The work continues……

Colin was visiting this weekend….. and when Colin is visiting jobs get done…. and how!!!!!   He arrived on Friday afternoon and was half way through chiselling out the old living room hearth by the time I got home from the Gardening Group meeting I was at that afternoon.   Since then he has removed the rest of the hearth, which wasn’t easy as it was pretty much all concrete, blocked up the old fireplace, built up shelf units for the kitchen and hung them on the walls – they didn’t quite work out the way I wanted them but they are fine – and lifted the old carpet from the bedroom that is becoming the living room!  I helped with that!!!  Oh, and of course we moved all the furniture out of that room before we  took out the carpet. 

These are the kitchen shelves, half loaded!

 

Today we did some work in the garden to tidy up some of the plants and things I didn’t get done in the autumn.  Colin cut back a load of ivy from the high wall between me and my neighbour, then we packed as much as we could into bags and loaded it into his van with the rubble from the hearth and some other bags of rubbish and drove down to the tip a couple of miles down the road to dump it all!

So, I just need the carpet laid in the new living room (hopefully next week – not this week, though that would be good) and the furniture moved in, and stage one of my alterations is done!!  I have loads of pictures to put up on the walls too, so I will enjoy arranging them and deciding where they are all going to go.  I don’t want to put too many ornaments up as they are just dust collectors, but I have a few favourite pieces to find places for.

Friday was a full day, with some shopping in the morning – food shopping - and a visit to the sale at the local department store where I  had my eye on some cushions for the living room – not that I haven’t already got masses of cushions but these are beautiful and in the raspberry colour I have chosen for a contrast colour (accent colour I think is the expression these days!) in my blue and white living room.

I met Linda at lunch time, when we went to the Peebles Hydro Hotel bistro. I love the entrance to the hotel, through that columned portico.  There’s a grand staircase up to the main reception on the first floor.  However we took the entrance to the left of the portico, that you can just see on the left of the photo, and took the quick route to the bistro.

 

I remember when the area occupied by the bistro was the hotel swimming pool!   It is still reminiscent  of the pool building  with that roof and the windows at the far end.  I wonder if the pool till exists under-floor!  I doubt it really, but I wonder how the area is used today! 

We had a very nice lunch and a good blether into the bargain before it was time for me to get to the Gardening Group’s meeting about composting!  Interesting!  Now I know that the composting box Heather has in her garden next door – that the rest of us in our close use too – is called a New Zealand box and is one of the best kinds !  There are other types too, even for small flats with no gardens!  I think I like the idea of a wormery personally!  I must look into the idea!

Talk again soon.