This is St Barnabas Church that I attend and it is where the Best Beloved and I got married 6 years ago. It is such a lovely little church and I shall really miss it when we move Oop Noarth. I particularly like this view from the path, through the gate and across the field.
Last weekend we went back up to Cumbria for my sister-in-law's 60th birthday dinner and needless to say we viewed a few houses, 7 in fact. Before we got there though we stopped at a service station and were amazed to see this.
A work in progress for someone. A little project.
Anyway, one of the houses we saw was everything we were hoping it would be and more so Monday morning the Best Beloved was straight on the phone to the estate agent to make an offer.....which was accepted. We are so pleased and can't wait for the summer when we will move in. It's a really lovely house in a little village with a self-contained flat which we may rent out....and a 3 acre field so I will be able to keep bees. I'm really thrilled.
So I've been fervently packing but still seem to be making little headway. Some of the packing has been more enjoyable than other bits.
This was my grandmother's china cabinet and I remember when I was a child that it was full of her precious tea sets: one covered in roses and another with Japanese designs. I used to spend ages looking through the glass at everything but I was never allowed to touch anything. It also had all the little weather vanes we bought her when we went on holiday. They were little alpine houses where the man came out if it was wet and the lady if it was dry. My sister and I loved them but Nanny got a little fed up with them and begged my parents not to buy her any more. Instead we bought her tea towels from wherever we went. When she passed away we found all the tea towels in the bottom of her chest of drawers unused. Maybe she was saving them for a special occasion.
Now I have the cabinet and it is filled with all my precious things; some from when I was a child, some from when my children were little.
I bought these glass perfume bottles whenever I visited my sister out in Egypt. We went so often to the shop the owner began to recognise us. I remember him charging another tourist an awful lot more money for a bottle than he was charging me.
The cabinet is locked with a tiny little key that has tendency to fall out and I lost it once so now it has an obvious fob bought in France:
Back to the packing...and in the spirit of my New Year's intentions for simplicity and thrift I saved the box from the cat food:
and using the paper from the shredder I had the perfect strong and safe box for my precious bottles.
Now where am I going to put these little chappies?
Philippa xx
