OUTDOORS 9

Here we see what happened to that collapsing - now collapsed - rose arch in the back yard after a 'wet n windy' stormy night on the third weekend of November. Plans had been to dismantle it when dry and time permitted - but due to the total collapse, emergency rose-saving eventuated directly.

You can see how the two rose bushes are now severely pruned back. Once dry weather and time coincide, I will clear the garbage - aka weeds and former arch frame - and then tie the roses - one to the house and one to the palm tree - or so was the plan.

The sack of brown paper shown in the front of the bags of carpet was taken down the plot between showers of rain and hail at the start of the fourth week in the month. The three large rolled up pieces have been deposited into the compost bin on top of the artichoke plant remnants and underneath a pile of horse muck.

In fact, my original intention was just to pop the paper and some veggie scraps/coffee grounds into the compost tub and grab a leek - but on sighting an almost full and barely touched pile in the horse muck area, I grabbed my bucket and spade and snatched a dozen loads.

Oh look - where have the rose bushes gone? Find out in my next outdoor post!

INDOORS 12

Friday 18th November came around, and my work duties were absent until evening. I therefore took to it to rip the carpet out. I managed to hack it to strips with the Stanley knife and bagged about half. The above shot shows the hacked strips and below the horrific amount of dust that accumulates UNDERNEATH a foam-backed carpet that is not moved for 35 years.

UGH.....

MY parents appear to have lain the carpet on top of a roll of brown paper when buying it for me in my teens. Below the paper is the original linoleum that I can recall from my childhood. I have yet to bag up the other half of the carpet, vacuum up the dust, and begin to clean the room. This will hopefully be done soon, as it is not as noisy as knife-ripping the carpet was and does not need to be done mornings only.

The phone/modem/power bar and bird/hedgehog food tubs will remain, as will the tall slim white closet - everything else will leave the room whilst I clean/polyfill/paint it. Except of course for items such as the chair - which I need to stand on to polyfill/paint/clean, and painting rags, etc.

As you can see by the above picture, the carpet has now all been bagged, the sack of dusty brown paper has already been removed since taking the picture, as I trotted down my allotment plot and popped it into the compost bin after lunch!

My next task might be to de-cobweb the walls, or just wash the walls and ceiling, or maybe tackle the closet - ugh!

INDOORS 11

I opened the closet door...ergh. I shut it again - I will deal with that mass of shopping bags, suitcases, boxes, and plastic bags AFTER I rip the carpet out...

Back to removing the curtains. I began by trying to unhook the material from the plastic hooks. This did not work. I tried cutting it off. This seemed slow and difficult and in the process of doing so one plastic hook snapped and another fell off. I decided therefore that unclipping the hooks would be better - and picked the curtains off this way, plastic attached to curtain.

The curtains were to be dumped in a black bag and put out with garbage - they were covered in cobwebs and stained with age, so of no value for me to be trying to sell them. The window was bare...

I kept 2 of the plastic curtain hooks, so that when I buy new curtains, I can additionally pick up a pack of new hooks - not being interested in ripping off the remaining ones from the material. They were dirty anyway, and old, and breaking... I will buy a bag of these when drooling over new curtains.

As mentioned a post or so ago, the first night in the spare room was somewhat uneasy. Of the things changeable, the easiest was to reverse my sleeping direction from facing west to facing east. The room facing west instead of east, a street instead of garden, and being downstairs rather than upstairs, I could do nothing about, but this I could. It sufficed in allowing me to sleep with ease, although I will 'prefer' sleeping back in my own bedroom again when able.

INDOORS 10

I went back to tackle the carpet after lunch, expecting it to take a half hour or so, maybe leaving me time to do a few other odds and ends such as dismantling the curtains, or washing a wall. However, the scissors would not cut the carpet. I went downstairs to fish out the Stanley knife...

This did cut the carpet, with effort - but was rather noisy. Yes it was just after lunchtime, but my son works nights and sleeps afternoons. I therefore stopped cutting the carpet to bits and did a few other things. I will return to the carpet chopping task one MORNING.

The next small task was to carry the paint and polyfilla upstairs to encourage me to 'get on with it'. This did not seem to be doing enough and I had plenty of spare time til my evening job, so decided to tackle the curtains.

These pierrot design curtains were purchased and erected by my teenage self when I had a pierrot craze following the enjoyment of watching 'The Good Companions' on TV, and later reading the book. I am now 50 years of age however, so even if the black and white coloring would not look too out of place in my 'new look' bedroom to be, and if washing 35 year old curtains would not be risky, the design is somewhat off putting. I prefer plain one-color drapes. The Medicine Buddha prayer flags I will retain, rinse thru, and re hang however.

These larger Tibetan prayer flags will also be rinsed and rehung once the room has been decorated. Also adorning the walls, I have a pair of etchings I was sent by a hotel I stayed at aged 18. These will probably be replaced after the painting, also.

Before getting much further, I decided to look into the built-in closet in order to see just how much stuff I would need to deal with - and whether to just shut the door or tackle it...

The slim new white closet that Liz gave me for Christmas 2015 stays! I love it and want to get all shiny white new furniture when I have painted and recarpetted the room.

INDOORS 9

I am now able to do a little something towards getting my room perfected daily, as time and energy allows. The morning after my first night in the spare room, I began by removing small piles of things from the bedroom to clear the carpet. This shot shows the room almost emptied. (The pile behind the modem is now gone, too.)

I then took an interlude from the bedroom to 'play around' with the house. First - the fridge. I removed the CD player and 3 CD's from the top and wiped it over. They are now in the spare room on the dressing table, leaving me a nice clean and clear fridge top in the kitchen.

My second minor house-shift task before reverting to the bedroom after living life, was the spare black shelf-box-thing. It had contained a few packets of photos I wanted to scan and sat around gathering dust...but once out of the bedroom, photos stored in a drawer, I washed it and wondered what to use it for - a sunglasses holder OR a shoe container? hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

My last task for 'the day after the furniture was moved' was to cut up the carpet. Scissors and bags at the ready - I lunched first. There was already a square lump cut out, as you can see - which happened when my late parents spilled green paint over it during their redecorating of the windowsill 1-2 decades ago. This will be kept, while the rest will be bagged ready for a tip trip! The square will have the small white closet placed upon it, so I can drag it side to side when painting the ceiling with ease and safety.

INDOORS 8

Here is evidence that Liz and I have now shifted the furniture out from my bedroom into the spare room. Placed where it will stay, I had the task of wiping over dusty drawer innards and refitting drawers after we carried them downstairs separately to the closets that they slotted into.

The bedroom looked sorry for itself - but only remaining are a few small items and the white closet/modem/phone that I will leave in the room and cover while re-deccing - and some dirt and dust.

The spare room began to take shape - drawers reinserted and bed ready to be made. Once my bedroom is refurnished, this furniture will remain in situ in the spare room for the use of guests. I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of brand new furniture and the return to my own room with excitement - but that will not be until after a lot of hard work cleaning, polyfilling, rehanging doors, painting, etc.

While I wait, my new guest room/old bedroom bed awaits me...

I did sleep, but do not feel 'at home' in the spare room. I am used to an open window with fresh air pouring in on me, whatever time of year it is. I am also used to facing East when sleeping, not West, and to hearing birds and animals outside rather than cars and people.

My final task down on that day of activity was to re-erect the alter from a table of items.

INDOORS 7

The recliner chair was dragged across the room and plugged into the second socket where the computing gear is plugged into a power bar. The bedside cabinet and 3/4 box were shifted to become bedside cabinets located behind the chair...

The latrer was placed in its new position. Next... I await my friend Liz to have free time and energy so we can move the bed, mattress, dressing table and chest of drawers downstairs! It won't be long before the carpet is ripped out and I can clean/polyfill the walls...

In the meantime, I tackled the next job in the bathroom. These two towels were old, dirty, ugly, itsy-bitsy...and heading for the bin. I tried to hang the new ones... much brighter, cleaner, and yet one was askew til a rehang after I scrubbed the tub and basin out!

OUTDOORS 8

Here is my early November frost morning shot of the leeks - including one carrot and 2 cabbages and the odd onion. In the background you can see what is left of my former fruit patch. I have moved most of the plants across to the new patch, as shown in the next picture, leaving half of the rhubarb for one more year and a couple blackcurrant bushes to be given away, and a few raspberry canes.

And here is the new fruit patch - gooseberries, blackcurrants, raspberries....the rhubarb is behind shot left front, where you can just see a dying down leaf. My final shot for this first frosty weekend in November is taken from the edge of the new fruit area looking towards the shed - you can just see my raspberry canes with the 4 bottled (and one unbottled) cauliflower seedlings up front.

Next is empty land - ready for spring planting! A trodden mud pathway splits it from the area planted with onions, broad beans, and garlic (also a row spinach/kale/3 butternut plants). The butternuts will die soon due to the frost - but I thought I would leave them another week...

There we go - the first leek pulled this year and what a big one! They look really shabby up top due to lack of rain, but several have already grown to a decent size like this one - my biggest of the year.

Mid November had me breaking the tops off the artichokes as they die back. I will be harvesting them shortly - once the ground is a tad drier. I also weeded my strawberry beds and dug out two blackcurrant bushes for my next door neighbor on a short 20-30 minute plot trot this weekend.

Back home, I pulled a few bits of bindweed from the base of the rose arch - but it will need the attention of secateurs in drier weather to remove the arch.

OUTDOORS 7

This tiny little vegetable is a baby butternut. Alas, the first frost began to crumple the plant a little too soon. Yes, they were planted late, but I had hoped for the winter to hold off just a couple more weeks - never mind.

This is my kitchen windowsill - almost all the nasturtium seeds are now dried, the tomatoes continue to enter the house at around a half dozen a day and color up on the sill, and I have three spuds that will be planted whenever they chit - be it fall, winter, or spring!

November reached its first weekend and it being cold and frosty, I could not do much at the plot before my daytrip afterwards. I could however take a few pictures.

The first shows the patch beside the shed - where one cabbage and one Brussels sprout plants have survived slug-munchings. I have also planted some broad beans and garlic - a few of which are surfacing, although with the frosted soil they do not show up clearly in the photo. Behind the big purple Brussels sprout plant, you can see my clumps of mooli and rocket in front of the raised bed of strawberries.

The other strawberry bed and the dying nasturtiums are shown in my next shot - as are the artichokes. As you can see they are starting to die off - which means it will soon be time to harvest the tubers to munch!

INDOORS 6

Here you can see one corner of my bedroom as is, awaiting clearance prior to  redecoration. There are mainly only small items, which I can deal with alone. However, I still have the chest of drawers as seen in the next picture, dressing table, and bed/mattress to take downstairs, and this will require the assistance of Liz.

And here is the spare room awaiting the furniture - above you can view the northern half of the room - mostly space at the moment - but where the bed, dressing table and chest of drawers will be sited. Below is the Southern half of the room which I expect to leave as is.

November began and an idea of maybe laying the bed E-W rather than N-S hit my head... Whilst this would not be as preferable for when I camped in the room, it would be much better for when it became a spare room and I returned to my own bedroom after a few weeks. I made scribbles and got out the measuring tape and...

...the floor heap is where the bed corner would go to if I did this. Here are the two main options I could toy with:

The next day I decided on the E-W alignment for the bed. I began to move items around in preparation.