On The Road Again

After a week of rather ordinary weather today was absolutely glorious.  So what to do?  We had hoped to attend "The Far Cairn Rally" at Tottenham this weekend, as we have done in previous years, but we have other things to attend to closer to home at the moment....maybe next year....

Mick had made the necessary repairs to "Snubby The Silver Sidecar" recently, so it was the perfect chance to give her a test run.

We had a small window of time available today, so we headed out to the O'Connell Cafe for lunch.

As soon as we hopped off the bike there was a lovely barbecue type aroma, so our choices off the menu were easy - Steak Sandwich and Beef Burger, which were both delicious.  It was just lovely sitting and relaxing in the sun, but we still had plenty to do back home, so before long had to head on our way.

The best thing of all was that Snubby performed beautifully.  Hopefully, we will be out here again next weekend for the sidecar rally, which is held at the pub, about 200 metres down the road.  We may even be able to sneak back to the cafe for coffee and cake.  Very civilised.

Grandma's Bed

When I was a little girl we would go and stay at Grandma's for a week in the school holidays.  One of the best things for me was being allowed to sleep with Grandma in her big bed, which got me thinking of the John Denver song......

It was nine feet high and six feet wide

And soft as a downy chick
It was made from the feathers of forty 'leven geese
Took a whole bolt of cloth for the tick.

(You can see John performing a rather different version of the song here.)

Now my Grandma's bed didn't quite have the dimensions of those in the song, but it was high and old fashioned, albeit with a lumpy kapok mattress.  However it did have a nice white Marcella quilt and green eiderdown.  The best thing though was that it had Grandma and she sometimes let me brush her long white hair.

Her Singer treadle sewing machine sat to one side and an old turned leg side table on the other side, under which there was a Big Old Tin Treasure Chest. There was also a big blue chair and blue chest of drawers.

This all took place over a rather short time frame, as she died when I was nine.  I was always rather sentimental and for quite some years loved going into her bedroom, sitting on the big bed and looking at the treasures from the trunk - old photo albums and a huge fat book called "Medicology", which was fascinating.

Many years passed and the room was to be repurposed.  The sewing machine came to me and currently has our TV sitting on it.  The chair and side table are with Mum.  What to do with the bed?  At the time we had own bed and our spare bedroom was set up with lovely old antique beds.  Sadly, I had no room for the bed I loved so much.  In the end my brother took it, used it for a while and then it went into storage, firstly in his garage and them in Mum's.  When Mum moved to the retirement village last year we ended up with the bed, once again in storage.

Finally, now that we have got rid of all the boxes of books we have a room in which to house Grandma's bed.

It is a simple bed, dating form 1927. The timber was rather dry, but other than that is in surprisingly good condition.  After lots of furniture polish and a new mattress it has come up a treat.  

The main design elements are the sweet decals on the head and foot, which is what I loved so much.  However, what I have really noticed is that it isn't really all that big - how perceptions change as we grow older. 

This room is still very much a work in progress.   No one can sleep here as yet, as there is no bedding under the quilt.  I still have to go shopping to make it nice and snug. It is the perfect size for my Nature's Journey quilt.  The Marcella quilt is probably the original one off the bed.

Yes, there is a sewing machine beside the bed, where there always was one, even if it isn't Grandma's. This White was one of our first auction purchases and lived in our bedroom for many years. Apparently, my other grandmother had a White.  We have also had the bedside cupboard on the other side of the bed for many years.  The quilt on the rack is an Anni Downs design I made from a kit not long after she opened her first shop here in town. 

We still have to hang some pictures and add a few bits and bobs to make it welcoming, but it sure looks better than a room full of boxes of books.

Home Improvement Central

It's funny how we seem to do things when they aren't planned.

For example, Mick's knee op was delayed a week, so we set up our office how we wanted it.

Now that we returned from our holidays early we made some more progress with our house.

There is a little sitting area beside our dining room which hasn't been set up properly as yet.  One wall has double doors into my sewing room with built in bookcases either side which we have ignored so far. On the other main wall we would like to add a gas heater, so we can just heat our main everyday living area rather than heat the whole house with the central heating and I still have a lot of my green depression glass that is in boxes.....oh.....and books.......We had a whole room full of boxes of books.  We had many bookcases at our old house and they were all full.  As the task of going through them all was to too hard at the time, they all came with us........and have been boxed up for three years.

Back in April we bought two display units at Ikea to put either side of our new heater, which will be built into a chimney breast......but that won't be happening until the lead up to next winter. We also bought a small sofa to add to the seating.

Here is the wall looking nice and bare, ready for the cupboards, but after our electrician friend moved some power points for us.

We seem to have quite a good routine worked out for assembling Ikea furniture.  I am the nurse reading the instructions and passing parts and fixings to Mick the surgeon.  It works well for us.

That looks a bit better.  Mick's Dad's desk fits nicely for the time being, until we install the heater.

The next job was to fill the cabinets.  There has been quite a bit of just "putting" at this stage, to get things out of boxes...... I think I failed to mention that we have another room full of boxes of "Stuff" as well.

We plan to replace one of the timber shelves in each of the display units with glass and install some ultra violet lights to highlight my uranium glass pieces.....but that is for another day.

We ventured into the "Book Room" and started opening boxes.  We have filled our two book cases quickly as well as the side of the desk.  It was quite a task going through all the books.  Some were easy to part with...as in you wonder why we even have them.....but some were really hard to let go of.  Books I've had since my teens, books that were my Grandmother's, beautiful old 1930s girls' annual and so many others.  I'm sure some have gone that shouldn't have, as we went through most, but not every single one, but that is just how it is.  (Fortunately, I had a second look through one box and our bible that was given to us at our wedding by the family rector and my Grandmother's bible are still here.) Anyway, Lifeline have received about thirty good sized boxes of books for their book fair in October and we have a manageable number of books.  There is still a bit of sorting to do with those that are left, but, once again, that is for another day.

It's starting to look a bit better and quite cosy.  We don't do minimalist very well.  We did look into having custom glass doors made for the bookcases, but the price was a bit too steep to warrant it.  We'll just have to dust.

So, once the boxes of books were all gone we had a clean slate in one of the bedrooms.  The following weekend we made progress there.  I think I've prattled long enough for one day, so I'll share that soon.