Pressies!

We have some lovely friends. They give us things! We have been given very many gorgeous presents for our new house - and they're all perfect!

There's this beautiful crocheted blanket from Theresa - it must have taken MONTHS! It's so soft - I am currently fighting the kittens to see who gets to cuddle up with it. Generally I win.

This is two presents - from two totally separate people yet they work beautifully together. Aren't they clever?

The top uses our party invitation to make a 'New Home' picture - we LOVE it! Guy drew the pictures and I designed the card, so it's lovely to have it framed as a memento. This one was from the lovely Kath...

And the bottom is from Emma Wot Reads This Blog... The hearts at the bottom are for Mopsi, Wooster, Izzy and Fidget. Poor Emma had got this all organised when Ruby died... slight adjustment necessary, so we didn't have the heart to tell her that Izzy had gone too... However, Izzy moved in with us and saw Fidget and Wooster become proper little cats, so it's fitting that she should be included.

This next one is from two ladies at dog training whose names we don't even know - although we do know their little dog is called Jenny! How brilliant is this? We've put it on the shed...

... near the compost bins!

Yes that is a cat disappearing out of the frame - Wooster, we think!

And then this from Mac who lives in the village. When we give people sloe gin as a present it's a very polite bottle. This is a demijohn. We like Mac a lot...

The level was a fair bit higher when he gave it to us - it's very smooth and VERY drinkable...

This next one is a present for Mopsi, not us, and it STILL matches our style and home:

It's a hook - so we keep her collars and dog lead on it in the utility room.  Obviously the kittens have now discovered that they can get the lead off it, which makes Mopsi think she's about to get a walk...

And this from my auntie Annie last Wednesday - it's an old school bell! It came with the instruction 'If one of you rings this the other must come running immediately'. What a brilliant idea! We can see ourselves using it to get the other one in for lunch...

And finally, just to lower the tone a bit...

Yes!!! It's a TOILET sign! The only reason we haven't put it on the outside of the outside loo is that people on the bridle path will think they can use it... This one's from Louise, Mark and Charlie. Thank you!

As you may have gathered from this round up of presents, we haven't done a lot this week.

Next week it's curtains. With help from kittens.

Oh dear.

Sew far, sew good...

After last week when, frankly, we did absolutely nothing, we're back in the swing of things this week.  For me, this means getting to grips with making cushion covers for seats and the window seats.

My pal Alison has made curtains. This is how organised she looked at the beginning:

This is, quite obviously, How You Are Supposed To Do It.

Clearly I hadn't read the manual...

I had help:

And then Wooster joined in...

This clearly wasn't going to work.  However, I'm not entirely stupid, so I waited until the kittens fell asleep.

Sorted!

After everybody got banished, I managed to get the cutting out done and moved on to the sewing machine.

Notice the tongue sticking out in concentration...

Luckily, kittens find all this activity exhausting...

And I managed to actually get something done...

The window seats aren't actually, like, SEWN yet. It's just fabric wrapped around foam.

Works for me.

We decide to veg out...

Now that the build has finished and the party has happened we seem to have lost a little impetus...

We still have a long list of things to do:

Get floorboards
Put in plinths and skirting boards
Choose rugs to go on floorboards
Fit upstand in utility room
Make curtains
Make window seat covers
Put up iron banisters (currently being adjusted to fit by the blacksmith)
Paint one last coat of oil on the oak at the back of the house
Fit chimney top bit
Mow grass, mow paddock, mow other paddock, mow odd little paddock

So what did we do off our list this week? Precisely nothing...

It's been lovely.

We have (oh, OK then, Guy has), however, harvested a LOT of vegetables:

Peas:

Some sort of gourd...

Spinach...

Beans...

Apparently this one's a pumpkin. Looks like another gourd to me...

Strawberries!

Courgettes...

And different coloured courgettes making a bid for freedom outside the raised bed...

And what did we do today? Precisely nothing. We lit the fire, watched the rain go horizontally past the windows and took pretty pictures:

That's Fidget, who met the fire for the first time today. She rather liked it...

We watched the Tour of Britain, excitedly pointing out scenery that we recognised as the poor cyclists pedalled through the wind and rain from Worcester to Cardiff, and we ate the strawberries.

BIG thanks to Emma (her wot reads the blog) for a really lovely present... It had to be slightly adjusted to cope with the death of poor Ruby, and then we didn't have the heart to tell her that this week we also lost Izzy, our eldest, at the grand old age of 19. It's nice to have a reminder of her though, she was here when the house was finished!

It's a short...

Not so much of a blog this week as an introduction to a video...

Last weekend our pal Mark brought his drone to stay - and took a video of the cottage.

O. M. G.

Seriously - the cottage looks like something off the telly!

We are very very proud of the cottage. And very chuffed that Mark made such a great video.

Thanks Mark!

We realise that a video doesn't work so well in a book, so here's the (long) link to find it...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54HRk4GT2Zc&feature=youtu.be

Enjoy!