my house views

I have been promising to put pictures of my house on this blog, for some time, so now I am going to try and get them up here..

About two years ago, I finally decided to change the colours in the front room and the dining room to grey. I had it in a cream colour before, but after many years wanted a change and from the time we had moved in, I wanted to paint it grey. I am very pleased with it, but going to change the accessories later this summer, and am trying to decide what colour next to suit..

As I also love the colour turquoise, I loved the picture that I found on blogland.. and I think this room could do just that, these bright colours make this room sing, and that is what I want for my front room... gorgeous** at the moment although the colours are fine, I think its a bit too bland and with the pop of colours in that other picture it would make my room sing too!!

As you can see its all very muted at the moment, and whilst it is calm and spacious, those colours of turquoise and even that bright spring green, would make all the difference I think.... I shall show you the dining room next which is in the same colour, but different accessories.. but that is a later tale... this is the first one for now.. comments always appreciated*

Another Senior Moment

I think |I am fairly on the ball as they say, most of the time, but then I have a lapse and it turns out to be a Senior Moment* A senior moment is when you do something so truly stupid, its laughable.. I have gone to the Dentist and say brightly, my appointment is at ... and I think I am a little early, and they say, actually, you are a day or a week late!! Monday last, I was booked in for a phsychiatric assessment, so see what impact all the issues I have to deal with since the failed operations, has had on my mental state. So, John my husband and I set off for a fairly long trip up the motor way, about ten junctions and then another motorway before reaching the destination. The weather was so lovely, warm sunshine and bright skies, so we rattled along feeling very good in ourselves .After about an hour and a half, we arrive at the treatment rooms. We are early for the appointment, but we went in anyway, only to find that the person we planned to meet, never held his clinic there on a Monday, only Wednesdays! WE can never do a wednesday because we babysit John's grandsons after school every week, so when I had received the original letter I had to call and re arrange on a different day. So Monday 23rd March was agreed and then it gets silly. I cannot remember having a letter of confirmation, but somewhere I did get the information of the new address and timing, and wrote it in my diary. However, I was still under the impression that the original consulting room letter would show the address I was needed to attend.. So, there you are, another moment of total stupidity and if he needed any confirmation of my mental memory, he could see that it was in actual fact quite awful** I have re arranged another meeting but that will not be until May now as these people are always so busy. I could kick myself for such a silly mistake, but luckily John was not annoyed at wasting the afternoon, because as he said, it was a nice ride out and he enjoyed the driving.. That was,for me, quite a relief.. With my first husband, not sure I would have got the same reaction! I have now put it up for all to see, that I wish to lose 49 lbs in weight and am going to try and attempt this over the next 6 months. I know I shall not be losing it easily, but I do aim to try harder.. Its so simple to accept how one is, but truly those pounds would make me feel so much younger and fitter in myself. So I am going to try and say what I have lost each Monday morning on my facebook page.. Lawd help me! ARE there any other tricks to achieve this. I am not able to jog any more as I have two metal knees and right hip, so walking is not easy either, but I do manage at least a mile, three times or more a week, taking my dog out.I know I shall have to keep a diary, and drink plenty of water, and be careful of portion size, but what else is there to chivvy it along? As I write this, I am 15 stones in weight, which is a lot for my height of 5 ft 5 inches. I would love to get at least a stone off by my Canada trip in June.. so it is really a serious matter to do... of course I have tried many many times over the years, and never got lower than what I am now.. I lose then put it back on , again and again.. very dispiriting as you can imagine. I dont want to be thin, just less bulky in my torso! My mother of course was tiny and petite and worried about my size after having all the children. each time I was a larger person, and that was five times I went through the pregnancy.. so wish me luck.. the buck stops here as the man said...

Decluttering notes**

Another week over and another one beginning... as I get to be older and older, I feel that the weeks are just running away hell bent for leather...weeks that are gone forever, and no way of slowing them down. When I was young, the weeks seemed to take forever to reach the weekend when we could stay at home and not go to school. Now it takes a breath of air, and we are seemingly again, at the end of another week. What have I achieved this past week? I have been deep into trying to declutter the rooms. It is a thankless task, because all the things I have accumulated were saved because they were or might be of use to me. How, is not the answer, but maybe in the future, might be** I have to be totally ruthless with myself and if I have not used the item, or clothing in the past year, then it has to go, despite any need in the future. so far I have decluttered two cupboards and taken the several black bin liner bags to the Charity shops locally. What will I do with all this extra space? I must not fill it up again, and for that reason, I have barred my self from buying any more in the Charity shops. This is a hard rule, as I have been visiting the local ones on a daily basis for all the 17 years we have lived in this area. Quite a ritual, getting out to the shops to see what new things were in, and whether I thought I could use them, and then buy them and they joined all the other things that I might have wanted in the future. Of course I had a valid reason at first for visiting these Charity shops. Moving into a much larger house, being a Georgian Rectory, I had to find furniture and decorating items for the house. It was great fun seeking them out, and I generally made a good deal of great choices. Gradually over time, filling all the spaces in the house and making it into a cosy home. Now I have got the house right, I need to declutter and make just the very best things I have, be used, and all the rest recycled back to the Charity shops or the Dumps. I never thought that I had anything of value that I had accumulated over the years. Then, looking at back stamps on china I realised that what I h ad chosen for its colour and usefulness, was generally a good well known name, and so these Items became even more precious to me. Then I discovered the amazing world of Ebay and started to sell a few bits of china, and clothing and furniture. Gradually over the years, I have been happy to see my chosen items going to newer and happier places all over the world. It is difficult to know the lines that sell the best, but I generally stick to china and teasets. These have been very useful and decorative as well as managing to give a good return on what I had spent originally. I see that I have been with Ebay now for almost 9 years, an amazing chunk of time, where did all those months go to? Now I am retired and getting rid and decluttering my house because it is highly likely that in the near future, we might consider down sizing now that we no longer use the house as our place of work. Originally we bought it so both of us would have space to have an office and work from home. Now we dont need all the space, so this is a real consideration in the future.

Mothering Sunday

Tomorrow will be Mothering Sunday in the UK. It is a traditional day when everyone with a living mother, will try and do something nice for them. If the Mother is dead, then we try and visit the Graves to leave a token of love with it, say a bouquet of flowers or plant. I loved being able to choose the biggest and most sentimental card for sending to my Mother. She would love the attention and then call me, so say it had made her cry! That was not the intention, but I knew that she would value the words within the card, which is why I took a long time choosing the right card. As they lived over a hundred miles away on the South Coast of England, I was not able to visit very often during the days I was with small children, but we always kept in touch over the phone. The number of times I would ring them in despair at the state of my marriage and say I couldnt deal with it any longer.. but after talking to her and my Dad, I always felt a bit better and would carry on for another few years.. I never stopped to think what the affect these phone calls had on her. It now seems such a selfish thing to have done.. Words are so easily said but not easily taken back. I wish I had not given her more to worry about. I had five children and a husband and although my marriage was struggling with his drinking, I should never have put more burden on her. I would have left her with a very troubled heart each time I spoke of my worries. When I was a child living at home and growing up, she was always so positive and glamerous and petite. Shoe size was only 3, so she was under five foot and slim and yet a bundle of energy. She had the most beautiful singing voice which had led her to perform at 9 years old at the famous theatre in London called Drury Lane. Although she was a natural worrier, she really had a most positive outlook and loved my brother and I, utterly. My Dad was a teacher and used to collect us after school, then drive us over to Richmond where she would be working in some dress shop. She was always the most productive os sales persons there, and would each time be offered the Manager's job.. These opportunities she always declined, as her education had been quite limited, and she didn't feel she would have been able to cope with runnning a shop and staff. Eventually I left my marriage as the drinking became too much, and she was a huge support along with my father. They also were able to take to heart, my second husband and loved him as much as they had my first husband. My mother lived for almost 87years and would have reached her hundreth year if she had been living. I miss her terribly, and not being able to chat on the phone after so many years, it is hard realising that will never ever happen again. My mother and I had a struggling relationship when I was going through my teens, but how I valued her later, and loved her company every time I saw her and was with her. She was a font of knowledge of the things that matter.. The real things, like love and relationships, how to manage a marriage, and how to love and grow your children. I miss her input every day, and tomorrow like all the Mother's days since I lost her, I will feel my heart ache again.

Birthdays

Today is the birthday of my eldest son and he lives far away in Australia. I tried to facetime him this evening, but he was out having a barbeque party at his in-laws, so I was unable to reach him.. however we did speak to him yesterday so he knows that I do care and have not forgotten his special day.. It IS his special day, but it also mine too.. It was the first time that I became a mother. When he was taken to be 'cot nursed' after the trauma of a foreceps delivery, I lay on my bed and thought to myself, how clever we were at having created such a darling little son together. `As I was almost 22, and starting my adult life, I had had no idea or wish to become a mother so quickly at such a young age, but here I was, married, living in a flat in outer London in the 1960's. When we had met after a two year absence [whilst I returned to live in the South of France with my parents, and he had gone to start University,] we quickly became an item again, and I moved in with him into the flat in London's PortoBello area. It was a time of sunshine and love and happiness and laughter. The whole young people of world had adopted the' Hippie' way of thinking. Peace and Love and kindness was to be aspired to.. I never really saw the heavy impact of drugs, I was drugged in Love and happy as a sandboy. To achieve my living in London, I had left home and had not told my parents where I was living. I realise now, what a terrible thing that was to do to them. They had no idea where I was, or how I was getting by, feeding and clothing myself, nor where I was able to sleep. At the time, my world, was just that, my world.. in other words ALL about ME... no one else seemed to come to be thought of at all* Looking back the sheer selfisheness makes me shudder in sadness at the pain that \I must have inflicted on my two loving parents and brother. They did finally find me, two days after my 21st birthday and tried to make me return home with them.. but of course I refused and stayed with my lover and husband- to- be. I know now that my leaving broke my parent's hearts and it was a long time before they could recover, but they never forgot the pain. It was indelible. However, that first day after my baby's birth was full of joy and hope for a happy future for all of us. At 21, my husband was of course far too young to be sensible as a father. He was at University, mixing with other students who were single and able to go out and about and socialise all the time. Consequently I spent many many evenings waiting for him to return home, sometimes after midnight and very often drunk too. However that was all in the future.. Today, having birthed a gorgeous baby boy, I was a new mother with a lot of hope in her heart. That baby boy never disappointed me in any way and continues to have a smashing relationship with me. He is still also in touch with his father, but not as close as with me. For all his faults his dad was trying to be a good dad, but was damaged terribly by the circumstances of his own growing up and was too damaged to really be able to bond with his children, [and we had five of them together during our marriage] that last twenty three years. All these years later, although my marriage broke down, he was the man that fathered my son and for that I will be forever grateful, as he turned out to be such a wonderful earnest,caring, loving and clever son.