OUTDOORS 41

October has begun, and within the first week I decided to clear the tomatoes at the plot. If I waited, I might get an extra 1-2 dozen, or might not - but we had already had one night where we almost had a frost which had caused the stems to begin to turn and I decided to pull them - having had 2-3 hundred fruits from my plants already this year.

I also brought the chili and lemongrass plants home after harvesting the former, to overwinter in the poly tunnel. Here you can see I also had one capsicum plant!

Taking a wander round the partially cleared for winter poly tunnel, you can see how I still have a half dozen tomato plants hanging on thru October, along with a couple buckets of spuds, and the chilies and lemongrass I will be overwintering. On the other side, its cleared and I have soiled up containers ready for February/March seed plantings - I just need to rip out the bindweed!

Down the plot, you can see the front is tidy and planted - garlic, broad bean, shallot in most of the plain mud, with a few onion and 2 other plants transferred from other places in front of the leeks and Brussels sprouts. Round the corner, you can see the next lumps - raised beds, cabbages, kale, more cabbages, leading back to the raspberries. Half the soil is dug over and half is not - yet.

The fruit corner has been tidied up - 4-5 gooseberry bushes and a blackcurrant removed to the freebie patch and up for grabs - to be replaced by blueberry bushes. I have two which I moved into the new patch - and there is now room for 4 more! Rhubarb is dying down for the year and will get a dose of horse muck when I next get there at the same time as a muck delivery.

Finally for today, I brought home some kale and Brussels sprouts from the plot - along with leek and cabbage I should have something home grown to keep me going thru til the close of the year - and I have been informed there will be a Brussels sprouts shortage this Christmas! (NOT for me!!)

INDOORS 66

Liz suggested I trim the wine colored carpet in the coffee room - which I did in the above photo. I also painted the floor grey with left over paint from the toilet walls.

With the two tiny paintbrushes in the set I purchased when shopping with Liz recently, I was able to 'tidy up' the painting in the toilet, where the grey met the gloss-white. The floor was then ready to be laid. As I was having one of those days where I bumped into things, dropped and spilled things - I postponed the floor laying and ripped off the bathroom door draught bar - as you can see it's a horrid thing, impossible to clean, and I don't want it - so I took it off when washing and sanding the door down ready to paint.

One coat on, I changed project and decided to lay the toilet flooring. The first step was ripping off the former lino covering, which no longer fitted since a new toilet was installed earlier this year. Liz and I had bought a piece of lino a few weeks back and she had picked it up for me - I was just waiting on the right day to lay it and it came in October.

I had a proper stanley knife at my side and set to work, shoving one corner into situ and knifing along bits til it fitted the corners and round the loo. I was not exact enough for perfection, but it was as good a fit as the former lino had been on the old loo.

I had a few scraps spare, so decided to recut around the toilet and insert the spare bits under the almost-ok hole round the loo - which gives a better finish to the job, though I may have to glue the smaller pieces down if they move. Back to the bathroom door, needing a second/top coat of gloss...

It is done - as of  Mid-October. Now for those bathroom guys at Windsor to come do up the rest of the room for us.....

INDOORS 65

In the last post, I mentioned repainting the front door and having got the paint and brushes bought. The final photo illustrated the door once it had been wiped and sanded. The paint was supposedly dry in 2-4 hours, and after the sanding I painted the bottom coat, left it to dry, and looked at it.

I definitely prefer the purple door to Dad's conventional choices - his last choice being white, prior to that, seen thru flaked off paint, red. Previous colors I recall include green, yellow and blue - all basic everyday colors - nothing exciting!

I went to the store thinking probably purple - possibly peach or pink. The options in the better known brands not being any more adventurous that Dad's choices, I opted on selecting a color and having the paint mixed for me - so I could get the shade I desired - PURPLE! Above you can see that I decided to paint the knocker and letter flap as well.

After 3 or so hours, it felt dry enough to repaint - and I had left a message for Liz to let her know the toilet flooring had arrived in the store, but thought she was out, so got on with coat number 2 - and left a spoon in the mail box to ensure it didn't stick. Liz called me back a few minutes after I finished painting the top coat to say she could take me to collect the flooring - alas, I could not leave the house with the front door wide open because of wet paint.

Thankfully, Liz had time to grab the receipt and then fetch the roll of flooring for me - the toilet will be my next project! So far, I have painted the walls, painted the glass surrounds/door, and this morning finished glossing the window and started the toilet roll holder. I therefore only need top coat the toilet roll holder and patch up any gloss splashes on the wall before laying our new floor! Today I also sanded and painted the exterior surround of the front door, so other than one more coat of paint on that, the front door is also finished! That will leave me with painting the bathroom door and waiting on workmen to give us a brand new bathroom! The bathroom renovations is a little beyond my skills, even the ones I could possibly learn.

INDOORS 64

My next task was on the arrival of the free-to-collector leather sofa. It only cost the delivery fee so was a total bargain at £40, as despite being worn - it is far from being worn out! I had to decide which way to lay the coffee lounge out....

I ended up going for the sofa across the east wall - though I am still toying with changing it to the north....

As depicted above, my tablecloth was getting worn out. I recently picked up a new 'washable/disposable table covering' - aka plastic tablecloth - for use on the kitchen worktable. The new cover blends in better with the kitchen color scheme.

Yes, I am still playing lava lamp with my washing up liquid! My windowsill is far from clear however - due to the recent placement of semi-ripe tomatoes. I have a few dozen in various shades of ripeness from first orange tinge to almost ready to eat lined up to ripen.

My next project, done at the close of September was the front door. Liz had driven me to B&Q on the Saturday, where I purchased a pot of 'Purple Storm' Valspar paint. Two days later, we finally tracked down black bristled paint brushes at Tesco - Sainsburys and B&Q only having those ghastly floppy soft white bristled brushes that I cannot imagine using successfully and Asda having run out.

OUTDOORS 40

In August, much in the vegetable line was croppable. Here you can see the horizontally growing tomato bushes beyond the corn with 2 cabbage patches. Our recent crops include the last of the raspberries - really - even the autumn ones are done now - and another handful of kale (I am getting 50% of it, as butterflies love to lay eggs which love to become caterpillars which love to eat it - and I haven't the heart to commit murder).

August continued and the array of crops varied, but basically consisted of corn, tomatoes and cucumber. Occasionally a stray potato is dug up as I dig ground over ready for the next crop or season and sometimes I will bring home a few chilies as shown above within my haul. The last week of the month brought me my first cabbage to harvest!

As evidenced above, tomatoes are piling up. A prolific crop from both poly tunnel and allotment plot this year, tomato sauce is on the diary agenda of things to cook and create - along with chili sauce and chili flavor vegan cream cheese. There are more crops building up...

...there we can see kale, cucumber, broccoli and chilies. It wasn't long before there were more tomatoes, though - along with corn, cabbage and our single passionfruit for 2018.

I was getting too many tomatoes - far too many. This is my second batch of tomato sauce - 6 jars total now, and I still have ripe and ripening tomatoes all over the kitchen - in the fruit bowl, on the dresser, and along half the windowsill....not to mention green and just turning tomatoes still on the plants!

INDOORS 63

To start today's post, I returned from a day out drenched from some heavy showers to find the interior not much better off than me. A trail of water was running down inside the window of the spare room... I have since polyfilled the entrance hole on both interior and exterior.

The bathroom saga continues - after the quote came in, I made an appointment to discuss details, while asking my son what he would prefer to do - JUST the bath replaced by shower at 3 grand apiece, plus basin/one wall paneled at around 3500 each, or 'everything' we want - at a bit more than we arranged or I had without raiding my fixed term deposit - providing he could loan me a grand til my term deposit matured and I could repay him the grand. He chose the 'everything' option.

We are getting the bath ripped out, a shower installed - the main 'essential', plus the ceiling lowered, walls panelled, a new basin with vanity to hide the pipes, and new flooring - all the extras to make a fancy, perfect room! Taking a look at the gross result of what we already have, I am sure you can feel my relief and joy at the thought of having an easy-to-clean, posh bathroom in a few months...

Currently, I really like our cabinet - which was Liz's 'old' one when she had her bathroom renovated by these guys 2-3 years ago - but far better than dad's wooden cabinet that was paint-peeled and stained. We are keeping the cabinet!

The coffee table that I collected with Liz of course needed assembly. Had it been Ikea, the 2-step instruction would not be the only simple part of this task - but it coming from Argos, screwing double ended screws into table legs took more than an hour - yes, for just 4 legs! Once I had clamped the screw in pliers, I could push/wind-on the legs, but this took a lot of time and sweat and was extremely difficult. Had I got a woodworker's clamp, I could have done this faster, but...

Once inserted into the legs 50%, it was just a case of screwing the leg with the protruding 50% of screw into the table top - this task was easier than the former and I was soon able to stop sweating and gathering blisters with the completion of my new coffee table.

INDOORS 62

A bagfull of recently dug up spuds is illustrating my latest crop from the plot. I have potato leaves gradually yellowing out and am able to bring 2-3 plants worth home per week. I have had a lot of trouble with wireworm this year and about a third of my crop is unusable, though. Next up was clearing, cleaning, and refilling the dresser.

As you can see, I have used former face flannels as lining. My late father had about two dozen in stock - as he bought new ones everytime one got a bit rough or stiff, only liking very soft ones - but I don't use them myself. As you can see below - it really needed a thorough clean! Actually, I think it will also go on my list of things to paint - which now includes the wine closet and coffee lounge pathway along with the pantry, as you will soon observe.

As you can see, even after a scrub, it looks kind of grotty in the corners - so it is also added to my 'painting jobs' list. As regular readers might recall, turning out the pantry is one of my favored chores. I don't know why, though.

Going back to the coffee lounge, you can see my windowsill has come up clean - and I exchanged my overgrown former flower tray for a lemongrass plant, throwing the former into the yard. Here was the seating arrangement - alas, only room for one person to sit and sip.

Oh look - I seem to have collected a proper coffee table - with room for more than one cuppa to be popped on top! Liz & I popped into Argos one Tuesday early in August and grabbed a coffee table for £20. That saved me carrying the package home balanced on my head! Now....to get it 'built' - no worries - I am used to assembling Ikea furniture, I thought...