Change of Plans

Wow, we are having some hideous weather this weekend! The sky keeps getting so dark that it looks like night time, the rain is coming down in deluge-form, and the thunder is spectacularly loud! I’m kind of feeling like I had a lucky escape – I had been planning to go to North Wales to meet my brother for the weekend; we were going to be camping, and going out walking and/or climbing.

I had really wanted to go, for the sake of several things: seeing my brother, being in North Wales, walking in the mountains and rock climbing. I even have my new helmet to take out, as well as a new climbing harness that my brother gave me. He had bought it for his wife, but it was a bit big for her. She’s slimmer than me though, so it turned out to be a perfect fit for me! 

Petzl Elia Helmet

Black Diamond Primrose AL Climbing Harness

It was a sore decision to make when I decided not to go, and one I only made as my husband said that while I was away he would stay behind and do more work on our inventory of stuff that really needs to be sent off, and packing up more bits and bobs. This made me feel pretty guilty, as I should be helping with this too, so I decided to stay as well.

I have to say, we did get quite a lot done today! Lots more stuff in boxes ready to go to the store on Monday morning. I tidied up a few crafting supplies so that they are prepped to move, we sorted through the remainder of my husband’s work gear – stuff he may need again getting packed, stuff he won’t getting tidied to one side so we can sell it. 

I also packed our coat hangers – how difficult are they to pack efficiently??? In the end, what worked for me was buying one of those long and wide under-bed storage boxes from Wilkos. 

www.wilko.com

I sorted the hangers into bundles of the same size and shape, and used little hair bands to hold them together. 

Then I placed them in the box as neatly as possible, and finally I filled the gaps with any unusually shaped hangers (such as the ones with clips for skirts and trousers), laying the chunkier jacket hangers over the top however they would fit. 

Somehow this picture just will not upload in the landscape format!

I’m so pleased this worked out, as coat hangers become so bulky and awkward when packed, but now I can be confident that they will arrive intact so we can unpack easily, plus afterwards we will have some more handy storage to use! (I’m hoping that we will never again be quite so disorganised as we were in our last (and first!) home together, and that the next time we move it will all be a bit smoother…)

I feel like I’ve been wittering on about packing for so many posts now, but it just feels so complicated! I feel like it would be easier if we had just moved house, taking our stuff from one place to another directly. But instead, we had to pack everything we wouldn’t need for some time, and put it in storage. Pack everything we might need, and take it to Adam’s parents, and also somehow keep separate everything that needed extra work – either sorting out the mounds of paperwork we have somehow acquired, or deciding what ‘hobby stuff’ we need with us for use while we wait to leave (crafting supplies, outdoors equipment etc). Even deciding which clothes we need with us now and which can be shipped is tricky – we will need to keep some hot weather clothes with us, and we’ll need whatever clothes we’ll be wearing in the UK, but it must all fit in the suitcase we’ll take with us…

It’s all enough to make you need a break, so I’m now working on my Walled Garden Blanket some more – hooking up the 14^th panel!! It’s far too wet and gloomy for a nice progress picture, but number 14 looks just like all the others…

The first 6

I’ve also tidied up my project basket. Its lids were tied on with some weird stuff that was quite stiff, and so used to snag my yarn. I therefore removed it and replaced it with some ribbon that I came across when tidying up my sewing box. I also just gave it a bit of a shake out, and then neatly replaced all my project yarn. There’s quite a lot now since I restocked to make sure I would have all I needed for the edging, so the basket is pretty full! 

And speaking of edging, also in the basket are a couple of books to help choose an edging design with my mum. One is my own:

And I have this one from the library, I will let you know if I spot anything useful in it once I take a proper look :)

Well, that's all for now I guess, I am being called for dinner! Hopefully I can put some more Cornish tales together soon :)

Final Night....

I'm not sure how interesting this will be to other people, but I just wanted to record that this will be our last night in this house, our first home together!

We have spent today doing a lot of cleaning, and then at lunch time I popped out, bought some choccy biscuits, and drove out to meet my volunteering team for lunch. I had been hoping that we would be all ready by this morning, and that therefore I  would be able to spend the afternoon working at the nature reserve with the rest of the lovely Wildlife Trust Volunteers. But, sadly, we managed to stretch out the task of getting everything ready to hand over into all of the available time, so my visit to the nature reserve was brief.

While there, one of the volunteers, Colin, who I had become friends with during my short time there gave me something for my husband. It really was so sweet of him - he is a Saracens Rubgy team fan, and had remembered me saying previously that my husband was also a fan, and that he would love to see them play a home game before we leave the country. Next weekend is their final home game of the season, and they won't play again until potentially we have left the country. This lovely chap had a ticket for the game, but will be away with his wife and some friends for the weekend, so he brought me his ticket to give to Adam!! How wonderfully lovely and thoughtful of him :)

In return for this lovely gesture, I gave him my OS map of the area and a book of suggested walks. I have used these a bit while we lived down here, and Colin is a very keen walker so I thought he might be able to make use of them too. I'm sure he already knows everywhere covered by the book of suggestions, but he was very pleased with the map. It is the most recent version, and he said that his own one is mostly holes by now!

Photo taken previously for a post that never got written... Glad I had the picture though!

I felt sad to leave behind my map and my book - I have a huge sentimentally for both maps and books, and it would be lovely when we live abroad to have reminders of here. However, I felt it was happier that these things were being made proper use of, rather than languishing on a shelf somewhere. And besides, I have plenty more maps, and enough books to open a small library!

When I got home, I loaded up my car ready for the journey north tomorrow. My husband took a car load of stuff to the place where he will living during the week as of next Monday (I say "as of next Monday", but in reality he had been living there for a couple of months already. The only real change for him with be where he spends his weekends...). In the morning we will take the last of the rubbish to the tip - our local one has fantastic recycling facilities - and then load up his car. After a final check that everything is clean and in order with the house, it will only remain to wait for the house inspection to be completed, hand back the keys, and hit the road...  From one 'shire to another - Buckinghamshire to Nottinghamshire.

So there we have it, the final day of living in this house. I have enjoyed living 'down south', at least I love the countryside and some of the picturesque villages and market towns we have visited. I think we could have made more of our time here, but time does have a habit of escaping from you, doesn't it?

I'd love to say that the packing is over now, but once the cars are unloaded I will have to pack again, as on Friday I will be Herefordshire-bound for a long weekend Glamping for my sister-in-law-to-be's Hen Weekend!!  I'm also hoping to head from there on to Pembrokeshire to see my own mum, and maybe even to walk some of the coast path...  Hopefully I can squeeze in a lie-in somewhere along the way too... ;)

A few photos from Buckinghamshire:

Photos from the Pembrokeshire Coast Path near St Davids, taken on a short walk last year:

A Sigh of Relief :)

I think we’re allowed a little sigh of relief right now…

The removal lorry came this morning, and took all of our stuff that will be going into storage. It had seemed like a never-ending task to get everything ready for this move – I really do hope that I manage to get better at life stuff and never end up quite so cluttered and disorganised ever again!!

Somehow we have managed it though, and it seems that everything that was intended for the storage unit has been sent off on its way. My mother-in-law will come again tomorrow with her little van to take back more stuff that will be staying with us for the next 6 months, and then we just need to thoroughly clean the house ready to hand back. We already sorted out most of the garden, and we have booked to hire a carpet cleaner to go round and shampoo all the carpets, so I’m hoping all will be well when they do the inspection and we won’t get fined for anything!

A big empty room...(except for plants, which can't really go into a big dark storage unit...)

Right now though, we are too tired to do any more work for the rest of the day. Instead, we popped out to the supermarket to get a few things – some food for later, some DVDs to chill out with as we no longer have a TV here – in fact, we don’t have a sofa either, so we will have to watch the DVDs at the dining room table! (We don’t own a table and chairs, so we rented these and therefore they are still in the house). I also want to make some more circles for the Glastonbury Blanket.

I managed to tear myself away from my Cuddly Hexagons a few days ago, and after sewing in all of the ends on my existing Glastonbury squares, I began again crocheting circles. I would crochet in the evening to unwind, and then during breaks and stolen moments in the daytime I would sew in the ends – trying to get back into good crochet habits! I really got back into this sweet pattern, I think it’s a lovely modern twist on a Granny, especially with nice bright colours. It’s been making me happy in amongst the misery of packing to move house.

The last couple of evenings I have crocheted several more circles. I kind of like the way the appearance of the colours changes when I add the turquoise final rounds, so I decided I would make a pile of circles and then admire them before and after the turquoise goes on… it’s amazing the thoughts that pop into your head when you’re trying to avoid another, more daunting task!

Because the colours for this blanket weren’t planned very well – I simply bought everything purple, plus lots of pinks, and the one green – then there are lots of different tones in the mix. They don’t necessarily all go with each other well, but it think that when mixed up in the circles and with the turquoise in between then they will all be ok… These different tones do mean that vague colour schemes kind of arise as I collect more finished circles (more obvious in real life than in the photos!):

I’m not good at colour, I see so many blogs where people are amazing at colour, and I look at all their pictures and just want to dive in there… I know that some people have said that they have studied colour at art school, while others seem to have a natural ability that they hone with their work. I have neither of these I’m afraid! I know things I like when I see them, but I don’t know how best to achieve these different looks (and if I achieved all of them then I would have the most eclectic and clashing set of things imaginable!! I definitely like too many different things…) Anyway, my point was supposed to be that I really am learning about colour as I go along, making mistakes and questioning why I think things do or don’t work, and why things do or don’t look how I was aiming for… Watching how these colourful circles come into being, how their appearance changes with each new colour round, and then changes again with the final turquoise rounds, it really is quite fascinating for me :)

It’s hard to remember that for so long, whilst really getting the Mumbles Ripple underway, the Glastonbury Blanket used to have only these 5 lonely squares…

Then there were more – 9 more to be precise, making 14 in all...

And now there are 22 finished squares, with all the ends sewn in and everything… 7 new circles with all their ends sewn in, just waiting for a nice turquoise border (as per the last update)… 

PLUS a whopping 17 brand new circles!!! (sadly still with their 102 ends to sew in…) 

You can really start to get an idea of how this lovely blankie will look when it’s finished, and I’m really enjoying working on it. 

I can’t wait till there’s no more moving work to do and I can focus even more :)

Packing, and a Little Project Update...

I’ve been trying to write about packing at the moment, but it’s been proving just too hard to get the words together after a day of sheer stress…  

As a major life-change (moving home, moving in with people), and part of the run-up to an even bigger life-change (emigrating!), I really wanted to document it though, so here is my best effort... 

This might not be the most interesting topic, so here are some random pictures of some paintings I did but had forgotten all about, and then found in a box in the garage. Just to brighten this post up a bit :)

There is also a bit of a crochet update at the end, so if you’re only interested in that then you can scroll down to it :)

'Surf Art' acrylic on canvas

I think this one is my favourite

I know packing / moving house is meant to be stressful, but I do feel like this is extra bad for a couple of reasons. Some are our own fault – like not having been organised enough in the build-up (or just generally) and therefore having to sort through lots of stuff that we really should have been on top of all along. Or just having lots of stuff generally for various hobbies, like cycling, watersports, rock climbing, camping, etc etc…

Some reasons are not our fault – like having to sort out stuff to stay with us for the next 6 months and stuff to go into storage; stuff that is precious but cannot come to Australia; stuff that we don’t need specifically, but that is too precious for us to feel happy shipping by container, just in case the container gets lost (apparently they fall of the ships sometimes!!)

Mostly it has been just the two of us packing, the first time for both of us that we have had to pack up and move a whole house all at once! (Having mostly lived in rented rooms before, rather than whole houses, and then when I made my last house move I got to do it in stages over a long period). This method has involved the most stress, a few tears, 3 packs of cakes, about 7 packs of biscuits, lots of coffee, and over 100 cups of tea!! There have also been many many occasions where we have just ground to a halt, totally unable to figure out what to do next…

Yesterday, the cavalry arrived in the form of my mother-in-law. She arrived with her little van and got to work immediately, even taking her first cup of tea while working. At first she set to work alone while my husband and I were also working alone in separate rooms, but gradually we gravitated towards a team approach, with my mother-in-law in charge. With business-like direction and confidence and competence radiating from her, packing became much more efficient and we did loads! She left this afternoon, having helped us pack all of the kitchen, all of the fragile items, all of our pictures and other framed items, and various other bits and bobs. I had also sorted out most of the garage, and my husband made various runs to the tip so that we could recycle as much junk as possible. We also have a pile of decent stuff to get rid of, we’ll either take this with us if it will fit so we can do a car boot sale, or we’ll take it charity shops if it won’t fit – the removal people will take all of our stuff for storage, and we’ll take all of the stuff that will be staying with us.

We’ve had a bit of rain over the last few days, which has been a problem as we needed to sort out  the garden, but early evening today, after the cavalry had left (with a fully-laden little van!), we got out into the garden to clear everything. There was a lot to do as we haven’t touched the garden in months and months, but after a few hours of hard work we had done enough. And that brings us up to now! My back and shoulders are aching from leaning over, lifting things, etc etc, and I’m tired out from days of working from pretty much as soon as we wake up until it’s almost time to go to bed again. But we have achieved so much – especially since yesterday – and right now is the calmest I have felt in days.

During the worst of the stress, a few things have helped – albeit temporarily. First up is tea, and lots of it! We were drinking lots of coffee to help us wake up after poor nights’ sleep, but that much caffeine is not good for stress… The fun rewards of biscuits and cakes gave an illusion of helping with stress too, but this is obviously not a long-term solution!! 

In amongst all of this stress and hard work, I have found odd moments to work on my crochet projects. I had read that crochet / knitting has been proven to help with stress and other anxiety-related issues, and this seemed like excellent justification for me to pick up my yarn every time we stopped for tea / thinking / at the end of the day. Weirdly, with regard to my crochet, I really got into sewing in ends. This has never happened before, normally I hate sewing in the ends, and dread tackling a big build-up of them. I can only guess that the stress-relief achieved by this rhythmic, repetitive and rewarding task, has somehow taught me to enjoy it. I hope this feeling lasts!!

So far, I have done all of the ends on the Glastonbury squares I have so far – and I have also done a few more of the circles, ready to turn into squares. 14 ends per square for these, and I had about 7 or 8 to do. (Apologies for poor photo quality, staging is tricky in the middle of packing, and I don't have the time to take photos when the light is good!)

Blanket squares and Packed up boxes!

I have also done all of the ends in my Cuddly Hexagons Blanket (so far). 8 ends per hexagon, and about 17 of them had needed ends sewing in. 

Here’s the reverse just to prove it! 

I have to say that packing feels horrendous right now, this is a huuuuuge wake-up call for us to improve our house keeping and related life skills!  A bit of learning to be done there soon :)

While the current situation may be unpleasant, it is only temporary, and there is plenty to look forward to - for now we just need to keep knuckling down!