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Tower of Babel?
Not exactly. More like a 'Tower for Baby'. Although far from a Mesopotamian stepped Pyramid, a stack of pillows in the bed isn't conducive to a good nights sleep (at least, not for me).
Kath's currently up to 5 pillows to support the baby-generated protrusions, and I don't think it will end there. My predictions reach double figures before the due date. 'This bed aint big enough for the 3 of us' springs to mind.
Of course, my interrupted sleep isn't being helped by Kath's cold. The regular sessions of wheezing and snoring combined with my lack of room to manouvre all adds to the problem. What's more, my usually effective tactic (a sharp elbow to the ribs) now longer works. When you're surrounded by a shroud of pillows an elbow isn't exactly that threatening, at least to Kath. For me, it's another matter - in almost Pythonesque fashion I find that my elbow bounces off the pillows and I end up punching myself in the back.
And a big thanks to Norly for the Christmas presents. A big pack of pillows. Just what we needed. Our pillows aren't exactly new. In fact, I'm sure that they are probably quite valuable heirlooms by now (perhaps I'll advertise them on eBay). They aren't even very comfortable. I suppose that's because they are, well, flat. I think you'd probably have a more comfortable nights sleep lying on a couple of teabags. Anyway, perhaps this means I can throw Kath's 5 old pillows away and replace them with 3 new ones? We shall see.
Ah well, suppose I should be grateful. After all, getting practise in for those endless sleepless nights can't be all that bad, can it?
A safe choice in yellow
Well, not exactly a rime, but a thick cloud of sawdust currently engulfs the 'to be' nursery.
The work continues to convert what we considered when we moved in to be the room requiring least attention into a habitable nursery. As ever, the old problems have reoccurred.
Poor quality plasterwork has had to be repaired, This has been a major problem all over the house (although it's not so bad upstairs).
External walls 'insulated' with sheets of polystyrene beneath the wallpaper has had to be removed (this did provide a seasonal flurry of 'snow' inside the house for several days as flakes of polystyrene drifted around the bedrooms and landing, but why people insist on using this stuff is beyond me - don't you know it just traps damp inside your brickwork and plaster? What's more, you use so much adhesive to get it to stick, it takes days to prep the walls when you need to remove it. Aghhh!).
And finally, you get back to the 'original' paintwork on the walls. I'm convinced it's some kind of distemper - as you wash it down, it starts to come away on the cloth. Unless you clean it off thoroughly, it soaks through the emulsion you subsequently apply. And it's all painted in that horrible 'institutional green'. I'm sure the previous owners must have been decorators for the local schools and asylums.
Anyway, with the walls prepped, the holes filled, the distemper sealed in and a coat of white emulsion down, we finally decided on a pale yellow. Probably the safest bet for a new-born's bedroom. Anyway, we're not ones for stereotyping, even if we did know the sex of 'bump'.
So on to the next challenge for this room. This is where we sited the new boiler and water cylinder after we had the house replumbed 3 years ago. Ever since then, we've been planning to build an airing cupboard around the cylinder, and enclose the boiler to keep down the noise. Until now we really haven't had enough motivation to get this done, so like everything else, it's been on our list of 'things to do'.
We always knew we needed an airing cupboard, and building it in to the alcove on one side of the chimney breast was an obvious use of space - this was our plan from the start. However, always looking to capitalise on these opportunities, I felt it would be the perfect time to build in wardrobes in the other alcolve, and 'over bed' cupboards in between. After all, babies probably need quite a lot of storage, don't they?
So, I was back in my element. Planning a proper fitted wardrobe system, made out of real timber, with joints and everything. Excellent. It's like creating your own 3D jigsaw from scratch. In my usual DIY fashion, it's built to last with a secondary function of holding up the walls and ceiling. Alternatively you could say that it's been over-engineered, but that's my way.
It was also the excuse I've been looking for to go out and get that router. I've waited over 2 years for the right opportunity, and accurately cutting dozens of joints seems like as good a reason as any. As usual, although I like my power tools, I find it hard to justify buying 'the best' when they only get used for very specific jobs. Again I opted for on the B&Q's Performance Power Pro models (1250W) - ideal for occasional use. It's no DeWalt, but then it only costs £79. It got a fairly good rating from the Consumer's Association in a recent test. Having said that, the depth lock spring did break after only 10 minutes of use and I had to have the whole unit replaced.
The second unit has survived 2 whole days worth of use. The main structure of the airing cupboard in now complete, and one door has already been fitted. I still have shelves to insert and walls to clad, but I think the next job will be to build the matching wardrobe on the other side. Until then, I have to decide if it's really worth clearing up the carpet of sawdust currently coating the bedroom floor and walls like the aftermath of a volcanic eruption...
First sowing of the year
I think that this year I've made a tactical error. Last season's broad beans were great. Sowed directly into the ground at the end of last October, they over-wintered well with only a small degree of attrition due to the elements. But even so, I felt that they were quite slow to develop and this year I wanted to try something different. After all, the whole of the vegetable garden is really just one big experiment and we should be looking for continual improvement year on year.
So this year I decided to sow my broad beans in root trainers and over winter them in the coldframe. This also gave me a chance to over winter my sweet peas as well.
This years sweet peas were also very impressive, adding some wonderful colour, height and scent over the archway entrance to the vegetable garden. They were a little slow in starting, however they were only sown in the Spring.
So the plan was set. Sow in root trainers in late October make sure they were kept suitably watered for the environment, lat them grow away freely for a few weeks in the greenhouse and over winter in the coldframe.
But then things started to go wrong. For a couple of weeks in late October/early November, sowing the beans were there on my list of things to do at the weekend. However, with one thing or another, they never made it to the top of the list. I did finally sow then in November, just a few days before the temperature plummeted sub-zero. Not what I had in mind to develop my strong seedlings. So I put them straight in the coldframe on the assumption that this would be significantly warmer in the icey cold temperatures that if I had left them in the greenhouse, wrapped them in a very thick duvet of fleece and waited. And waited. And waited.
I would normally expect to see some sign of life after a couple of weeks, but nothing. After 3 weeks I was concerned that the seed would be rotting of if it wasn't germinating properly, so took the only course of action that I had left. I brought them all in to the Conservatory. North facing and unheated, the Conservatory has historically been 'the coldframe' before we had a coldframe (if you see what I mean). The poor light quality doesn't help, but it's better than nothing. And as the temperature stays above freezing, I felt that the odds were probably in my favour.
And I was right! 3 days later, I had germination from almost all of the beans and about 40% of the sweet peas (which leads me to question whether it was the extra heat that helped here, or would they have germinated in a few extra days anyway?). Now I have 5 trays of broad beans and mixed sweet peas, all around 5" tall, looking very healthy, if not a little drawn.
And this has led to what I feel is my tactical error. They can't stay in the Conservatory for much longer. I need to harden them off and for the over wintering process to start. But I dare not take them outside for fear that the shock of the increasing cold weather will kill them off.
Watch this space for further developments.....
Christmas comes... eventually
Well, we did plan to have a quiet Christmas this year - after all, we do expect it to be our last opportunity. However, I don't think that either of us had expected it to be quite as relaxed as it actually turned out to be.
The week before Christmas, I started shopping for presents. Around about the same time, we went out and bought a chicken. The rest of the shopping was left until a couple of days before the event. For the first time that I can remember, I didn't have an 'hour by hour' plan of events for the food preparation, just a high level menu.
The Christmas tree didn't go up until Christmas Eve, the presents didn't get wrapped until after midnight. Kath was still wrapping hers (er, mine?) at 10:00am on Christmas Day morning. In many ways, it didn't feel like Christmas at all.
But we did get exactly what we set out for - a peaceful and relaxing Christmas. Plenty of food and festivities but no hassle. In many ways I wish we had tried this before. Never mind, I'll put a note in my diary to try again in 2023.
