The minimalist look

 I've always wanted the minimalist look in my home and wherever I've lived, I've never managed it and I've never managed to find a kindred spirit who understood the advantages of having space rather than 'things'.  Longtime readers of this blog will know only too well that Keith is definitely not minimalist and the idea of having any kind of space not crammed with what he would call important things and I would call rubbish, though maybe not to his face, is a completely foreign concept to him.

 Almost two years ago, we had the kitchen re-fitted, which was great except that I sort of lost sight of the fact that even though the units were new, the kitchen is still the same size and still only holds the same amount of stuff. So now, I am looking at videos on YouTube for ideas on how to cut down on 'stuff' and free up more space.
(Note that I am talking here of people who are voluntarily cutting back and 'downsizing', not those who unfortunately have no choice.)

 Boy, has that been an eye opener! There are people out there with kitchens the size of small cupboards who boast of having empty drawers and cupboards as they have too much storage space for their needs!
Some have only two plates, mugs and sets of cutlery.
What do they do when they have visitors? I wonder.

One woman only has enough food in the fridge AND freezer for a week. By the time shopping day comes round again, the cupboards, fridge and freezer are bare.
What does she do if she's ill or something crops up and she can't go shopping that day? These things happen. And does it mean that she has the same menu week in, week out? Not like my system at all. When asked what I am cooking for the evening meal, my reply is usually 'Whatever falls out of the freezer when I open it,' to the amusement and/or horror of friends who pride themselves on being a little more organised.

 So, having read this far, if you look at these photos and have any ideas as to what can be ditched, do let me know.

In the meantime, I am thinking of doing my own YouTube video on Keith's desk ... Now there's a challenge!

Walking in the valley

I haven't been down in the valley with Toby for several weeks now, but the other day, we did pay a quick visit. It was a lovely day, there were plenty of mallards squawking and squabbling, as they do, and a few coots but no moorhens. 

Most of my photos are taken on an iPhone 6 plus, one handedly, as I have Toby's lead in the other and let's face it, Annie Leibovitz et al really have nothing to worry about. But maybe I should look at some instructional videos on YouTube - although they would probably begin with something along the lines of 'Ditch the dog and use both hands.' 

Or, perhaps I could train Toby to take them ... 

Dad's bench

It was probably back in the eighties that Dad bought a new wooden bench for the garden. It replaced the one he had built himself, which had been there since we were children, and always sat under the dining room window to provide a vantage point from which to survey the rest of the garden. Mum used to sit there often in the summer and Dad too in later years. So when he moved up here to live near Keith and myself, it came with him and provided another vantage point in another garden.

After he died, it came to our garden and being by then in need of sprucing up, I sanded it down and coated it with Osmo oil, which according to Kathy, would be better than varnish.

"Make sure you put several coats on," she said, after I'd put the first coat on and thought I'd finished. So I did.

So there it is, in all its glory, in our garden, where I can sit on it and survey our garden  - and Keith's shed, of course!

Keith's 'nother new hobby

Regular readers will probably know that Keith is a man of many talents and is always 'fettling'. Recently, this has mainly involved doing things with pieces of metal and lathes and mills in the shed - sorry, his workshop. Every so often, he emerges to tell me what he has been doing, scattering tiny shavings of metal and plastering door handles and walls with black handprints in the process. I do sometimes think back with great sympathy and understanding to Thora Hird's character in 'Last of the Summer Wine' as she refuses to let her husband in the house before she has laid down copious sheets of newspaper. I'm just not quick enough!

Anyway, this week, he has discovered a webcam focused on Trondheim port and has spent many happy hours watching the comings and goings there. Actually, that's not strictly true. Ships not generally being fast moving, he can spend hours watching very little, so then he progessed to www.marinetraffic.com, which he has used a few years ago when he was tracking the journey of the Delica which he had bought from Japan. (Yep, don't ask. I can't believe I didn't blog about that!)

However, he can now follow and identify the ships and ferries that travel up and down the Norwegian coast. Remember Slartibartfast of 'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' fame? He spent a lot of time designing the fjords and coastline of Norway and, looking at the map, he could be justly proud of his efforts.

So, from there, we progressed to another site which shows air traffic and Keith had just identified a Virgin plane on its way from USA to London, when, hey presto, we heard it outside and managed to catch sight of it as it passed overhead. I kid you not! Big Brother is watching you takes on a new meaning when Keith's on the case.

Of course, he didn't do anything useful, like book us a Norwegian cruise, but maybe he'll get round to that tomorrow ...

The Horses' Field

Toby and I walked past the horses' field the other  day and these two were peacefully surveying the world and all passers by. The photo is poor quality I know,   but you try taking a photo with one hand while trying to restrain an energetic, impatient small dog with the other! The field is quite large and houses about a dozen horses and it's the one which is currently under threat of being covered with yet another housing estate. It isn't really the horses' field, of course, but is owned by the university and rented to a nearby riding school. However, the university have decided that they need to sell various pieces of land around Wrexham in order to fund their fancy new projects, and that's why I'm pretty sure that, in spite of all the local objections, and we have objected very strongly, although I still haven't had to resort to chaining myself to railings,  they will end up selling the land with outline planning permission for 127 houses, which is their current aim. 

Of course, we have just endured six years of building noises and disruption on the land behind us, the local primary school is over-subscribed and has nowhere to expand to accommodate growing numbers of pupils, the local surgeries, well they are not really able to meet current requirements, let alone an ever increasing local population, and the roads are more country lanes than roads and busy enough at present.

Maybe the council will listen to our objections and refuse planning permission, at first anyway. But as we know from past experience, applications will be re-submitted two, maybe three times, until eventually, permission is granted and we shall lose yet another piece of green in our area.

The best day of the year

Actually, it's the best few hours of the year, for teachers at least. The summer term is nearly at its weary end. If you've been lucky, these last few weeks have been sunny and dry, but not too hot, just pleasant enough for the children to be able to have outdoor playtimes and maybe a few extended PE lessons to boot. After all, that excited, pent up energy has to have an outlet somewhere (and that's just the teachers!)

The days are being counted, then the hours. Parent evenings, reports, special end of year assemblies, tearful goodbyes (or not) to Year 6, with a brief consideration of next year's oldest class waiting in the wings - however nice they are now, by September, the hormones will have kicked in and they will quickly transform into the worst Year 6 ever - all are done for this academic year. 

And now come the best moments of the year, driving home, knowing that six weeks of child-free time (other people's, that is) beckon like a welcoming oasis in a hectic life. Yes, there is always lots of preparation to do during the holidays, both in school and out. (DON'T let me hear the faintest whisper of teachers getting longer holidays than anyone else!) However, putting in the hours at home or working in school with only colleagues,  caretaker and cleaners for company, is an extremely welcome alternative to the normal school year, just for a few weeks anyway. 

I think back to my working years and immediately I can conjure up that end of year feeling. But now, the joyful feeling comes from knowing that I don't have to do any of it any more. Getting older means getting a little creakier and having a little less energy, but it certainly has its advantages!

An ending

Jim Cunningham 08.09.36 - 14.07.2018

Rest in peace

Happy Birthday

Yesterday was an important day, one of those days for looking back and recalling old memories and for wondering yet again at the swift passage of time. It was Elder Daughter’s birthday, but not just any old birthday, this was one of those ‘stand out’ numbers - forty, to be precise.

However much you like to think you are prepared for these red letter days, they always have a tendency to creep up on you and catch you unawares. They provide an unwelcome reminder of how swiftly life is racing by and there is nothing we can do to stop it. When I was forty, I was horrified, to say the least and by the time fifty came calling, I had decided that I was not prepared to acknowledge any more birthdays. It has taken a very long time to convince everyone that I was, and am, completely serious about this, even if it does mean missing out on presents, so I have resolutely remained fifty-ish ever since and people remind me of my birthdays at their peril. After all, it’s only a number and no-one is a different person the day after their birthday to the one they were the day before.

Still, we are all different and Kathy duly celebrated her imminent big day at the week end and then came to stay with us on Tuesday night, so she had her birthday morning with us, which was lovely and much appreciated. And of course, it led me to thoughts of that day, forty years ago, when I went off to the local hospital to be induced, as she was a bit late putting in an appearance. (This regrettably poor standard of time-keeping has never left her, by the way!) I have vivid memories of the euphoria of seeing her for the first time, holding her in my arms, coming to terms with the fact that now I was a mother and totally responsible for this new little being.

“Once you have a child, things are never the same again,” said one of my sisters in law, mother of three, and indeed she was right.

So, memories of the last forty years:
A tomboy who loved climbing (mainly up the built in shelves in the living room!) and playing with cars, who hated dresses and found playing with dolls supremely boring.
A clever, determined, motivated, hard worker who has a successful career in medicine and also loves gardening and collecting guitars.
Yep, she's turned out all right. It's all in the genes, of course ...

A trip to Liverpool

Yes, we country bumpkins, Keith and I, ventured up to 'that there Liverpool' last Friday to visit the Terracotta Warriors exhibition in the museum. (In my absence, Liverpool museum seems to have upgraded itself to World Museum, but it's still there in William Brown Street.) Not only that, but we went by train, which neither of us has done for some considerable time. Keith wasn't too enthusiastic about fighting his way through central Liverpool and we would also have needed to be sure of parking nearby, as his walking is somewhat limited these days.

So the train  was our choice of transport, starting off at the little station in Gwersyllt (facilities none, not even anywhere to sit on one of the two  platforms) and bowling along to Bidston, where we changed for the train to Liverpool. It was interesting to note how, the further north we went, the better equipped the stations were. Obviously, Lime Street and its neighbouring stations are important interchanges and far bigger and more important than our little local ones, but to anyone who doubts the lack of investment in the infrastructure of North Wales - Are you listening, politicians? - I strongly recommend an attempt to travel around the area using public transport. If this were a blog about such political themes, I would also suggest a glance at this article, but  perish the thought - it isn't, it's about our trip to Liverpool.

The weather was beautiful and we really enjoyed our journey. It's a long time since I have visited the museum and this trip made me remember what an amazing place it is. You could spend a week in there and still not have seen everything but we were there specifically for the Terracotta Warriors exhibition which was one of the best special exhibitions I have seen. From a total of 6000 life sized warriors guarding China's first emperor and only discovered in 1974, ten figures, including a cavalry horse, and other artefacts, some of which have never been displayed in Britain before are the focus of this exhibition and, while I couldn't hope to do it justice in this post, if you click on the link above, it will give you more information and some explanatory video.

In the meantime, I will punish you with a few of my own photos, which don't in any way do justice to what we saw on Friday, and if you are anywhere within reasonable travelling distance, do try and visit yourself. I believe tickets are selling out fast, although the exhibition is there until October, so hurry!

New look chairs

There are times when I succumb too easily to the 'attractions' of daytime viewing on BBC1. I make no excuses for the fact that sometimes, especially if the weather is bad, and let's face it, we'd have difficulty remembering when it was good over the past several months, I waste the time I should be spending on dog walking, Welsh learning etc and instead, take the easy road, the path of 'Homes under the Hammer', 'Doctors' or, my latest addiction, 'Money for Nothing.' (In my defence, I do also watch BBC2's 'The Daily Politics Show', with the delightfully acerbic Andrew Neil and Jo Coburn.)

'Money for Nothing' is about three presenters who descend on recycling centres, persuade people to surrender their rubbish and then take it to various colleagues who are in the business of transforming these offerings into wildly different objects, which are then sold to unsuspecting customers for exorbitant amounts of money. (I often wonder if some people should actually be trusted with money, when they can be parted from it so easily!)

Don't get me wrong, sometimes the transformations are skilled and imaginative, usually when the object is not to make a coat rack out of an armchair, for example.  One of the programmes recently, showed a pair of seventies dining chairs (think Ercol or Schreiber) which were sanded down and given new seat pads. I thought they looked marvellous and immediately decided that was what our equally seventies dining table and chairs also needed. Sand them down, get rid of that seventies orange hue and, hey presto, a new dining set!

This is where I ran into my first obstacle - Keith. Not literally, you understand, but verbally. Not a good idea, he said, as the top of the table is veneer and sanding that down would be very tricky as it would be all too easy to inadvertently sand a hole in it and ruin the effect totally. I could do the chairs, but then they would look too different from the table. Further investigation into going down the white chalk paint route, which I think would have looked great, met with an equally unenthusiastic response.

So, in the interests of domestic harmony, I limited myself to re-upholstering the chairs and now, they look like this: