Working

The very last of the evening sun on our lounge walls

Let's hear it for the sun!!  Yesterday and today have been beautiful sunny - and warm - Spring days, bringing everyone out into their gardens.  We spent this morning lending daughter and SIL a hand, digging out a big rockery in their front garden.  The grandchildren helped out too, and we were treated to a welcome cup of tea made by Grandson No 1.  We enjoyed ourselves very much; I think simply working outside was good for the soul.

Yesterday we were at the donation centre for our weekly volunteering session.  We had such a productive morning, and our little team actually managed to clear all the bric-a-brac bags and boxes.  We actually saw the floor, just for a couple of minutes until the next load of donations came in, but for that very short while, we had such a sense of achievement!  We came away feeling pleased with our efforts - some days we don't seem to make any impression at all on the pile of bags - but yesterday was a good day at the office :-)

We're hoping to try our hand at making more of our own relishes this season, and as a starter, N had a go at pickling red cabbage.

Boiling up the pickling liquid

Shredded red cabbage ready for salting

And here's the resulting three jars of home-pickled red cabbage.  And the latest 'treasure' from work - a vintage enamelled flour bin.  The paintwork around the rim and lid was chipped and was not suitable for sale in the shops so we made a donation and rescued it from the scrap metal bin.  N had some green enamel paint, not too far off the original colour, and he has managed to touch up the damage.  I now have a retro flour bin to go with the very fetching retro wall tiles!

Whenever I go into town, I invariably have a little browse around the charity shops, as you never know what might be lurking on the shelves and racks.  It's also quite funny to see items we've sorted at the centre finding their way into the hospice shops - we feel quite protective towards them!  I always have a look through the linens and sheeting, just in case, and this week I hit the jackpot with this fabric:

. .  . cotton curtaining fabric, 4m in length, and as the shop had everything marked at half-price that day, I paid £1.50 for it.  Yes, it's a bit bright, but goodness, I wasn't going to be picky about that!  I've got it ear-marked for curtains, bags, aprons and table-mats just for starters.  I have a feeling this bit of spring colour is going to be brightening things up around here in all sorts of ways.

The lighter mornings and evenings are filling me with energy again.  I want to be up and about, making the most of each day.  There is always plenty to do, in the house, in the garden, sewing, baking and cooking.  All part of a simpler lifestyle that gives us so much pleasure.

The need to tidy up

I'm becoming very remiss at blogging, I've noticed.  I suspect it may have something to do with the uncertainty of moving; this state of not quite knowing what will happen next is having a bit of a negative impact on many aspects of our lives, and really it has to stop.  It's ridiculous, allowing a little uncertainty to knock us off the rails in the way that it has.  The move will happen, if it is supposed to , in it's own good time, and it's no good either of us huffing and puffing if things don't happen when we think they should.  Patience is the virtue that both of us need in slightly greater quantity that we have at present!

In the greenhouse, one of the geraniums we lifted in the autumn has decided to flower again

Yesterday morning found us volunteering again, and it seems to be the one thing that definitely helps us get life into perspective.  It's such an enjoyable way to spend a few hours and it is clearly benefiting us, too.  Now we've been there a few weeks, I feel able to have a little tidy-up of our 'work area' - in reality a small desk, and even smaller table and a set of stacking plastic drawers.  Behind us is a high bank of metal shelving.  The desk in often half-covered in an interesting assortment of 'stuff', which doesn't leave much room for sorting donations.  First things first, the dustpan and brush are employed to sweep the area we stand in.  Then I retrieved a few bits that had fallen under the desk, had a sort out of plastic bags (millions of them) and a wipe-down of the table.  i swept up several times during the morning and gradually our little area began to look a little clearer.  I have already decided that next week I shall have to tackle the drawers - in desperate need of a de-clutter - just a bit at a time.  Why do I bother trying to clean and tidy when we are only there one morning a week?  I do believe that it is so much easier to work effectively and efficiently if your work area is clean and tidy.  For a start, we will have more space to work in; we won't be pushing stuff out of the way; we will always find the things we need (like rubber bands and labels); we won't be falling over odds and ends on the floor; things won't get lost under the table or other piles of rubbish.  It doesn't bother me to tidy up, I enjoy it and see the benefit of a clear work space and I think it will make life a little easier.  

The wind and rain continue.  In a dry spell this morning I managed to get the washing out and dried in the space of less than two hours, it was that windy!  The crocuses in the rockery have come through:

and the cabbages we are growing as winter greens have been attacked, by pigeons, we think:

Whatever has been eating them has made a very neat jobs of nibbling the edges of every leaf!

And finally, I am binding the quilt :-))  Lots of hand sewing - 92" each side takes a long time to hem (and my fingers and hands are suffering from little cuts and nicks which are aggravated by the cold weather) but I am so excited to be so close to finishing this long-term project.  Photos will hopefully follow very, very soon!

Still waiting . . .

We had a tense weekend, hence the lack of posts.  By Monday morning we were both a bit stressed out and headed off to the estate agents again.  Things had moved on, more bids were on the table, and the upshot was that we, along with another interested party were invited to make a 'full and final' offer which was submitted to the vendor for his decision.  And so we are waiting yet again, trying very hard not to get ahead of ourselves.  The property has, we feel, such potential, although that comes with a huge amount of grafting which thankfully doesn't faze us at all.  In fact we both agree it is exactly what we need.  We hope to hear one way or another in the next 48 hours.

After the somewhat tense morning, we were really glad to have the distraction of another shift volunteering at the distribution centre.  I think it has been a real surprise to us, just how much we enjoy it there.  It certainly took our minds off houses, and in a way gave us some much-needed perspective again.  I met up with someone I used to work with many years ago - she has been a volunteer for 15 years and still enjoys the work.  We got stuck in, ripping open black bin bags and sorting the goods.  We got a little way-laid with a wonderful collection of old books, some over 100 years old - N and I are both book-lovers, and these really were quite lovely.  However, alongside these little gems was a lot of, well, rather tatty offerings - some people seem to think charity shops are a way of getting rid of their junk.  We had several bags where it seemed someone had simply emptied a toy box into them; broken toys, chewed and grubby soft toys, half-used activity games, bits missing.  Then again, we came across some really nice items which will hopefully sell well.

Yesterday evening we had the 'flat mates' over for dinner.  We thoroughly enjoyed the company, and again it was a welcome distraction.

Today N has defragged the laptop in the hopes of prolonging it's life.  We've also spent quite a bit of time downloading photos onto the hard-drive - now all I need to do is find out how to transfer them from the hard-drive onto the blog!  

The quilt is making good progress.  Two of the borders are on (the wadding and backing need to be stitched as part of the 'quilt-as-you-go' method) and I'm getting excited that the end is finally in sight.  I've decided to press on with this project and finish it before starting/finishing off another project.  Trying to juggle several things at once wasn't working, so for the present it's simply one thing at a time.

Tomorrow we are expecting guests again - son and soon-to-be DIL are staying for a couple of days, bringing with them some new curtains that need shortening.  It's nice to feel useful :-)

Weather news - more rain, more wind.  Torrential hailstorm, thunder and lightening this morning (quite exciting!).  Not so great for those poor people whose homes have flooded, and who are without power.  Lots of flooding along the south and west coasts of England where the sea has done it's worse.   And across the Atlantic, America seems to be firmly in the grip of extremely cold weather - snow, ice and incredibly low temperatures.  Rather hoping that doesn't head over in our direction.

Volunteering

For a while now, N and I have felt that we should try to put some of our time to better use.  Not that we felt we were wasting time, more that we realised that perhaps we could be of some use elsewhere.  On a visit to the furniture store for our local island hospice, we saw a notice asking for volunteers and decided that this might be the answer - we could make a contribution to our community and use our time in a specific and purposeful way.  We had a call last week to ask us to come along for a trial shift this morning.

The donation and distribution centre is next-door to the furniture store and is a sight to behold!  It is huge, crammed to the rafters with goods.  Here all the donations collected at the various charity shops are brought, sorted and then packed up to be distributed back out again.  On first glance it looks like complete chaos, but there is definite order to what goes on there.  N and I were assigned to the bric-a-brac desk, and our job was to unpack each bag that had been donated, sort through and distribute the contents to the appropriate areas of the centre for further sorting and packing.  Clothes and bedding went to one area, where a group of ladies carefully sorted through each item; china and glass went somewhere else; books, CDs and DVDs to another area.  It was a real eye-opener to see charity shop donations from the 'other side', so to speak.  It seemed that some people used charity bags as a means of getting rid of junk.  Clothing ranged from top branded items still with the shop price tag on through to dirty washing!  Ugh!  When I send clothing to the charity shop I make sure it is all freshly washed and ironed.  We also became aware of safey rules and regulations regarding toys.  It was surprising just how much stuff has to be thrown out because it is not fit or suitable to be sold in the shops.  

Our 3-hour shift went very quickly - as quickly as we were taking black bags from the incoming area and sorting them, more bags were being stacked in their place!  However, we actually really enjoyed getting stuck in and doing something worthwhile.  The other volunteers were very helpful and pointed us in the right direction with our many questions, usually "what do we do with this?"   We're back again on Monday.

We went back to see the house for a second viewing, this time with a builder friend to give us some advice and guidance.  We are doing lots of calculations.  Neither of us wants to make any assumptions - house-buying is inevitably fraught with problems.  One step at a time.

We have had torrential hail-storms several times today; goodness knows where all the rain is coming from, there seems to be no end to it.  And no photos for a few days as there's only so many rainy-days pictures I can take!