The end is in sight...

The builders have left the building....yes, you heard right, they've gone (at least for the time being).  Phase II is complete and I have my brand new, fabulous office, complete with whizzy wheely chair. I love it, love everything about it, love being in here, but most of all LOVE being surround by all my most prized possessions (possessions as opposed to human beans and dogs of course...!).  I am still moving things in, moving other things around, and planning blinds, curtains etc., but it really has been a long awaited dream to have a space like this, all of my own.  And the most marvellous thing, which I hadn't anticipated, is that because its over our garage, and looks out into the trees, it really does feel like being in a tree house.

The fabulous chair at the very messy desk....

Phase III was due to start on 1 July but we've delayed it until the start of next year, to give us some time to gather our strength, gird our loins and enjoy the house for a while.  It does, of course, also give me time to change my mind about a lot of things...over and over again...

When we moved here last year, in mid April, it had been an early spring.  So we missed all the spring flowers.  This year of course it has been very late - and all of a sudden Spring has sprung and I can see everywhere evidence of new life in the form of the most incredible display of wild flowers.  I  have decided to keep a visual diary of the garden, since its all so new to me, and I don't really know what might be here.  I also thought it might be good to refer back to each year.  This is a work in progress...


Bye for now,
Debbie x

Postscript:  I wrote this post just over a week ago, to date not a single photograph has been taken, and of course the spring flowers are now over...

I got the sun in the morning and the moon at night...

It's been a funny few days.  A very "full of life" few days, in what is, I believe, the true meaning of the phrase.

The sun shone on Saturday, so we decided to postpone a planned trip to London, and enjoy time at home - particularly since the builders (who've worked every Saturday since they started in October...bless them...!), weren't here either and it was blissfully quiet.

I pottered around in the garden, put up some shelves and pictures in my shed, and examined all my plants for signs of life.  I love it when they start to bud, just to let me know they are still there and survived the winter!  In the midst of all this burgeoning, beautiful, new life came news of a friend who had finally lost the fight for hers - so sad, so young.  And then, on Monday, I met up with another friend who had recently lost an elderly aunt whom she desperately loved, who, although still grieving herself, is having to sort out all sorts of family stuff and support everyone else.  In the midst of all that, she found time to sort out a few bits and pieces for me from her aunt's house that she knew I would love.

And isn't that life in a nutshell?  New growth, love, friendship, giving, death...

It seems like Spring may have finally sprung - as I type this (sitting up in bed on my gorgeous, spanking new laptop!), I can hear the birds singing outside - lovely, lovely, lovely!!

Debbie x

Photo courtesy of my in-house photographer...

When in Rome....

D hit the big 5-0 on Thursday, so I flew him off to Rome for a few days as a surprise.  As ever, my timing was impeccable - Rome + Easter + new Pope =  hundreds of thousands of people, all eager to see the new Papa Francesca.   If they couldn't see him then they wanted to see just about anything that might be connected to him, the Vatican City or Rome - the queues for every attraction stretched for what seemed like miles.

Now I am not good in crowds - being unable to move forward or backwards and not being able to see an exit causes me to panic.  The Sistine Chapel was stunningly beautiful, but absolutely jam packed with people, and seen at great speed since the security men waved everyone through, shouting alternately "Avanti" (which I took to mean "hurry along"), and "Ssssshhhh" (which didn't need translating).  And in the Sistine Chapel, I panicked.  Had to get out.  And fast...  We crawled under a rope to escape the crowd we were being carried along by and were halted by two more security guards who told us to get back in line.  D took umbrage... a slight altercation ensued... they asked D if he had rules in his country... he replied yes, but not stupid ones...   He mentioned that all they needed were HiViz jackets and their lives would be complete... they didn't understand...  All a tad embarrassing, and watched by hundreds of tourists who were happy to stay in line...

We did manage to have a proper look inside the Pantheon having stumbled upon it quite literally on our first evening while looking for somewhere to eat (food always being uppermost on both our minds).  That too was gorgeous and incredibly well preserved - a bit like you,  I said to D...

Debbie x

Now where did those 5 months go...?

I last posted on my blog 5 months ago - just three days before the building work started on our annexe... the building work that was due to be completed in 10 weeks, just in time for Christmas... the building work that still isn't finished...

I have to say though, despite the incredibly slow pace, the builders are doing a superb job.  A beautiful butterfly of an office, guest room and bathroom is emerging from the grubby, dirty little chrysalis of an over-garage-annexe that was there when we bought our house a year ago.  I am quite sure that once Phase III (the main house - this bit is Phase II) is completed, and the dust has had time to settle (and everything has at last been taken out of storage, and unpacked, and I've had the opportunity to buy gorgeous new sofas and rugs and other nice things), then the trials, tribulations and difficulties of camping out in our own home will all be forgotten.  If the work carried out so far is anything to go by, we are very lucky in having stumbled across fab builders who genuinely care about their work and actually want to give us a perfect job (always at a price of course, but so be it!).

And in other news... is there any other news?  I have been, it would seem consumed by the building work going on!  However, the office mentioned above is to be MY office and I am so excited - my own personal space to furnish/decorate/have my stuff in!  I am so full of plans for it, how I am going to use it, where I am going to sit to read my mags, how tidy it is going to be kept - but also full of plans for my NEW BUSINESS.

D keeps telling me that I should be producing a business plan for this.   I do have lots and lots of plans, though none of them apparently a business plan - this seems to involve sitting down and writing all sorts of lists, and then conjuring up figures involving profits and other such things out of thin air.  This is not one of my key skills.   I keep telling myself (and him) that once I have the new office (and my new desk (actually old kitchen table) and super duper new whizzy round chair) that I will write said plan, but in the meantime am having such fun plotting (in my head, nothing in writing) the interesting stuff...

Debbie x