GARDEN GLIMPSES 25

Sorry for being so boring, but here is yet another cropping from the two apple trees. Yes, time to make yet more cider... I managed to bag up two large bags of stewed apple for pies and crumbles, but the rest went into two new batches of cider, after syphoning off batch 2 and 3. I now have 1.5 bottles sweet, 0.5 of dry, and 1.5 sweet batch two bottled up - ready to sip from December onward and the two loads below going at the brand new stage.

As you can see by the size of the apples I had over, it has been a 'too' good year for apples in our yard - sigh. I still have a few more on the tree if I can be bothered to cut them down...

My friend was talking about scooping up leaves to make leaf mould with - so I had some spare time and grabbed me a sackfull. The day before planning on scooping up another sack, it rained...so the second sack can wait!

My next shot shows the falling of fall leaves from my next door neighbor's verge tree. At least, were there anybody living next door it would be so - but the elderly lady has died and the house has been empty for a few weeks. I therefore did as my friend suggested and grabbed a second bag of leaves to make leaf mould with and only just in time - there is now activity next door and I assume we either have or will soon have new neighbors! I shall have to leave the next dropping of leaves....

FALL CLEANSINGS 51

Just one last shot of the polyfilla that needs to be sanded down before the walls are washed and Henry vacuums up a burp-full meal of paint flakes, polyfilla fall offs and plaster. Then it will be onward to the next stage of the transformation - me and my friend are going to chop up and remove the carpet...

...or so I thought. Sanding did not go very well, as usual - but that's one thing I do not mind - I rather like the lumpy look, so intentionally do not over-sand. I then prepared to wash the walls.

The result after around 4 hours was that more green paint flaked off, more chunks of plaster fell out, and the room looked a total mess.

Protected from all things volatile, I re-entered to spend an hour or two on the ceiling and rim. The former was not so bad; the latter had wallpaper glue to scrub off and took a fair amount of time. Finally, after the heater was on overnight, I Henry'd up the plaster, polyfilla, and paint flakings leaving a dank damp room with yet MORE flaking paint. This resulted in me using Henry on the walls to vac up some of the flaky paint....and leaving it overnight. My friend came round the next morning and said 'not to worry' about the flaking paint (even more was flaking off as she touched it)... 

...hmmmm...

The plan was then to await a grocery delivery inclusive of 2 polyfilla tubes on Tuesday to polyfill the new plaster-holes. Then my friend would help me get rid of that hideous carpet by chopping it out in pieces and taking it to the tip.

In hindsight, not worrying about the flaking paint may have been an error of ours - but more about THAT in a future post.

FALL CLEANSINGS 50

I recently accumulated enough nectar points to splash out on new bedding for free, and this is the result. Then it is back to the spare room horrors. Something in the room was making me feel faint and dizzy when I went in - even with a face mask. A friend of mine and I went thru all the possibilities - dampness, wall insulation, carpet...

... and she suggested cramming something in the wall holes and polyfilling them quickly, to be followed by chopping out the carpet ASAP. I crammed old shopping dockets into the gaps and applied polyfilla as directed, and indeed, although the result looks somewhat messy, the feeling of faintness and dizziness is no longer present.

It took a lot of polyfilla to fill all the cracks and holes in the spare room - 3 large tubs, one spray, and one tube later - and most of the cracks, gashes, holes, and plaster-fall-outs are dealt with. It is still very messy however, as I have not yet sanded it down.

My next task was to fill in the final cracks and holes and then sand down the lumpy polyfilla and wash the walls free of the flaky paint and this task has now been completed.

GARDEN GLIMPSES 24

Above you can see the left over apple pulp after I cut then blended the apples in my last post, early September, then poured them 2/3 apple to 1/3 water into a demi-john.

A quick shot of the back yard mid-September - showing the honeysuckle berries forming on the side hedge. Here are yet another load of apples taken from the tree... sigh....I was still cropping them in October, and here we are in the second week of November and still a few fall off the tree each day.

Next, here are a few fall pictures from the front yard, showing the berries and flowers still out. You can also see a couple more fruit on the passionfruit plant - which I am hoping will make it to ripeness before the frosts come. Some people say we will have a warm October/November again this year - and I am hoping so for November - October was, for I also have a few beans and strawberries 'almost ready' to crop at my allotment plot!

FALL CLEANSINGS 49

On I went - miserable, sick, and wobbly. After one day of work, I had the bottom layer completed - and piles of stripped paper, dust, and flaked off paint on the floor to deal with. My friend had suggested I use the black trash sack she wrapped her machine in to fill with the paper peelings - indeed, it took THREE giant sized trash bags to take all the peelings in the end.

This shot shows the room after one bag has been filled with peelings. looking at THAT picture - the presence of a pretty pinky/burgundy spare room complete with recliner and sofa bed seems a far FAR distant dream - that however must be realized in the next few months as I have invited 2 overseas guests to visit me in 2016 and they will need housing!

On the second day of wallpaper strippage, I began on the upper level - which consisted of brown paper, gray paper and white bubbly paper layers over grey-white flaky paint. Once again - major problems arose - not with the stripping of paper, which thanks to my friend's loan of the machine went quite well considering, but due to underlying hazards...

such as finding out that when the double glazing had been installed, the workmen had done a crappy job and left gaps above the window. SCREAMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!! This is gonna take more than one tube of polyfilla, folks!

Stay tuned - on the morning that I posted this pre-written blog, the ceiling had been undercoated and today the carpet came up...

FALL CLEANSINGS 48

Oh dear me - whattamess! I was happy to use my friends 'magic machine' to get the crap off the walls quickly - but it still took me two days to completely strip the lower and upper walls of paper. I encountered several hazards en route - including a gash in the wall where my father's recliner smashed into the plaster on one occasion...

...a mysterious colorful crayon-like design...

...a couple of 'fixed' cracks that will definitely need more fixing before a paint.

markings on the wall that might just have been the wallpaper print or damp patches - but as yet are unknown factors...

...a few plaster droppings... and by now I was totally miserable and ready for a flurry of tears. Ever since the initial day of stripping the wallpaper, every time I entered the spare room I came over faint, dizzy, feverish, and nauseous after 5-10 minutes - even when wearing a face mask. Along with the depressing piles of stripped paper, cracked plaster, and flakey green paint, I was feeling pretty much fed up at this point. I had to keep going, though - as I had promised to return my friend's wallpaper machine on the Thursday.

FALL CLEANSINGS 47

I even started on the bedside tables - I replaced the photo of my best friend in NY with a photo of a butterfly and tidied up my pink pouffe - which I use as a shelf. The plan is to continue by piling the books on the right to the left, emptying the slot on the left, removing the box on the right, putting the pink pouffe stuff into the slot on the left, and removing the pink pouffe.

But before all that palaver, I began on a major task thtn turned into a total nightmare. My friend L loaned me her wallpaper machine again - as seen in these photos.

As you can also see, there was 30+ year old green floral print wallpaper on the walls in what WILL be our spare room. The paper had been present since my teens, as evidenced by a photograph. The above photo shows the damp patch which hopefully will no longer be damp now I have mortared the exterior brickwork and had the heater on for two weeks.

The former paper was an orange print and I recalled this layer from my childhood as soon as I began to strip the green stuff off. I also located a thin white paper that was 'before my time' covering flaky green paint. I began....