North Stoke

This eagle eyed sea gull always knew when I put out the bread for the other birds!

A typical farm you meet up on the moors

So what has been happening at the cottage? We managed to get a table and two chairs from Ikea, which were duly made up with a hundred screws and bolts, all slotted into the right places.  The table had been a bit of a worry, has to be small but needed to be extendable as well, Ikea is of course cheap but the worry of putting things together is always there, anyway it looks good! Another piece of furniture was bought this time as well, a distressed cupboard with painted flowers, at least I think it is called distressed but times might have moved on, Vanessa Bell would be pleased with it though.

Small cottages need small furniture and that is difficult to find, we went to an antique dealer, looking for a desk for the attic, and he came out with the interesting fact that in times past, chest of drawers were cut in two to be taken up the stairs.  He also dropped another interesting fact, that some cottages had a 'coffin drop' from upstairs because of the difficulty of getting the body downstairs.  You removed a couple of joints and presumably broke through the plaster and lowered the body through.

The grandchildren were at school in the week so we did not see them so much, except for takeaway meals in the evenings and a couple of visits to Sanders Yard.  They grow apace, the girls always foremost, whilst the two boys are quieter.  Tom if he gets his grades will be going to uni this year,  Newcastle was a second choice but he seems impressed by its large campus, they are coming down to a London uni next month, which is his first choice.......