Montacute

Last week we had some friends staying for part of the half term holiday and we took a trip to nearby Montacute House. I'd only been there once before and, because I had DC with me and because the house was only open for tours at specific times, had only looked around the grounds. As a result, I put Montacute below Barrington Court on my list of favourite NT properties in the near vicinity (not that that means much as there are only four around here anyway, and I've only visited three of them...)

However, after this visit, I may have changed my mind.

Here's one view of the late 16th century house - the front, I assume, due to the long drive (known as the West Drive) that leads up to it.

Quite an imposing entrance.

And just some of the trees around and about.

Then, around the side is a fabulous Orangery. The National Trust are in the process of replanting/restoring it internally so it looks like it did in the 'olden days'.

The wobbly, bobbly, nobbly hedge.

The fountain/fish pond.

The rear of the house.

Then we went inside and I felt too self-conscious to take any photos! Sorry, not v blog-friendly, I know. However, the National Trust has some photos of the inside, so I've borrowed some of theirs to give you an idea of what this fabulous house looks like:

This is the Great Hall, one of the first rooms you come to upon entering the house.

A different shot of the same room.

Fabulous stained glass to be found all around.

On the second floor is a wonderful set of antique samplers from the Goodheart collection.

And the piece de resistance, the Long Gallery on the top floor. The longest of its kind in England, it measures 176 feet in length. In the 'olden' days it was used as a place for exercising when the weather wasn't good enough for a stroll around the extensive grounds.

But nowadays, it's home to a large collection of Tudor and Jacobean portraits on loan from The National Portrait Gallery. No photos are allowed, so I couldn't get any shots up here, but this one from the NT itself gives you an idea of the main space which has several rooms off to each side where the portraits are housed.

If you are in the vicinity, I would absolutely whole-heartedly recommend a visit to Montacute, and especially to the Long Gallery.

Fire! Fire! Fire Screen.

Look at this beauty I bought for just £10 at our local auction house!

Gorgeous wood surround - oak perhaps? I'm afraid I'm rubbish at identifying wood (except for orange pine, which I can spot at a hundred paces and avoid like the plague.)

And a beautiful embroidered scene behind the glass. Featuring this little chap

And some purrrty flowers.

All set against a lovely linen background.

Tidies up the fire place no end.

I'm constantly amazed at the bargains that are to be had at auctions. I'm also constantly amazed at the high prices that some items seem to attain. There seems neither rhyme nor reason to what goes for big bucks and what can be had for a song.

It's so much fun to wander around the sale room for the auction preview never knowing if that 'thing' that you've been after for ages might be there. I always leave commission bids (which means you fill in a form detailing the item you are interested in and the maximum you are willing to pay for it) for the items I'd like to win because I can't spare the time to be at the auction itself; it also means that I won't get tempted into a bidding war and end up paying more than I really want to/can afford for something. It even adds to the excitement since you never know if you've won something until you call the auction house the next day (clearly, I'm easily excited...)

Island(s) in the Stream...

Well, kitchen actually, but I have trouble thinking of the word 'island' without thinking of dear old Dolly and Kenny; after three... Islands in the stream, that is what we are...

Anyhoo, back to the point. Previously, the kitchen area of our downstairs open plan space looked something like this:

We toyed with the idea of either putting in an island or else a peninsula on the far right side, pretty much where DC is in the shot above. To get an idea of whether an island would work, we brought the plan chest down from my office so that we could guage the size, shape and position of a possible addition. 

After a couple of months of toying with the idea, we finally took the plunge and ordered several cupboard and drawer units. Then hubby spent a few evenings in the depths of the garage putting them together.

This side there are two sets of two pan drawers.

And this side there are three cupboards. That's the electrician in the middle.

Luckily, when we first had the kitchen and flooring fitted, we had the electrician put a socket in the floor in the approximate area that we thought an island might go (that's the white thing on the floor there), which made this part of the job very easy.

And now we have a double socket at each end of the island. Perfect for plugging in the KitchenAid mixer or a laptop.

Then it was time to put the drawers and cupboards back-to-back in the right place.

Meanwhile, out in the garage, the carpenter had glued together two pieces of oak to form the worktop/breakfast bar for the island. He had to leave them strapped together for a couple of days to make sure the glue held firm and then, together with the electrician, he hefted in this rather large chunk of wood.

Which he then sanded and sanded and sanded, and rounded the corners of.

Then it was time for hubby to fit the pan drawers.

And the cupboard doors.

And oil the worktop.

 Then came the bit hubby was very excited about. And to prove it, here he is doing his excited face/pose.

Finally, after 18+ months in the garage, we got to unpack the remaining eight boxes of kitchen 'stuff' - recipe books, bakeware, tins, glasses, bowls, etc, etc.

 Here's the bakeware drawer, overflowing already - perhaps we need a bigger island...

Now we just need some handles to make it a bit easier to open the doors/drawers and some bar stools.

Never Work With Animals, Children or Couriers

What a day!! My stress levels went through the roof at one point mid-afternoon. Here's why:

Over the last couple of weeks hubby and I have been engaged in an marathon eBay sell-a-thon, or so it seems; everything in this house that isn't nailed down is being sold. Well, it's not quite that drastic since the house still seems almost as cluttered as when we started, but you get the idea. Last month I listed so many things on eBay that I actually reached (for the first time ever, and I've been selling on eBay since about 2006) the per calendar month limit of 100 'free-to-list' items.

You can imagine the number of trips to the Post Office we've made recently and, forget the medal-winning Olympians, I think Royal Mail should paint the village post box gold in our honour.

Anyway, back to the story. Last week I sold a large item of furniture (let's call it a Plan Chest, as seen to the left of the photo below)

to a lady in Dartford; she arranged for a courier to come and collect it. Said courier was supposed to come on Saturday but didn't turn up; they claimed to have phoned several times, but I'm pretty sure that's not the case since I was in ALL DAY WAITING for them. Instead they said they would come today. Are you with me so far?

Yesterday I sold another item of furniture on eBay (let's call it a Pine Table.) The winning bidder emailed me about collection and I said that either today or tomorrow would be best since hubby would be around to help with the lifting and shifting, if necessary. Then I didn't hear any more from the buyer.

Fast forward to this morning when I received a phone call from a courier to say they would be with me in about an hour; the hour passed, the courier arrived and hubby helped shift the Plan Chest out to the waiting van. I voiced my annoyance to hubby that I had specifically told the courier company it was a large piece of furniture and it would take two people to lift; if hubby hadn't been there I don't think I would have been able to help. Still, that was by-the-by, the Plan Chest was gone and there was a lovely space in our kitchen (all ready to be filled with the new island - but that's another story), just like there used to be, as per this photo:

Fast forward a couple more hours and I received a phone call from the man who had bought the Pine Table. Can you guess where this is going? He said that his man + van had returned with the piece of furniture and, while it was a very nice piece of furniture, it didn't appear to be a Pine Table. SAY WHA???!?!?!?!?!!! Yep, that's right, the courier who had arrived was not the courier who was supposed to collect the Plan Chest, it was the courier sent by the man who had bought the Pine Table; except he hadn't told me he was sending a courier and the courier clearly had no idea what he was collecting, and we had no idea that he wasn't the courier we were expecting. A Comedy of Errors for sure.

The courier was no longer with the man who was expecting a Pine Table, and therefore he wouldn't be able to bring the Plan Chest back at that precise moment.

And then about 30 minutes later the couriers who were coming to collect the Plan Chest turned up. And there was no Plan Chest for them to collect. They could have had a Pine Table, but that wasn't what they'd come for.

More phone calls, discussions about Plan Chest couriers possibly meeting Pine Table courier somewhere on the M5, a lot of frustration and a heartburn tablet for me, and we had to concede that things were not going to get sorted this afternoon. The Plan Chest is hopefully being returned tomorrow; the Pine Table will hopefully be collected tomorrow and head to its rightful home; the Plan Chest will then be collected on Saturday when the couriers are next in the area. And then I can heave a big old sigh of relief. And wait for the negative feedback to come flooding in on eBay.

Let's Get Cosy (or Cozy)

I've mentioned before my love of cozy/cosy crime books, in fact one of the bookcases in the snug is dedicated entirely to my unread cozy crime collection:

Luckily there's still some space on the bottom shelf as we're off to the US soon, where I'll no doubt be stocking up on more cozy-ness.

Those that have been read are kept on another bookcase awaiting shipment to the very unglamorous depths of the garage, until such time as we build 'The Library Wing', or else get fitted bookcases built in the snug.

But why am I talking about cozy crime? Because I had an email from Waterstones a few days ago (due to being a Waterstone Card holder) and it included a link entitled 'The Waterstones Card guide to Cosy Crime.' I was suuuuuper excited to click on this link, thinking that I would find hundreds of new cosy authors/titles that I'd never heard of or read before. From that point of view it was ever so slightly disappointing as just eight books/seven authors were mentioned (some of which I've already read); but from another point of view, I found it very interesting - who knew that Agatha Christie was considered a 'Cosy Crime' writer? Not I.

But then thinking about it, I suppose the Miss Marple books are cosy in that the murders are rarely too gruseome and the settings are usually old country houses or rectories set in quaint English villages with duck ponds, village greens and fetes a-plenty. But, for some reason, I've always thought that cozy/cosy crime books were more of a modern invention, mostly written by US authors and set in craft shops, bakeries, cafes, libraries in American towns or cities. Well, I'm happy to have been proved (proven?) wrong because it now means that I'll have to read (or re-read) all those Agatha Christie books that hubby has in his bookcase. Oh, and does that mean that hubby is a closet Cosy fan...?

R You Ready?

Way back when, 2009 to be precise, when No.1 (and only) Son was born, I bought a letter 'A' to hang in his nursery. Because, although I tend to refer to him on here as DC, his name actually begins with the letter 'A' (DC stands for Darling Child, or Devil Child as a friend of mine once suggested), so the letter 'A' seemed appropriate.

Then it dawned on me that perhaps I could spell out his entire name. The only issue is that there are 6 letters in his name and at £10 per letter, that would have set me back £60 (math brain) and I am WAAAAAY to cheap to be spending that sort of money on a few measly letters.

Fast forward at least a year and I stumbled across this little letter 'h' in a vintage store in Lyme Regis. It cost a whopping £4.

Fast forward a little more and I found this letter 'T' at one of the regualr vintage fairs held in Somerton. I think it cost £2 or £3.

A little while later I found myself in the shop of the Chicago Architecture Foundation (in Chicago, funnily enough), where I spied this rather impressive letter 'r'. I think it cost $16 or so.

A few days later I was in New York and found this letter 'U' in Urban Outfitters. It cost $8.

So, that's an A, H, T, R, U.... can you guess what it is yet?

But still, I was missing one letter. And no matter where I looked, I couldn't find that letter anywhere. So, in the end, I decided to make one.

I took the 'R' I already had and drew round it on three peices of card.

Then I cut them out and glued the three pieces together to make it a bit thicker and sturdier.

Then I got hold of one of DC's old babygros that I'd been keeping for just such a crafting opportunity.

Cut out a piece from the back.

Laid my 'R' on top.

And started glue-ing.

Til it looked like this.

Then it was time to nail/stick all the letters on the wall in the right order...

It's only taken three years.