Thursday Working Inside.

It was a wet and windy Thursday for most of the day, so perfect for working inside the house.  I had two rooms I wanted to finish today, one was my sewing/music room, and the other was the kitchen.

'Muriel' my 1940s 201 Singer sewing machine fits in the alcove nicely.  I haven't time to do any sewing at the moment, but it is all ready now for when I am.

Making use of space, although these two pieces don't match in colour, the book case fits on top nicely and so makes the most of the space.  I still have to do some juggling around as I haven't got all my books out that normally go in this book case.  The cupboard will hold some of my fabric.

These shelves are perfect for my fabric and handcrafted creatures.  I still have some boxes of fabric to unpack and sort yet, so fortunately have a few spare shelves!

I'm not really sure what this wood panelling 'hides' but it is a bit of nuisance really sticking out into the room as it does. but it has a handy shelf and I will probably put a table here for my more modern sewing machine and over-locker. 

I sorted through a large box of vintage table linens and narrowed down the 'to keep' pile and the 'to go' pile which is now in the box below.

I am hoping to go to a car boot sale when the weather improves to get rid of quite a bit of stuff.  What doesn't go there I will give to a charity shop.

I also worked on the kitchen.  I wanted to clean the cupboards, shelves and drawers.  

That wonderful big pantry is part of the kitchen furniture.  I'd like it to move over a bit so that the other unit doesn't stick out from the wall, but it weighs an absolute ton and wouldn't budge!

This is another of the units.  Again this is set quite a bit forward of the wall and I'd like it to go back, but again it is too heavy for me to shift on my own so I have left it for now.

I was lucky enough to get some pretty 'New Home' cards.

An AGA!  Not only that but a BLUE AGA!  Doesn't get much more perfect than that!  I have to say it has taken a little getting used to, and I had a few teething problems the first three days, but I think I 'get' it now.  I am going to try baking something over the next few days hopefully.

Wednesday Working in the Garden.

On Wednesday afternoon I spent a little time in the garden.

We have four raised beds.  These three and one in front of the garden workshop.

This is the one that has celery in it, which is absolutely delicious.  I have been cutting one stick off a day to have with my lunch.

I am not sure what the very leafy plant is....there are some minuscule carrots tucked in there as well.  I thought it might have been parsnips, but I pulled one out and the root was so thin I am not so sure.  It could be that they were planted too close together so haven't grown properly?

I decided I would start weeding and digging them over.  I started with this one.

Looks much better now.  I need to see if the onions in the corner are any good, but I didn't at this stage.

I picked up all the fallen apples that had sadly been wasted in the orchard and put them in the compost bin, which will need rethinking about as they have been using metal coal bunker bins, and quite honestly I'd rather they were used for coal.  Not only that I'm not convinced they make the best compost bins and they are just full of twiggy rubbish, so will need to empty them out and start again.

The orchard floor looks much better now and the snowdrops are absolutely wonderful.

This is my evening reading at the moment before I go to bed which is when I read my current novel.

Oh and when I got home from my walk on Wednesday there was a ferry going past.

Always something different to see and watch.

Late Afternoon Walk to the Bay.

I spent most of the day working on the kitchen, cleaning cupboards, drawers etc...and getting it finished...I also worked on the sewing/music room.  The day was pretty horrible with rain and hail at times, and it had been a very windy night.  Fortunately by mid afternoon the weather had cleared up enough for me to get out for my walk. I walked just over two miles this afternoon which was good.  I did a bit of a round loop this time, partly on the road which is ever so quiet and the rest through some woodland and then down to the beach, along some countryside, another very quiet lane and then home.

The track leading down to the bay.

You can just glimpse the sea.

The sea was very noisy and quite rough at times.

It was late afternoon so the sun was just on its way down.

I sat and watched and listened to the waves for a while.

It was shocking to see how much rubbish had been washed up after our beach clean up on Saturday.

You wouldn't think we had the beach clean and tidy less than a week ago.

Plastic, shoes, bottles, drains, wood, all sorts of detritus.  What a shame.

Last view of the beach before I turned round to walk home.

Some lovely old stone walls.

Walking on Wednesday

I had a lovely walk this morning to Castlehaven in Niton.

It was another really beautiful day and relatively mild.

St Catherine's Lighthouse.

The waves were crashing in Castlehaven

Even though it was still a couple of hours before high tide.

I bet it would be quite spectacular at high tide.

I stopped off at one of the local Inn's for lunch, but have to say I was quite disappointed with the soup as it was very salty, to the extent that I couldn't actually taste the flavour of the soup, and the bread didn't taste as fresh as it could have been either.  Next time I will remember to take a lunch with me!  I've allocated myself £5 a week to buy a 'treat' out, and I feel like I wasted it this week, as this cost a bit more than that and wasn't very special.

 I walked just over 5 miles today so quite pleased with that.

Tuesday Afternoon Walk

After working hard most of the day I decided to take advantage of the gorgeous afternoon and go for a walk.  

I feel so incredibly lucky to have a beach within close walking distance to where I now live.  It is what I have dreamed about for so long.  To be able to just walk out my door and head off into the countryside is just amazing and to have a beach so close just tops it off.

There have been some relatively recent landslips at this beach so I thought I would take a photo, to see how the landscape changes.

It is a very stony beach, but it is still wonderful.

The view from the steps that lead down to the bay.

An old ruined building on the way to the bay.

Some pretty daffodils.

The lovely 13th Century Church.

It was a pleasant hour or so walk and I feel very refreshed.  My step thingy ma jig on the phone says I walked about two miles (I think it underestimates it as I actually worked out one of my routes I used to do at our old place and it was more than my phone used to record) and apparently 19 floors!  It is hilly!