• Other

    Falkland Palace

    The three of us went to Falkland Palace yesterday. Falkland is a super pretty village – it looks a bit like a miniature Stirling or Edinburgh Old Town. The palace itself is quite…

  • Other

    On induction hobs

    When I bought the new kitchen (which in every respect apart from this one has worked out fine) – I made one major mistake and bought an integrated cooker with it. I guess…

  • Renovation

    Moving some projects forward

    Today I have been working on both reupholstering the chair, and finalizing the new improved cat door. The frame seems moderately secure now. I cut a piece of dark red velvet out of…

  • Cats,  Gardening

    Cat and mushrooms

    We have a fantastic crop of mushrooms at the moment – not only this huge one, but others on the front lawn in more or less the traditional “fairy ring” formation. I keep…

  • Renovation

    Some woodworking

    I was never sure that I was doing that well when I did the woodworking course in Edinburgh – some of the machines I found quite difficult and the other people on the…

  • Gardening

    And then there were two…

    I felt that the basement was lacking a certain something, so we purchased a second aspidistra. The original plant – called Distra is going strong – he was pretty small when we got…

  • Antiques,  Renovation

    Renovating a chair

    Today I started having a look at one of the chairs we inherited. I had been going to do some gardening but it was pouring with rain and windy. This chair is Edwardian,…

  • Cats,  House,  Nature

    A nice day – but…

    This morning R and I went for a walk along the side of the River Eden. It is a particularly pretty bit called the “Orchard Walk” with lots of fruit trees (the fruit…

  • Creative,  House

    My £2 Rug

    We had some pieces of carpet left over from the new one we got for the basement and they were cluttering up the garage. I am moving into the final stages of clearing…