Dedicated to Misty the Collie.

Hello everyone. Its sort of back to normal for a while, Judith's Mum is recovering well and has some mobility in her new hip. Her Dad is still in Oxford and may take a bit longer to get as far in his recovery. So we are both carrying on with the renovation/decoration of the last bedroom. We ran out of money for the Decorator James, so are finishing off ourselves. I actually quite like painting and being 'handy' but I could easily have wept after 3 unsuccessful attempts to put up another ceiling rose/chandelier combination, sodding thing kept on pulling loose from the paint and had to resort to some very Heath Robinson tactics including step ladders, extending paint pole and no more nails. Oh yes, and hacking the rose to bits and re-engineering (that's bodging) the light fitting. Well, its up now and I will be happy never to do another one in my life. This is in the 'dual aspect' room that James painted for us. You may notice the photos have got a bit more detail, that's mainly thanks to the new wide angle lens I have bought. 'All the better to see you with, cried the wolf'

 

So this is the 'green room' so named by us because the previous owners had this as a kids room, complete with bright green woodwork , animal stencils in primary colours etc. It took 3 or 4 coats of special white undercoat and gloss to cover it all up. The new coving makes this room/en suite look like it was always there.

 

Same room but from different angle. Looks ok, no? The carpets come on Thursday for all the rooms and stairs/landing. Just a bit more in here, skirting needs another coat of gloss, the new easy (it says here) light fixture and some shelves/ rails in the new cupboard and that's all the decorating done, Hooooray!!!!

 

Because we have been waiting six weeks for the roofer to appear we got advice from another roofer who told us the roof vents that the project manager had ordered were for tiles, not slates so completely unfit for purpose. Judith did some research and the ones we really needed came from a firm in west Lakes called Burlington Slate. So off I trot to Kirby-in -Furness via Lancaster using the sat nav. This takes me up, up into the wilder parts of the lake district and through the gates of the Quarry . I reported to the site office, donned my hi-viz jacket and was told to report to the weigh bridge, collect tiles and return with chitty and pay before I left.

Weigh bridge and our little car

 

So, I return to the office , chitty in hand and Misty the border Collie takes the paperwork out of my hand and gives it to her owner the administrator. She then takes my credit card and returns everything  to me ,only slightly damp.

It made a long trip almost worth while.

 

You know in the last post I said the Salmon should be running about now? Well they aren't, or at least we cant see them yet. The Ribble is either very high or too low.  I now have a spy who is going to call me if there are any signs. John Reid one of my Fellow operatic singers lives just next to the weir. He was a time served woodworker who was apprenticed to the Mill and used to work on lathes powered by the mill wheel, right up until it closed in 1965.

The high flow does not deter some hardy folk from trying their luck

just up-stream of the weir.

 

The rehearsals for Calam are stepping up now, two evenings and Sunday afternoon for the next five weeks until Showtime. My beard is quite full now and doesn't itch quite so much. Wardrobe mistress wants to put me in an old army coat with pots and pans hanging from my belt, I said ok, as long as I can wear a coonskin cap......

 

Judith will be waiting in the wings on the last night with beard removal equipment.

ingleton waterfalls

I know, I know, its been nearly a month since the last blog update, I'm sorry but we have had the odd thing going wrong down south. Judith's Dad is recovering well from major heart surgery, is at home and well on the mend. He has a fall and breaks his hip/femur and pelvis. Poor chap. So he gets rushed in to hospital and moved to the specialist trauma unit in Oxford to have it fixed. Meanwhile his wife, Judith's mum has to go in to have her hip re-done in a London hospital, so poor Judith is frantically trying to visit them both in different towns. I decide to go down and give her a hand/moral support for five days, visiting them both several times. So this has sort of put us back quite a bit on the decorating front. We have thus decided to employ another local decorator James Cockell to finish the last 2 bedrooms , if our money will stretch that far. You have to be quite stoic about all of this, and remember that we all get older and frailer sooner or later, and what goes around......

Still, we have had some carpets fitted, at least the coconut matting by the back door. The Mounsey family, carpet division came to do this and will be laying the carpet throughout the rest of the house once all the decorating is done.

Coconut matting. Behind you can see the old Victorian tiles in the hallway, Judith spent ages with some special cleaner/sealant and they now look absolutely fabulous.

The weather has started to turn really autumnal and the tomatoes are all there but are refusing to turn red, just as Joan our neighbour predicted. This is about the only red one we got, which would have cost about £8! so we decided to go all harvest festival on them and make some green tomato chutney

instead. We have taken some round to Joan so she can have a proper gloat. 

we took a day off and went over to Ingleton and did the waterfall trail. Its about 4 miles and there's loads of spectacular falls (forces locally). There are some nice touched here and there , this one is by a fallen tree where there are lots of bits of slate that you can scratch your name in and hide amongst the piles of other peopled messages. Can you make out this one?

This is us by the big force. We got another chap to take it. He had previously been to Ayers rock and the bloke who took some of him and his family managed to miss out the rock completely, could have been Oldham he said.

Here are some shots of the falls and views looking back down the valley.

 

I particularly like this shot, I have been practicing with shutter speeds and f stops and it may be paying off.

 

 

Some of the felled trees have coins inserted into the annular rings, some sort of arboreal wishing well.

 

We have finished the old 'yellow room' and moved on to the remaining two bedrooms, its all looking rather nice, Judith's eye for colour is so much better than mine, thank goodness.

 

This is master James Cockell, nice chap, quite fastidious.

 

Couldn't resist putting this in. Its the champagne bar in the station on our way back to Settle after looking after the parents. We thought we deserved a small treat. Its one of my favourite places in London and featured quite heavily in mine and Judith's courtship.

Here is the chutney in production and

In jars with label.

 

Last Sunday we went over to see Sally my sister at a 30's themed event in Morecambe. It was a lovely day and lots of people has dressed up to join in the spirit of things. We walked along the stone Jetty and as the tide was out took some pictures of the mud flats. There were two people on horseback galloping to the sea, but so far away the look like flies in my shots, so here's one of the sea looking south towards Heysham.

 

Sally (right) and her mate Debs, getting their grunge on.

 

Other news, I am growing a beard as I'm now a 'grizzled old prospector' in Calamity Jane, and have a couple of lines. Show is on 28th Oct to 2nd November, so get your tickets soon, there going like hot cakes and sasperilly. Judith quite rightly hates the face fungus and I will have a ritual shaving off after the last night.

 

 

The rain this weekend will have swollen the Ribble and I'm hopeful of seeing some salmon leaping this week. They need the extra water to enable them to get over the obstacles.

 

Well, that's it for a bit, lots more has happened besides , but im afraid its all a bit of a blur tonight.

See you in a week or so.

M&J