I realise I haven't posted for a while, so here's a brief catchup ( Read more... )

We had an excellent nMC rehearsal today, we worked on four new pieces. But the occasion was also a wee bit sad. This was probably the last nMC rehearsal in my present house. I first got the group of singers that became the n'Early Music Consort together shortly after we''d bought and moved into the house, and most of the rehearsals over the last ( Read more... )

Home again, having spent the last two days in Ely, house-hunting ( Read more... )

So yesterday morning D was bullying me to to clear as many surfaces as possible, and shove as much as I could in cupboards, as someone was coming from the estate agent to look at the house, take photos etc. and give us an up-to-date asking price. So there I was in the study, with the small, battery-powered vacuum cleaner, removing the obvious bits ( Read more... )

Now that I've retired, the time has come to start decluttering and tidying the house, so that when the time comes, we can sell it and move on. This is a major exercise, as we have lived in this house for over 16 years, and I have accumulated a lot of rubbish in that time. So I have made a very small start on the dump that is my study. Outside on ( Read more... )

I'm supposed to be bringing order to the tip that is my study. As you can see, I really am working very hard at it...

The builders have finished! The new floor is drying out, the new plaster on the walls is drying out, there is dust everywhere that will take months to get rid of. But they have finished! We were able to eat dinner in the dining room at the dining table.

This is good!

Well, we didn't have snow, apart from the odd flake, and the workmen made it over here from Bishops Stortford. And of course they don't work weekends. Meanwhile there's dust everywhere, and the bathroom floor is feeling decidedly gritty. Hopefully they'll have finished by Thursday so that we have Friday and Saturday to clean the place and put up ( Read more... )

So the building work was due to take just over week, finishing around the middle of next week. We are camped out in the upstairs sitting room, with a kettle, lots of fruit, biscuits and eating take-aways ( Read more... )

Yes and no.

The workmen arrived today to start dealing with the damp problem that has been in evidence for a while, but haven't really started work yet. So we still had use of the kitchen tonight. Tomorrow, who knows? How long will we be without a kitchen? Who knows? Will they be finished by Christmas? I hope so...