Woken by cats and some photos of rooms at our new home

 

Theo on the favourite windowsill spot (Alfie is sat there as I type).

Butter wouldn't melt would it?!!The little wretches managed to open the door between the kitchen and the stairs to the bedrooms about 4.30 a.m. this morning.  I know who did it - Alfie! He who is always opening cupboard doors in the kitchen at night and letting them slam shut again (poor Tam - her bedroom is over the kitchen).  Alfie came on our  bed, and laid, purring like a grampus (very pleased with himself!) just where I wanted to put my legs.  Then someone else started to scoot up and down the hall.  Then Theo (as it turned out) decided it would be wonderful to make a nice snug pussy-cat bed in the discarded sheets of newspaper outside our room (waiting for someone - it is bound to be me!- to take them downstairs for disposal.)  Then Alfie went into the hall and I could hear him retching with a fur ball.  That was the bit that got me out of bed . . .

Alfie reclining in Tam's room.  I thought you'd like to see how the rooms are slowly evolving.  It's a lovely light room, with a dual aspect (and shutters!)  The whole house is so light, which is wonderful after the gloom of our last home - in the kitchen you had to have the lights on all day long in winter.  Turn them off and you couldn't see across the room.  I don't miss that.

Little Whale across the lane (he had to be dissuaded from going exploring down the lane . . .  He wants to go out in the dark, morning or evening, he doesn't care.  We haven't put the cat flaps in yet - Keith will have to instruct Tam how to use the jig saw as he is finding bending down low difficult (hands and knees job this one).

Ghengis in his favourite spot, the steps up to the side garden.  He likes it over here.  He was out helping Tam and I in the garden a couple of days ago (when it stayed dry long enough).

This is the Guest Bedroom (or Garden Room as Tam likes to call it).  Still a work in progress, but much LESS of a work in progress than it was first thing yesterday morning!  More boxes have gone upstairs, and the two small chests you can see are now full of my patchwork fabrics, and four empty fabric boxes which used to clutter up the pink bedroom have now gone up to the attic.  When our new Emma mattress arrives next week, our current mattress will go on this bed and then I can make it up and the use of 4 pillows, a duvet, a bedding set and a quilt will empty the coffer you can just see a corner of on the right . . .  That will then free the coffer up for more storage for stuff from the pink bedroom.  It is a slow old process.

Our new bed made up using the repurposed carved headboard (below).  It is fastened to the wall and the new bed base made up (a MUCH quicker process than the rather flimsy - but cheap! - pine bed now in the Guest Bedroom.)  Not quite a half hour job but only ten mins or so more - the other bed took most of an afternoon!  My favourite bedding set on it (William Morris's Strawberry Thief) and a quilt I was given after my friend Annie died.  She had never used it and her daughter gifted it to me.  It's a single but is big enough to dress our bed.

The Library is where Keith has his favourite pictures and his old muskets on display.  Several things have come out of stock, since we can't do Fairs (we wonder, can we ever again?)  The big burr walnut bowl on the yew wood table is one of those things, and the bobbin-back chair against the back wall.  You can't quite see it, but beside that chair is a Tramp-Art bow, also from stock.  The bits on the windowsill (below) are two ancient candlesticks and the central piece of treen once jammed a door shut in around the 17th or 18th C (probably from central Europe).  It has a well-worn scooped out centre which held a length of wood which slotted into a recess in the wall/door frame.  There was a set up like this in one of the houses we viewed (and which was a real contender until I felt a presence (ICY cold) near a blocked-in doorway.  It was NOT a welcoming presence and I couldn't have lived there.

Finally, Theo and Little Whale helping some cushions of Tam's to "be aired".  I think this means they are now cat beds . . .  This is the pink bedroom, which has a lovely deep windowsill, south-facing, and just perfect for seed trays.  I think the cats will have to find comfy new nests when we get the seeds started!

    Right, that's a quick roundup anyway.  Now I have to do some baking as I promised our next door neighbour a cake for mending a small hole in the stable roof (two or three new tiles).  He didn't want paying, bless him, so I promised a cake, and will do some biscuits too.

One final photo of the back of the house showing my kitchen window at the same height as the back lawn!  Great for bird-watching  :)  You can just see a bit of the view of Aberedw hill between the trees.