Settling in

Its hard to believe that we have been here 3.5 weeks. Actually we were in France for one of them, helping the Jones family settle into their new abode - you can follow along here - Chateau de la Ruche. 

Anyway back to us.  Its been an interesting few weeks, a lot of mishaps along the way involving water - leak from the bath, leak from the loo, broken stop tap involving an emergency plumber last weekend, slow filling loo, noisy/slow filling water tank, its was actually like chinese water torture.  But on the whole we are happy.

We have had most trades round now to check out the work we need doing, and are hopeful to get started soon.  Son in law Stuart has already removed and replaced the banisters and fitted new doors to the downstairs rooms, we like them so much we decided to get upstairs done too. We still have lots of boxes unopened as there seemed little point in setting up rooms only to have to pull them apart when the work starts, so its a bit like camping!!

ugly iron banisters give way to simple white

We have spent the day working outside, having a bit of a tidy in the front, washing down the fascias and cleaning windows, chatting to neighbours, they all seem very friendly so far.  Peter is currently replacing a chipped back door handle, not sure how that is going, I'm keeping out the way but there seems a fair bit of sighing going on!!

There are some good plants in the garden, all a bit overgrown but I am hopeful that we can tame them.  7 large conifer trees to come out, that will be fun, in fact 8 if you count the one at the front

A new fence to go up, the current one to the left has collapsed under the weight of ivy!  So as you can see we have our work cut out.  No chance to get bored and if we do there lots of wallpaper to come off

I'll leave you with a lovely rose from the garden