Now it's gone ....

The cedar tree has now been felled and what a difference it has made.  Four nice chaps arrived a day late, around 1.30 pm (mid morning?) however they did an excellent job and worked really hard leaving everything neat and tidy.  The highlight of the afternoon was when one of them was clambering about in the huge oak tree cutting off dead branches.   (Ignoring the chainsaws) they had some very interesting equipment which I would not have minded getting my hands on ....

Not found out what the neighbours think of the new outlook yet.

We have also been visited by a juvenile Greater Spotted Woodpecker this week which was lovely.  One of the blackbirds does not seem to have been deterred by all the noise and upheaval yesterday as she was busy collecting nesting material this morning. I am sure the squirrels will be back and will not take the least bit of notice of all the disruption.

Almost finished the roman blind I have been making for the shower room so now ready to start on two more for the kitchen.  I have had to paint and put up a new batten for the blind in the shower room as the existing one was not wide enough for the velcro.  Been perfecting my sawing and rubbing down techniques along the way.

Three Counties Show

Had a fantastic day at the Three Counties Show in Malvern on Saturday.  The Kune Kune pigs had to be the stars of the show with their little piglets.

We never got into the cattle sheds as they started to do the judging, which is where the best opportunity would have arisen to get some really nice close ups of these lovely beasts.

The Hereford cattle were fantastic and I managed to get this picture during the Young Handlers competition.  The weather turned rather wet by the time the Grand Parade took place so it was not easy to hold an umbrella and take photographs.

Sox is settling in

You all keep asking how Sox is settling in ....  well he seems to like it here, although he is a pain as we do not have a catflap.  We go for a walk up the Dell most evenings and he is starting to explore the trees (squirrels) and can even climb them now.  The pictures above are him discovering that the old Elm which is dead and rotten smells of something interesting and has a huge hole inside it.  Not only did he climb up it, but he also came down inside the hole and out the bottom.  I thought he must be stuck inside but he was sat nonchalantly at the other side of the tree where I could not see him.  I missed the best photographs of him inside the hole.

Now you see it .....

This huge tree (Western Red Cedar?) - which must be 50 ft in height - is in the back right hand corner of the rear garden.  Well next Tuesday it is going.  Lovely as it is, and it smells fantastic, it blocks out a lot of the afternoon sun. The stream is to the right behind the roses.  Not sure what the rose is but it looks like the picture below and must be a climber. 

The garden is full of lovely roses at the moment.  There is a deep red climber at the front called Dublin Bay and apparently the weather this year has meant that it has produced the best flowers ever,

Water Feature

The dog was not a scrap metal piece, however, there are lots of water features around the gardens and many are inhabited by newts.  The gardens were full of birds and planting was beautiful.

Artists Garden

We visited a fantastic garden at the weekend called Bryan's Ground at Stepleton near Presteigne.  One of the owners is an artist and the garden is full of very wacky sculptural pieces made from bits of scrap.  The watering cans above had been cut in half and applied to a door and the numerals appeared o have been taken from a large clock face.  Bicycles hang from trees as do shoes in a shoe tree.  There is an old bedstead in a meadow with grass growing through it.  Very thought provoking.

House Move

I must say reading Maggie Grey's blog cheers me up no end.  It is reassuring to know that I am not the only one suffering from the joys of a house move.  I spent the best part of an hour looking for basic sewing things, after having carefully kept my sewing machine and its associated bits and pieces somewhere safe, I then could not find things like pins, bondaweb, sewing machine needles, etc.

The kitchen is even worse. We had visitors and I decided I would make some chocolate brownies and a cake in a loaf tin.  But which box were the baking tins in?  You guessed  .... anyone but the ones I looked in.  At least I knew where my baking parchment was - in with my sewing materials of course!!

Mural

Until today one of the bedrooms sported a lovely mural along one wall.  Apparently it came like wallpaper and appears to be in at least 4 panels.  Alas it is currently being stripped, along with the woodchip wallpaper, to allow for repair work to be done.  I can honestly say I have never seen anything like it before.

Bathroom Delights

This is the towel rail-cum-radiator in the main bathroom in the house.  It has huge pipes.4 inches circumference (or 10 cm).  You can also see the black tiles, but what you can't see is the pink walls, bath and washbasin.

House Move

After 7 weeks of living here I finally got round to completing and taking this piece of work to the printers to get some "We Have Moved" cards printed.  Hopefully they will be ready next week and then all I have to do is get them posted.

Newent Bookcover

At long last I have actually finished the bookcover started at a workshop at The Patchwork Basket in Newent with Helen Keenan.  It holds a small Pink Pig sketchbook.  Not my greatest piece of work, but at least I did get round to completing it!!