

I've decided to replace the black drip rack with a smaller white wire rack that could be put in the dishwasher once a week, and have reused a Cath Kidston hand towel to sit underneath, placing the corner up near the tap to absorb the water. It belonged to my mother but I didn't put it in general circulation because we have so many towels of our own. So it sat in the airing cupboard not being used. This way I can see it every day and it cheers up the place a bit. When it gets damp I'll hang it up to dry and put it through the wash every week. 

-oOo-

I finished a good book this week called Unnatural Causes by Dr Richard Shepherd, a forensic pathologist who has spent 40 years trying to uncover the truth of how people met their end. He talks about some very high profile cases he was involved with and how pathology has changed over the years, for the better in some aspects, for the worst in others. His speciality was knife wounds, and I must confess I did laugh at his descriptions of his wife and children complaining that he had been messing with the Sunday joint again. Yes, he used whatever joint was in the fridge to evaluate the signature profiles of different knives for his studies. Often the result was not slices of roast beef on the plate but lumps. 😆

I also finished this puzzle, which I've been working on for months, not because it was very hard but because I don't tend to be downstairs any more in the evenings. As I've stopped indiscriminately watching TV the marathon puzzle sessions have stopped. Most evenings we watch Life Below Zero, which starts on one of the Freeview channels at 7pm and so coincides with dinner, but after that I'm off. I make an exception of Friday or Saturday so Martin and I can kick back together and watch a couple of films, and that's when I do my puzzles now. I probably don't get more than 50-75 pieces placed on these evenings. That would have annoyed me in the past but it doesn't any longer. 

I'm enjoying the journey, not just the destination 😁

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Steel Kitten

A satisfying week

Happy Monday all. Extra happy because I have this week off work. Shame it's going to be so grim weather-wise but still. I live in the UK and as all Brits know, this is how our summers roll. 😁

So, I succeeded in getting my airing cupboard sorted and looking much better. The rooms look clean and tidy without all the fabric piled up everywhere. I even managed to put everything in piles by size order. I have single, double and king size beds in the house so I keep bedding sets for all them. There was quite a sizeable pile of stuff to go to a charity shop.

Last Monday I also worked out how to do great crackling without drying out the joint. I've tried for years to work it out but never could quite manage it and end up with succulent joint as well. So, I actually looked it up on the internet (and I thought the internet was just for reading blogs and looking at cat memes 😁). Wash and dry the joint thoroughly then score it. Rub on sea salt, especially into the cracks. Slice an onion and pile it in the middle of a roasting tin. Put the joint on top and add 1/2 - 1 inch of water (I used boiling water) carefully to the bottom of the tin. Start off with the oven temp on high 200 - 220oC and then turn down to 160-170 after 20 minutes and cook as normal according to weight. Watch the level of the water and top up as necessary. 

To go with it, I found some rhubarb in the freezer and made a nice tart compote and fnished everything off with a plum crumble. Leftover pork went into the freezer with a few other bits of leftover roast meat, ready to be transformed into something amazing at a later date.

For the first time in quite a while I made a cake, a strawberry/raspberry, vanilla and almond one layer gluten free cake. I very rarely bake gluten-free as the results are usually pretty poor. I only did a little bit of mixture, probably about a quarter of what I would normally do for a Victoria sponge, in case it was a failure and I wasn’t sure how much the fruit would sink if I made one much bigger. It was amazing. Twenty-four hours later there's only one slice left. I should have gone bigger. 

Harvested my first pak choi, which I wilted in a pan with some rocket. I picked it because it was starting to run to seed - I could see the flower spike beginning to grow up in the middle. It was so nice I’m thinking of getting some more seeds going and see if I can have a supply through the winter. 

A few weeks ago we bought four more chickens two point-of-lay at 18 weeks and two young 8-week old cream legbars, complete with little frizzy hair-styles. 

Our existing chickens haven't been so well this winter and they no longer lay with any regularity so we invested in some new ones. The babies have only this weekend got to a size where I'm comfortable letting them out to roam a bit. Baldrick has been catching a lot of wood pigeons lately and the baby chickens were about the same size. I didn't want them ending up a cat snack. 

A few other things happened.

We went to a funeral on Thursday afternoon, which went very well. The deceased was the friend of Martin's I'd mentioned before that was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer. They gave him about six months to live but in reality he only managed six weeks. He was a bit of a local character, and if something was going to happen it usually happened to him so there was a lot laughs when his wife shared some of her stories during the service. It was a very light-hearted service and what Martin's friend would have wanted. He was never one to feel sorry for himself. 

A few weeks ago I was surprised to be awarded £150 in vouchers from my firm to celebrate seven years of employment. I asked for garden vouchers and early last week we bought two new recliners for the patio. We got one out to road test and it immediately started to rain. Back into the shed it went and there it has stayed. British summers...😀

Finally, I've got back into Life Below Zero, which is probably my favourite TV series of all time (trying not to binge watch though. Don't want to fall back into the trap of hours of mind-numbing screen-time). I feel a real affinity for the life of Glenn Villeneuve and the reasons he lives out there. He has a child-like innocence and wonder about life that I wish I had. You can tell he has spent a great deal of time thinking about the values he holds dear and then adjusting his life to fit with those values. He is always learning, always willing to accept that there is more for him to learn. It’s refreshing. It's made me wonder how I would cope somewhere like that, if I could survive. Truthfully, probably not. I like a bit of adversity, I enjoy challenge but the uncertainty of the food and water supply, the continual presence of predators, I would never relax or sleep soundly. Frankly, I don't know how Glenn does! Sleep deprived I would make one false move with an axe or a chainsaw and that would be that! 

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Steel Kitten

Quiet days

I'm getting into a daily rhythm with the social distancing.

DH's alarm goes off at 5am, he gets up, I go back to sleep. The lighter mornings wake me up around 6:30am but I won't get up until after 7am. I like the initial morning doze in the warm. Once I'm up the cats are let out, tea for me and mother-in-law, litter trays emptied and cleaned and I check the news online. Text my mother and sister to see how it goes with them. Then shower, maybe some yoga stretches, and then I get down to the business of the day.

Work is coming in fits and starts. We no longer have face-to-face meetings with clients, so our customer service team has been re-booking teleconferences with those who are still working. This has disrupted the normal flow of things and documents have slowed down.

I like the structure of work, it helps me focus on other things besides what is going on in the world. I have been alternating editing with housework. Edit a report, hoover the landing, edit a report, wipe the door handles, edit a report, steam clean the bathroom floor, etc. Break for lunch and to read my book, 30 minute nap, and then it begins again, with the ironing done sometime mid-afternoon. Mother-in-law goes for a trot round outside. I throw a few more yoga shapes if I'm stiff, maybe weed a veg bed. No-one visits here except the occasional parcel delivery man - DH picks up our mail from our postman so he doesn't have to stop here.

DH texts to see if I want anything before he comes home (the answer is usually no). He picks up anything mother-in-law needs, or posts off something my parents need (yesterday it was latex gloves). Then he comes in, strips off and showers. I take all outdoor clothes down to be washed. We sit on the bed with tea and watch the daily update. I cook the dinner, hang up the washing, do a bit of reading/painting/watch a film, do DH's lunch and then go to bed by 10pm.

At 5am the alarm goes off and we start again.

It is a boringly normal day, every day and that's the way we're trying to keep it. Low key, unsurprising and distanced from as much of the world as possible. We want to be part of the solution, not the problem.

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Steel Kitten

Keeping the place in good repair

Apologies for my slow rate of posting lately. Since I came back from holiday my health has taken a downturn due to having a low white cell count, which would account for my headaches, fatigue and general soreness and aches. I had a short cold about a week after we came back, which I think may have triggered an immune flare. Combined with the new gym workout, busy period at work and psychological stress of starting to drive, I've triggered a storm.

So, progress has been slow and I haven't been able to do a great deal. I decided to focus my attention of repairing/maintaining some of what we already have rather than starting any new projects. I finally cleaned up the Victorian cast iron downpipe near the barns which has been annoying me since we moved in nearly three years ago. The flaky blue and green paint has been replaced with smart black paint and the huge grey rectangular cracked water butt has gone.

I have three nice green butts to take its place that I found secondhand on eBay so I just have to connect those up.

We've started giving the summerhouse a bit of a makeover. I've cleared out the Plague chairs, two old chairs that were infested with insects and who knows what else (hence the name). I left them outside for a couple of days to let the inhabitants relocate before they went onto the pile for the tip. I've painted the unfinished wood supports either side of the structure at the front with some old cream Cuprinol paint. I rescued two full tins from someone who was throwing them out because they'd gone a bit rusty in their damp garage. The contents were perfect and both had £24.99 Homebase stickers on them!

To replace the chairs, we found a two-seater wicker sofa and armchair plus a small pine side table on eBay locally for £95. The rug is a bound carpet cut off I unearthed in the attic (along with the clock), while the lamp came from my father. I remember that lamp in the house when I was growing up so it has to be a good 40 years old.

The sofa throws are actually curtains; I found them for £6 in a charity shop a while back in a William Morris Golden Lily pink and light green colourway I've not come across before. The two patchwork quilts are also secondhand finds, one from a local charity shop and the other from a car boot sale in Australia.

I now work in there during the day to get some peace and quiet from the cats and MIL's phone habit. At the moment we have to run an extension cable reel in there for electricity but there is power to the pond pump about 15 feet away so we'll sort out a more discrete arrangement for power at a later date using that. I still have to add two front pieces to top of the summerhouse so you don't see the joists, do some flower baskets for the outside and add some pictures to the inside.

Finally, I'm trying to get the back lawn to look halfway decent. The previous owners cut the lawn on a high setting and never scarified it so the grass is bent over and soft and springy underfoot, as well as uneven and full of ankle-spraining hills and valleys. Some pieces of the grass are over six inches long but about four inches of that runs along the ground with only the last two inches popping up to be cut.

So, last week I started scarifying and cut it back hard. I've extracted five full wheelbarrows of thatch and moss and I'm only a third done on it. Once complete, I'll mix up some sterilised topsoil and lawn seed and rake that over to even everything out. With any luck, by the autumn we should have a half decent looking lawn that we can cross without twisting an ankle.

I haven't posted lately about my Grow Your Own efforts as that has been dismal so far. Poor germination, dying seedlings, cold, cats, birds, mice, you name it we've had it. I'm too annoyed and tired to post about that! That could be an epic whine so I'll leave that for another day.

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Steel Kitten

Investing in your home

 Reading all about Rhonda's remodelling efforts over at Down to Earth made me realise I very rarely talk about the things we're doing here to upgrade the house. There's always something being done. I've seen relatives lose tens of thousands of pounds when selling their properties due to them being out-dated and/or poorly maintained (on one occasion a £40,000 discount). Most of it was being due to either not having the energy or time to do everything needed, often putting things off for so long the task became a mammoth proposition.

I'm like my father in that I completely decorate at least one room/area a year to keep the place up-to-date as it adds value, but I take it one step further and freshen up paintwork and other bits and pieces throughout the year as it is needed. With water-based interior paints that are touch dry in 1-2 hours, painting is a much quicker job to do and clean up after than it used to be.

I had some annual leave a couple of weeks ago so decided to paint the front door. We have a very old white uPVC front door, the type that dulls with age and no amount of uPVC cleaner can bring up once it gets scratched and dirty. As I didn't want to spend £1000 plus on a new front door, I decided to try painting it.  

In the old days, painting uPVC was a no-no but there are brilliant specialised products to do it now. As long as you prep the door exactly as instructed on the tin it will look fine. I decided to use Sandtex's uPVC primer and 10 year exterior gloss in Bay Tree. I washed the door thoroughly with washing up liquid, left it to dry and then started painting. You don't need to sand the door at all, just put the paint on. 

However, round here the second the weather is good enough to paint the exterior of a house the thunderflies descend. As we've spent weeks battling thunderflies, I unearthed some old decorating polythene from the tool barn and stuck that up at the door. It certainly did the job catching them before they stuck themselves to the paint work. It took the full six hours to be touch dry and was recoatable in 16 hours, which is a little irritating. I'm so used to using water-based paints I forget the time required to cure oil-based ones. 

I think it looks amazing to be honest. The only let down is the handle and the knocker, which are both quite tatty. As a chrome replacement handle is £60+ (big nope!) and the knocker will not come off, no matter how hard we wrench at it, both will have to be cleaned up and maybe painted with something to make them look better. I still have the frame around the outside to do, as that is similarly tatty, and now features a paint drip on it (oops!), but that's task for when I have some annual leave in August. I already have some exterior paint for that so there's no paint to buy. We also need to find a bell so we don't have that ugly wire hanging down.

Finally, yesterday I decided to finish a job that had been outstanding on my list since I started deep cleaning - painting the lobby wall by the front door. All the coming and going had left dirt and knocks all over the wall. I had already painted the skirting and windowsills in June, which made everything else look tatty! 

I didn't know the original colour but purchased six different testers and found one that was almost identical. Of course, it looked completely different once up on a larger area and I could see the difference immediately. The colour I chose was a cool lilac while the old colour had a softer rose hue to it. You can just about see the difference where I made my slight booboo below. 

I accidentally painted part of the next wall instead of cutting into the internal corner. I am hoping once the curtains go up you won't see that but if it is visible, I'll take the paint round onto the next wall. It may end up a complete redecoration job of the lobby. 

It only took 90 minutes to paint. Later today I'll put up the curtain poles and curtains at the windows. I bought new chrome curtain poles to replace the gold ones that are there as I'm not keen on gold (I blogged about that here). I have a third curtain pole to go above the front door so we can put a heavy duty curtain up there during the winter to keep the heat in, but that can wait for now. 

The cost of all of this?

I got the Sandtex primer and topcoat for the door from a Homebase closing down sale for a 40% discount, which reduced them from £19 to £11.40. So total cost of the door overhaul was £22.80. I still have tons of paint left so may do the two sets of patio doors at the back of the house later this year. 

The two little bay trees either side of the front door were £10 for the two in the local factory shop and I planted them up into pots I already had. 

The three curtain poles were purchased from the same Homebase closing down sale for a 50% discount, so cost £11.19 each instead of £22.50 each. Total cost £33.57. 

Finally, the lobby paint was Homebase period colour, which I bought full price from another store as I couldn't find it in the closing down sale. That was £19. 

So overall, the cost of this lobby and front door overhaul was £85.37. 

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Steel Kitten