Getting on with it

I took a deep breath and opened the summerhouse door to be greeted with wall to wall cobwebs.  Ugh!  Never mind, our bright yellow “hard work” vacuum cleaner quickly sucked them up and feeling in a “get on with it” mood, I carried on and made it all presentable again.  But as I did, I looked at those two folded chairs and thought how sad they looked.  Watermarked and spider-spotty, I didn’t much feel like sitting on either of them.  Maybe it was time to perk them up a bit?

The last time I had that thought, I got out the acrylic paints, mixed in some textile medium and painted the canvas.  But I didn’t feel like repeating the exercise and took them apart to have a think.  I recalled a company selling deckchair fabric so before I got some lunch together, I googled and came across The Stripes Company (though I’d actually bookmarked them as Deckchair Stripes, I discovered later).  It was quite difficult to choose from some glorious deckchair fabrics but I decided on “Aerobics” and placed my order.

In true internet shopping style, it was immediately acknowledged and paid for.

Around 2.30pm I had another email.  My package had been dispatched. 

I was working this morning and in a meeting, so I don’t know what time it arrived, but this afternoon, when I arrived home, there it was.  I was thrilled with my choice and even more thrilled by the outstanding service.

I suppose it was about 3pm when I started to give the wooden frames a bit of a clean up.  I might have switched my sewing machine on around 4.

All I can say is that by 6.30pm we had two spiffy chairs, ready to use!

The second Thursday in May

It was a glorious evening here last night.  I was in Avening, in the company of friends where in the space of a couple of hours, we chatted about food waste and the appropriate care in hospitals of people with dementia.  Of course, we were glad to catch up with what’s going on in our families and learned that a friend’s daughter is expecting twins.  Great news but oh my, will she have her hands full!

I accidentally missed my book group meeting the other night, so couldn’t really contribute to the conversation about the book I should have read: Patrick Gale’s A Place Called Winter and although I took down the details of our next read I soon realised that we will be on the other side of the Atlantic when they meet to discuss it.  Never mind – I’m always happy to have suggestions for books I wouldn’t have picked up otherwise.

I’d also missed a couple of local walks, each of which ended up in a pub, though one of the pubs sounded so good I think we need to visit it anyway.  I’m not part of the skittles team, so couldn’t lay any claim to their recent victory but I was as thrilled as the rest to hear of their success.  Go Avening!  I won’t be out of the loop for long though, because a bunch of us decided to get together in our garden to make a few softpots.

Especially interesting was the letter from the organiser of the Vine Project, a charity many of us have supported by means of a friend and local volunteer.  The stories from the students we’ve supported by sending school clothes and materials were encouraging and the first-hand reports from our friend motivate us to help her further.

Melissa from Woefuldane Dairy just up the road brought some of her cheese for us to taste which prompted conversations about all kinds of things ranging from paperwork and running a small business to dairy farming generally, milk quotas and the price of milk.  I think the subject of animal welfare and the EU might have crept in there too, because somehow, the clock kept on ticking and it was getting on for 10pm.

Over coffee, we chatted about cruises, South America, personal shoppers in John Lewis,  local healthcare and a recent visit from a former resident of the village but actually, someone I didn’t remember – a friend quickly worked out that she moved away in 1983, the year before we moved in, which prompted a general gasp.  Where have the years gone?  For this is a rather special bunch of friends: I’ve known some since we first arrived in Gloucestershire and gradually got to know the others since then.  Some, I hardly know at all, but I soon will – when we next run the cake sale or cook for a tea party, we’ll pitch in together and chat, we’ll discover connections and shared interests.  We might find ourselves walking together to the pub, or on the same quiz team.

Funny to think that women have been getting together like that on the second Thursday of every month in Avening since 1930, isn’t it?  Since someone started a WI in the village, in fact. 

Slow progress

I can’t believe that it was in March when we discovered a small disaster and since then, we’ve become quite used to a rather strange arrangement of a couple of wonky pictures and some broken hooks on our staircase wall.  But it occurred to me that we expect a few guests over the Summer and I will soon tire of telling the story.

I’d got a box of box frames already, thinking that I’d create something with our travel ephemera at some point, and this was the catalyst to get me started.

The thing is, we do have quite a bit of travel ephemera…

Anyway, I’ve made a start and I think we have enough to begin the first hanging.

Though right now, I have a couple of “vernissage” issues to resolve.

How many elephants drink milk?

I have no idea, but it’s a question I’ve asked several times this morning, whilst completing my daily Spanish practice.  I’ve already done the section on animals, the food and drink chapter and am now working on questions.  I suppose with such limited vocabulary it’s difficult to come up with a wide range of relatively sensible sentences.

A few weeks ago I came across an article about making better use of the odd five minutes here and there, one suggestion being to learn a new language by means of a free app.  It sounded interesting so I followed the link to Duolingo and having just returned from South America, learning a few words of Spanish seemed quite a useful skill to acquire.

I’ve now got 174 words of Spanish and am enjoying the daily five minute routine.  The program is clever, can be accessed from my phone, my tablet or my PC (no excuses!) and the methodology impressive: all learning styles catered for, it’s age-appropriate and amusing.  Achievement is rewarded with lingots which can be exchanged for additional challenges or vocabulary: one such add on is “pick up lines”

In the meantime, I’ll just have to make do with

¿cuántos elefantes beber leche?

I never met a flapjack I didn’t like

and I don’t buy bunches of mixed flowers either.  These are lovely, though, aren’t they?

We had a day out yesterday, driving down to Somerset for lunch.  We had to get the parking money purse out quick, though, when we suddenly found ourselves needing to pay a toll to cross the bridge.  The list of charges was many and varied but thankfully, there was a simplified version just along the way.

We were heading for Bruton and finding ourselves with plenty of time, decided to take a look at what was going on at Hauser and Wirth.

We found the exhibition of Subodh Gupta’s work “Invisible Reality” especially interesting, since our priority on arrival had been to head straight for the loo.  Bypassing the information desk, we began to view the exhibits in reverse without the benefit of notes and as a result, though we did indeed look more closely, we had no idea what we were looking at!

Pots and pans, certainly, but it was good to find out the background later!

I especially liked the series of crushed pots and pans with sarees embedded in the block and as we examined the individual pieces, we were distracted…

There is something special about coming across familiar faces in unexpected places and looking up to see our sweet Californian friends Mary and Diana there in the gallery beside us was a joy!  Of course, it wasn’t that much of a coincidence: We’d arranged to meet them for lunch at the Chapel later but to bump into them here was even better.  Hugs all round then and who cares about the art…let’s catch up on the goss!

Well, we did look at more art on our way out…

Sadly, they were only passing through, so it was a non-stop chatter kind of lunch and a couple of hours later, we drove off in opposite directions – they were heading for Heathrow, we were going home.

“See you in Charleston!” 

As for the first ever flapjack I didn’t like.  Well, serves me right for buying a mix, even if it was on special offer.