WOYWW 419

My desk after I’d finished the latest session on my Infusions Mini-Album. Please see previous post for details. The pages of Book 3 are all laid out so that various ones can dry, and if I don’t lay them out, I shall get them out of order. On the craft sheet is an experiment – I’ve stuck down some cling film with transparent gel medium – this may or may not work! Beside it is the open box of my pens. You can also see the pages of Books 1 and 2 stacked up and secured with rubber bands, and the little pile of rejects/spare pieces which I am glad to say I am managing to use up for title pages.

Last week I also completed a spur-of-the moment project, my “Second Wind” mini-album. I had great fun with my first attempt at a Coptic binding.

Beatrice

(Photo taken in 2010.) We are getting very concerned about Beatrice. She has been grieving for Phoebe and over the past few days we’ve had a job to get her to eat anything at all. My hubby is taking her back to the vet again tomorrow – he took her a few days ago and she gave her some medicine that smells like Marmite, to keep things moving – she was producing very small hard little poos – and to give her some extra nutrition. She hates having anything put into her mouth (giving her pills has always been a complete nightmare!!) so doesn’t relish this being squirted in with a syringe and shakes her head and spits it all out, and since she’s not really eating, it’s hard to get it into her on her food. We think her time may be rapidly approaching now, only three weeks after Phoebe, but we’ll see what the vet has to say tomorrow. We thought we would probably lose both of them this year but I didn’t think it would be so close together.

Walk-in Pantry

The plaster is now all completely dried out, since the above photo was taken.

If the carpenter is able to stick to his schedule, he should begin work on my pantry on Monday, and I am so looking forward to this. I’ve coped very well in Mum’s little kitchen but can’t wait to spread my wings a bit and be able to do some more adventurous cooking again. At the moment if I do more than the basics, I am walking to and fro all the time between the two because what I want is always in the other one! I am very much looking forward to bringing the food back into the main kitchen and organising my new pantry, and I’m keen to know what the carpenter has planned for the door and one or two other details. Discussing it with my hubby the other day, I’ve decided to bring the small fridge through from Mum’s kitchen and ask the carpenter to allow space for this underneath the stone slab. After Mum moved here, my old fridge, which exactly filled the space under her counter, decided to give up the ghost (probably didn’t like moving house!) so we got her a new one, but it’s too small for the space really. If we need to equip the little kitchen fully in the future, we can always get another one, and in the meantime, I might as well have the use of it in a more convenient location. It’s very useful as an overflow, especially now the summer is coming, and I have never had anywhere to put it in my kitchen.

Garden

For my birthday, my hubby gave me a water feature for the centre of the lawn. Several months ago we’d looked at them and found that the ones that were big enough to make any impact were too expensive. Unbeknownst to me, he decided to make me one – from an upturned plastic plant tub from B&Q, a zinc tray from Ebay, and some rocks from the garden centre, and a fountain unit given to us!

It’s a huge success. The water flows down over the sides of the pot (which of course doesn’t show up properly on the photo). The other day we went to the garden centre and got the little wooden edging (which looks like sponge fingers lol!) and some extra rocks, and the plants. They should grow and spread, and fill the circular bed. Isn’t he clever?

The climbing rose is now in full bloom. It looks better this year than ever before.

We have got our first sweet pea out!

Diet

Red Letter Day yesterday! Tuesday is my normal day to weigh myself, and yesterday I had reached the grand total of exactly 4 stone lost since I started the 5:2 diet 3 years ago, at the end of June, just after we returned from our holiday! Only a few more pounds to lose and I’ll reach my target weight, after which it will just be a question of maintenance. I am feeling extremely chuffed with myself, not to mention feeling better physically for having shed all that awful excess weight, and enjoying wearing some of my favourite old clothes that I can now get into again after many a long year! It’s like having a new wardrobe.

Have a great week, everybody.