8. things that have been keeping me busy !

I seem to have been doing alot but achieving very little ! At least we had a good trip to IKEA on Saturday and managed to get everything we needed for an extremely reasonable price.

Two utensil rails for the kitchen plus 20 hooks and a basket. An ironing board and iron holder to put on the back of a door. A lovely white enamel colander (not because I need it but because it will look good in the new white kitchen). An air tight jar for espresso coffee. Six tablemats and a table runner. A paper lampshade for my partner's daughter's bedroom. And two packets of christmas ginger biscuits with holes ready to string up. The total £33 - simply amazing !


The night before, we had a dinner party and I tried to make the table look really pretty, but was unhappy that I had no table mats (just shows how often people come round). The new ikea ones are beige and the table runner a petrol blue, which will look great if I get out all the blue and white china again.

Yes I did do rather a lot of food for four, but there weren't too many leftovers !!! I really love making lots of different dishes like meze or tapas so I spoke to a friend and came up with the following. Meatballs in tomato and garlic sauce. Chorizo on it's own because it's so tasty. Roasted pepper salad with balsamic, olive oil and goat's cheese. Mozarella, tomato and basil salad. Asparagus with parma ham. Tomato and cheese foccaccia (I bought it ready made). Spicy chicken. Fried potatoes with garlic mayonnaise. And finally a large green salad with tuna, artichokes, green beans and capers. After dinner - stollen, florentines, truffles and some lovely coffee ( hence the air tight jar from IKEA because I didn't have one).

The tablecloth is from Spain but it's only to cover the table which we are trying to replace. Hopefully I'll find one I can paint white and then the new mats and runner will look geat.



On Wednesday and Thursday the week before, I went to Surrey to give a quote for some work, then spent the rest of the time with my oldest friend Pandy. Lots of shopping and coffee drinking was the order of the day. We went to Lingfield - a little village with an amazing craft barn, packed full of things I'd never even seen. Then we visited an adorable little old lady in a tiny shop full of clothes, china and jewellery. I found these in a box outside the shop - gorgeous hand painted birds and flowers on cork. All she wanted was £3.00 for the two !!!! I'm going to find some lovely frames and maybe double mount them.

My partner had a mad moment when he said we needed a new cupboard for the dining room and was actually prepared to look in charity shops. One hour and £45 later we came home with this - what a bargain.

I will paint it at some point, (although my old geezer was against it at first) but we are going to lay a darker laminate floor, so although I like the sideboard as it is I don't want lots of dark wood everywhere. We got it just in time for our dinner party so I loaded it up with a lamp, coffee cups, napkins etc.
My old geezer actually uses this room alot - for playing guitar, rehearsing and working on his computer, but now I feel the need to get him out, so I can make a proper dining room.

I displayed the shelves in the kitchen quickly because they had been my handy shelves to keep all my decorating materials on !

So the last week was pretty full, and very enjoyable until SUNDAY - when the ceramic sink we had bought off ebay just wouldn't sit flush with the worktop. My partner, the poor old geezer, worked on it for hours, and it would only sit well with the worktop jacked up about 2 inches at the front. So basically it has to be the sink and not us !

The guy we bought it off is happy to change it, but it's just having the time to get to Essex again !

 In the great scheme of things, this is nothing is it - life goes on and now I'm in Surrey having started the job I went to quote last week. I seriously need to get on with my list, but work takes precedence - so here I am !