A summer in the country

Soooo,

 

I've been a little incommunicado lately. This is mainly due to the fact I've been Newhouse-sitting as the regular residents go on their version of a grand tour. This involves driving to various parts of Italy in a battered and very red camper van; and then staying in other peoples houses (with their permission I hasten to add).

 

This is nice, I like Newhouse (which is lucky as I will one day live there). It also means I can do some little things to hasten the approach of that said day.

 

Anyway, I spent yesterday relaying a stone patio at the back of the house. I say relaying - we only relaid two flags but we did recut the patio where the edge had collapsed and remove the flags that where swimming across the lawn.

 

We also rebuilt (and extended upwards) a collapsed dry stone wall. This was a job on the list of 'to do' for a little while. But it soon got bumped up when, whilst examining the extent of the work required, we found someone cooking up in the adjacent outbuilding.

 

The last week also saw the instillation of new windows to one of the rooms of our house; and lovely they are, and the (finally) visit of a sparky. These two things bode well for the hoped for partial move being not too long away.  

 

In other news my sister-in-law etc. moved in to their new house. And it is, rather conveniently,  a pleasant woodland stroll away from Newhouse. 

 

I have to say they've done very well for themselves I feel - A lovely cottage conversion thing, large rooms and plenty of them. It's all good.

 

It also means they've borrowed (and in a couple of case taken permanent stewardship of) some of the pile of furniture we seem to be accumulating in the house at the moment. 

 

So all in all a pretty nice few days - admittedly not a great deal to write home about for you lot- but it fills me with a sense of enormous well being and satisfaction that I've achieved something.