Hurried woman syndrome!

When I first started this blog, I had every intention of posting on regularly. Well, that has gone completely out of the window! I hadn't counted on just how few hours in the day, days in the week, and even months in the year, there really are!

I seem to do a little of everything and achieve a lot of nothing!  A little crochet but a lot of planning things to crochet - the list gets ever longer.  A lot of 'helping' the Husband with the house renovations - and a lot of clearing up and reorganising afterwards - that list gets ever longer, too. And, of course, there's the endless round of cooking, cleaning, shopping and other boringness to contend with.

However, things progress - slowly but surely.

A nice treat yesterday was some roses from a friend's garden - the pink ones are spectacular and ramble along a white wall  that really sets them off.  I found a few carnations to put with them.

These yellow ones smell delicious - a truly old-fashioned fragrance that transported me back to childhood.  Not the most beautifully-photographed, but lovely all the same.

Louis the Lazy Cat on one of the rare occasions when he's awake instead of lying practically comatose for twelve-hour stretches in any patch of sunlight he can find. He actually accompanied us outside for a stroll round the garden, but soon succumbed to his favourite pastime of yawning and looking for a comfy place to indulge in some ZZZZZs!  We've had several cats over the years, but Louis is most definitely the laziest ever! He's French, of course, and no-one in France hurries to do anything - why should he be any different?

Meanwhile, this is a bloom on an indoor hibiscus - I only wish the flowers lasted more than a day.  The plant was a birthday present last year; it was beautiful  until we went away in February and it didn't like being ignored. I was ready to throw it away but the Husband has tended it lovingly  and restored it, if not to its former glory, at least half way there. 

A relatively tidy scene on a lovely summer's day - all looks peaceful outside but chaos reigns behind the door! 







I will update on the renovation work a bit later - I have to sort through all the photos first!

Have a great day, and thanks for reading!

A Quick Update!

It's been ages since I've posted, what with one thing and another, mainly working on the house, and I also lost my internet connection at the weekend - again.  I was able to put it right over the phone with advice from the helpful chappie on the helpline; he's going to send me the instructions so that I can do it myself nex time, hopefully.

I have loads of photos to post of the house and garden but, for now, will post a photo of the tiles we have chosen for the kitchen (yes, it's nearly at the 'prettying-up' stage!)   I love the lavender and olive tiles, but I'm not that mad on the lemon one, but they come in packs of three, so I had no choice in the matter.  They are on order and should be here within ten days.  At the bottom of the photo you can just see the lovely draining board they had in the shop. No, we didn't buy that, although I fell in love with it because it's so very French!

Wool-wise, I've been making squares (for Chalky and Mrs Twins - see their links on the right), a cushion and throw for a chair I'm revamping (not finished yet), and these preemie hats which I will get posted off next week.  They are displayed on a beautiful hand-crocheted double bedspread that I picked up at our one and only charity-type shop here - it's really heavy, and is made up of no less than 672 motifs!  The clever person who made it must have loads of patience and a lot of dedication!

Anyway, the evening sun is going down but it's still casting long shadows over the distant fields, so I'm off with my camera to catch it before it finally sinks.

Thanks for reading and I hope you are all having a lovely day! 

What I've been crocheting (when I can get away from all the renovating!)

I've been clearing photos in my camera. They're mainly of the renovating variety, along with some family ones from a week or so back when my youngest son and his family came to stay, but today I'm concentrating on the woolly ones.

These are 8" squares I've made so far for blankets that are being sewn together by Chalky (see Chalky's World in my side bar) for charity. I have a couple more to add but they still need the dratted ends sewing in - not my favourite job!   You'll see from her photos that she makes a brilliant job of sewing them together. 

This is another square; this time a 6" one for Mrs Twins (see her blog in my side bar, too).  She also does a fantastic job of putting all the squares together for charity.

I find the squares are the ideal way to use of scraps of wool and, as they don't need too much concentration, they are easy to do when you have a spare few minutes.  I shall keep going with them because I have loads of wool to use up!

Again, on the square theme, these 4" squares are for a personal project.  I have a very old chair that is just sitting in storage in one of the barns here; whilst rummaging around for something else in there (a tin of masonry paint that the Husband was convinced he had somewhere - yes, we did find it in the end. It was a 20 litre tin so a bit hard to 'lose'!) I came across the chair and decided that it could be brightened up with some spray paint and a bit of the crochet stuff, so I made a start on that last night.  It will be an ongoing project and it may be some time until it's finished but at least the chair will get a new lease of life.

Now, I'd better post a photo of that little window now that it has been re-glazed with clear glass.

This is the view from it on a very dull day yesterday.  Of course, before it could be glazed the Husband had to paint the exterior reveals.  As the window is above a conservatory with a sloping roof, he decided to do it from the inside - with the window's cross-members restricting him -  and me standing on the outside telling him which bits he had missed!   This was why we needed to look in the barn for the masonry paint; it's just the way of things, isn't it? You start one job then find you need to do a bit more prepping before you can get on with it!

This photo shows the lovely lintel, which we think is made of ash. It has just been treated for woodworm and will be finished off with Briwax furniture wax which will really bring out the colour and grain.  We need to wait for the putty to set, then we can wax the window frame and plaster and paint the interior reveals.  It will be a lovely feature just below a vaulted ceiling - I just have to decide whether to put something on the sill or to leave it as it is.  I'll take another photo when it's finished and, also, when the sun is shining through it!

Where on Earth does the time go?

OK, so it's been a while!  Apart from adding the charity-knitting update last week, I've not posted  for some time.  It's been so very busy at Chez Yarns for the last few weeks - not all of it of the laborious renovating variety, for a change. Last week, after some doubts about whether they would make it due to the Great Icelandic Ash Crisis, my youngest son, his lovely wife and gorgeous eight-month old daughter came to stay for a whole week.  The seven days stretched ahead of us at the beginning then simply whizzed by at a rate of knots and, suddenly, they were on their way back home.

We couldn't believe how lucky we were with the weather. The week before their visit was cool and dull and, since they left on Saturday, it's been even cooler and duller, but the week they were here was bright, warm and sunny and we were able to go out every day and make the most of it.

Here we are at the old defence wall with a view of the town as a backdrop. Centre stage is my truly beautiful granddaughter with the magical smile that carried us through the week! We visited lots of different places and had a wonderful time enjoying each other's company. The week passed by too quickly but it was lovely having them here.

The renovations took a back seat for the week apart from insulating the vaulted ceiling in the dining room part of the kitchen - something that my son helped his Dad with, because it was too high for me! It was great taking time out from all the work - we hadn't realised just how intense the last few weeks had been, and we needed the break.  Subsequently, it's taking a long time to get up and running again!  Yesterday, the Husband filled in the holes that were left behind when the timbers holding up the original ceiling  were removed, then he had to run electrical cables through the timbers in the kitchen - they will eventually be hidden when the ceiling is plasterboarded.  We have to choose the lighting next - at the moment, with the ceiling back to the bare bones and the existing lighting still in place, it looks gloomy, so the choice of lighting will be really important.   We  have this little window that we uncovered when we vaulted the ceiling - the glass has been painted (on the outside) in this  fetching shade of green and, rather than take the paint off, we will replace it with new.  It will let in even more light and I'm thinking of a way of dressing it up.   I think today the Husband is going to get both the ceilings prepared for plasterboarding - I can't wait but I'm dreading the usual disruption - why can't he do it quietly, cleanly and quickly?!

The weather, having been brilliant last week, has been really cold, something I wasn't expecting for the first week of May in south west France!  I thought we'd be well on the way to summer by now but we'll just have to be patient, I suppose - it's nothing compared to what's been going on in the rest of the world, so I really can't complain, can I?

Have a great day, everyone, and thanks for reading.

Renovation update - the story continues!

I've not posted on here since the last Knit Your Square update, but a lot has been going on - in fact, a lot more, thanks to the arrival of my mad-but-strangely-loveable brother-in-law who drove all the way up from the south of France (about seven hours on the road) with his lovely 11-year old son,  to indulge us with  his excellent plumbing and tea-drinking skills!  After a long journey, he threw himself straight into helping around the house - well, he had to if he wanted beds for them to sleep in! 

First photo shows last week's renovating (wrecking?) team - a husband on the right and a brother-in-law on the left. They were far more professional in action than they look here!

Apparently, my favourite mug was the perfect tool to keep one of the copper pipes at the right height!  The rather strange floor tiles will eventually be replaced with something a bit lighter and a little more contemporary.

This arrangement under the sink was much admired by the men, and I was instructed to take a photo of it - German engineering at its best, I was told. Me? Well, I was more interested in having something coming out of the taps.

The chaos continued outside the house, too.  This photo shows the trench that had been dug out to re-route our water supply. As the road was being upgraded, the water company decided to do the water works at the same time, to save disrupting the new road surface at a later date.

This is the view from the back of the house showing where the road has been widened - they have still to lay the final surfacing material, but it's already a great improvement on the bumpy track that was there before, and has been well-used by the local children; at last, somewhere for them to use their wheels - of the bike, scooter, and roller-boot variety - without falling down a pot-hole!

One of the water meter boxes that will eventually be hidden from view - well, I hope it will; it's hardly the most attractive of garden features.

An unexpected surprise just outside the back door - some lovely violas that had seeded themselves from a pot I had planted last year.








Well, this is just a little update on things around here - more to follow soon, when I've scraped a little more of the inevitable dust away!  Thanks for reading.

The chaos continues - but we're getting there!

The work on the house is in full swing, although we took most of yesterday off and went to our favourite patisserie for lunch, sitting in the sun on the bandstand in the local square, then taking in a vide grenier (the French version of a car boot sale) before coming back for a snooze before dinner.  A good relaxing day to set us up for the days ahead. 

In the morning, one of the Husband's brothers (the other one is staying here for the week to help with all the plumbing!) came up with his wife on their beautiful  Harley Davidson trike - I'm the one in the driving seat (but I wasn't allowed to drive it!)

The plan today is to replace this horrid, ancient, too low sink with a brand new unit with a brand new shiny Franke sink!  I shall be so glad to see it go, not least because the previous owner had his bedroom in the dining room next to the kitchen and I always imagined him using it for all the wrong reasons if he couldn't be bothered to find his way to the bathroom - it's at that convenient height for a man!
All that will be a distant memory later on today!


I haven't had time to do any relaxing crochet lately, but I will try and get some done today, if only to keep me sane while the renovation work continues.  The great thing is having my brother-in-law around - he's a much better labourer than me, and he plumbs, too!  His 11-year old son is staying here with us, too, and he's been helping me with my French and running errands to earn some euros, so I shall take him shopping with me this morning.

There will be chaos outside the house, too, because the track running alongside our house is being widened and resurfaced - the work will take around two weeks so our quiet little hamlet will be a hive of activity, but it's all going to improve life out here, so will be well worth the hassle. 

Well, that's all for now from this little corner of France.  Of course, I shall be posting a photo of the new sink later!

A break from the madness that is renovating!

Early evening sunshine as we made our way out for a meal - the kitchen being completely out of bounds seeing as how the guts have been ripped out of it!  Photos to follow of the currently-not-very-kitcheny-kitchen - when the dust has settled!