So what's new...

Following that marathon Christmas post (Christmas in August????), I thought I should post something slightly more up-to-date.

We had the most awful weather in March this year - snow for the first time here since 2010 and it was bitterly cold in the cottage, despite the central heating and the wood burner. Most of the cold was coming from the porch, a 1960s concrete block addition to the original cob section of the cottage. Totally uninsulated, prone to damp and mould, and to add to its woes, we had to put a cat flap into it to allow the cats to access their run and the litter trays (there was no other place that we could install one). We were also reluctant to cut a cat flap into the original inner door, so that had to be left open a cat's width, to allow them back in!

After consultation with a builder friend, we realised that the only answer to the damp problem was to insulate the walls of the porch so we ordered Celotex sheets, wooden battening, tongue and groove panelling and a huge tin of black bituminous paint.

I cleaned the walls down with bleach, followed by copious quantities of sugar soap and once the whole lot was dry, I repainted the white ceiling before Kevin set to with the black paint. The porch suddenly took on a sinister aspect - the Black Hole of Chilsworthy - and the smell was breathtaking (not in a good way, either).

Once that was dry, Kevin put up the battens into which the 50mm thick Celotex was fitted and then he clad the whole lot with tongue and groove, which we then painted with an off-white.

The floor of the porch had been laid with the same pavers that had been used for the drive, so we painted it with grey floor paint to make it easier to keep clean, then laid jute matting in front of the door.

The final touches were the terracotta owls, brought from our old house, an oil painting of a country cottage (painted by my talented great-uncle years ago) and the terracotta sign above the inner door, which reads Parva Domus, Magna Quies (Little House, Great Peace). The coat hooks were replaced and we stood back to admire our handiwork.

The porch felt cool during the recent very hot weather, so we hope that the reverse will prove to be true once the cold weather hits.

Next task is to insulate the fireplace in the sitting room - but that means moving the wood burner to remove what we believe is a gravestone screwed to the wall behind it (!)

A Very Late Christmas Post!

I really did mean to post about my National Trust volunteer role ages ago, but well, Life has a tendency to derail the best of intentions. However, last week I found the photographs that I took at Christmas at Lanhydrock House where I volunteered in the kitchens and the dining room and thought it would be lovely to post them before we get into the Christmas season there once more!

I began volunteering in October 2017 and had three weeks in the house before it closed for a month to prepare for Christmas. At the end of November, we had an orientation meeting so that we could see where we would be working and what we would be doing. We also picked up the costumes that the Trust was providing - a white high-necked blouse, long black walking skirt (slightly longer in back than in front) and a V-shaped belt.

Visiting children were able to dress up in Victorian costumes; in the Inner Hall, these were formal dresses, with jackets for the boys while in the kitchen, there were white pinafores and mob caps or chef's toques and striped aprons.

The dining room was laid out for Christmas 1887 when Mary Vere Agar-Robartes - the eldest daughter of Viscount Clifden and his wife Mary - was eight years old and permitted to dine with her parents and their guests for the first time. There was an extensive menu, starting with a consomme with tiny savoury choux buns, followed by salmon cutlets with Hollandaise Sauce, turkey stuffed with oysters and roast beef with all the usual vegetables, then Christmas Pudding, Twelfth Cake, cheese, gingerbread, nuts and fruit.

In the kitchen, the huge table was laid out with jellies and Christmas Puddings made in elaborate castellated moulds, mince pies, gingerbread, raised pies and beautifully iced Twelfth Cakes (a yeast-raised, fruited cake - a little like panettone with icing). All of this food was real, made by the restaurant catering team.

At one end of the table, we had oranges and cloves, ready for the visiting children to make pomanders.

The jellies were replaced every couple of days.

Beautifully iced Twelfth Cake with a raised pie in the background.

Oranges, cloves and spices for pomanders

 
In the bakery, there were hampers destined for the estate tenants, with bread, beer, Christmas Pudding, tea, pickles and preserves and in the meat larder, beautifully-crafted facsimile oysters, salmon, a turkey and a joint of beef.

Christmas Puddings and preserves, ready for the Tenants' Hampers

Salmon Cutlets - brilliant facsimiles!

Roast Beef with Horseradish Sauce

Oysters and the stuffing recipe!

Turkey and all the usual accompaniments.

In the dairy, we demonstrated how butter balls were made and encouraged the children to have a go.

Paddles for the Butter Balls

This is me, on Kitchen Duty!

Father Christmas visited just before Christmas, dressed in his traditional GREEN robes, and sat with his sack of gifts in the Morning Room where there was another huge Christmas Tree. The house closed at 4.30pm on January 1st and then the massive business of cleaning, conservation work and general refurbishment began, ready for the re-opening in March.

Phew - a long post with loads of photographs! It feels odd to be blogging about last Christmas but now that I'm back in the swing of it, I promise not to leave it so long. 

My Graduation Day

Should have posted this ages ago but life kind of got in the way!

On October 13th 2017, I marched proudly on to the stage at the Riviera Centre, Torquay to accept my First Class Honours degree in English Literature. After 5 years, one brief deferral and a house move, I had the degree that I had coveted for years.

I had the official photo taken,

 but I still think the ones that my lovely husband took are far nicer!

It was great to celebrate afterwards too - my friend and fellow English literature graduate,
Anne and I found the sparkling wine and made the most of it!

But... I couldn't have done it without the lovely man in this photograph - he listened to EVERY assignment (often more than once), encouraged me, created a quiet study space for me, cleaned and tidied the house when I was desperately trying to meet an assignment deadline and put up with my bear-with-a-sore-head moments while waiting for results. Love you, Kevin x

What I found in the Slug Pubs.

Well...slugs, naturally! Lots of them and so disgusting did they look, that I couldn't bear to photograph them. I did wonder whether the birds would appreciate Slugs Marinated in Bitter, and might look later at the slab where I laid out their bloated corpses to see if there were any takers (not to mention watching out for inebriated birds attempting to take off across the field).

So, I topped up the Slug Pubs and then helped Kevin to move the mini Stonehenge from its location under the twin conifers that will be coming down in short order and put them on top of the landscaping fabric to help hold it down.  We also moved the potting table and various pots and buckets across to that side of the garden to give us a clear run at our soon-to-be raised bed area.

We are waiting for the spares kit to arrive so that Kevin can service the Mantis rotavator, and we've decided on a white picket fence with an arch to divide the plot - something like this, although the pickets are likely to have rounded heads and be a bit taller (I'd love these pointed ones, though, if we could find them):

The pond will be just the other side of the fence, which gives us the opportunity to put in some taller planting - at the moment, there is nothing other than Creeping Jenny (masses of the stuff) and some saxifrages with the odd perennial geranium trying its best. The pond marginals are pretty much non-existent otherwise and the edge of the pond is mostly hidden by wild strawberry plants. Once the conifers are removed, we'll be able to move the pretty flowering cherry that Kevin bought me years ago as an anniversary present - it is beginning to resent being in the (very large) pot now and will do better once it can stretch its roots out.

However, the weather forecast for next week is not promising (rain, much like the last couple of years) so we'll turn our attention to the master bedroom, which really does need redecorating. We have the paint, just need to get cracking!

A Little More Progress...and our three-year anniversary!

We've now cleared the area where the shed will (eventually) be relocated, and yesterday we went over to Homeleigh Garden Centre to get the weed suppressing fabric.

I love Homeleigh - not only is it a pleasant drive there, but they have a beautiful selection of plants and I'd been lusting after a hydrangea to put in a particular spot by the clematis-covered archway. So after we'd located what we actually came to buy, I trotted off to the plant centre - and I swear that I was just looking, honest!

What I found was this beauty - Hydrangea Macrophylla 'Kardinal' - which, along with one of Kevin's favourite lupins, found its way into our trolley.

When we got home, Kevin set to work to build stretchers for the fabric, while I planted my two new beauties and filled old yogurt pots with Very Cheap Beer - I've lost lupins in the past to slugs (and they seem to grow 'em big down here in Devon!) - so I wasn't taking any chances. I also put sharp gravel and stones, gleaned from the area where the raised beds will go, around the base of the lupin and hydrangea. I'll add some more lupins when the piggy bank is a bit more flush.

Kevin completed laying the fabric and then we moved some of the rocks that we found as we cleared the other side of the garden and placed them on top.

I checked the slug pub this morning; despite the rain last night, which may have diluted the beer a bit, there are several victims in the yogurt pots - ah well, at least they died happy. 😂

As for us, on Monday we will be celebrating three years of living here in Devon - and the weather seems set to be the same as it was on the day that we moved in - RAIN! Still, if this year is anything like the previous ones, September should be a lovely month, and at least we never have to water the lawn!

And the results are out...

Actually, they were out on 19th July but I've been a bit tied up - ridding the cottage of a moth invasion, for one thing and digging the garden for another but...

I have received the results of my final module and my overall Degree Classification and I will be graduating at the Riviera International Centre, Torquay on October 13th with a First Class Honours degree in English Literature. My gown has been ordered and Kevin's guest ticket booked and paid for and I shopped my wardrobe and found a dress that I can finally fit into (black stretch velvet - suitably sub fusc) - yay!

It has taken me a while to get my head around the fact that I have a 1st, and also that I have finished my degree and I'm feeling slightly bereft...I would give a great deal to be starting my MA with The Open University in October but I simply can't afford it - even the OU's own loan scheme would cost me over £400 a month and I'm too old (by one year 😢 ) to qualify for a Post Graduate loan. I have the book list saved to my Amazon Wish List - maybe I could just read them anyway. Mind you, if I get the tutoring work that I'm hoping for, I'll be reading a lot of A Level texts, which will keep me busy!

The moth invasion has been a total pain - they have munched the carpet under the sofa and even had a go at my poor teddy bears, so Kevin and I scoured the internet for a product that would kill moths, eggs and larvae, without killing us or the cats. The stuff that we bought seems to work but you seriously don't want to breathe it in! When we treat our bedroom, it'll have to be done early in the morning and we'll need to leave the windows wide open to air the room - we aren't too happy about using it under the bed and are still looking for a 'kinder' product to use.

As for the garden, we have planned out the first of the raised beds, priced up the dividing fence (we're going for a picket fence which should look really pretty), the beds and the soil to fill them and today I dug out countless Spanish Bluebell bulbs from the bed where we will be installing the shed (when we move it - which is not quite yet). The weather has been pretty wet - a day without rain has been the exception rather than the norm this month, but at least it means that the weeds come up fairly easily! Tomorrow we'll trot over to Highhampton to look at (and get a firm quote for) the picket fence and maybe get hold of some weed control fabric so all my hard work today won't be for nothing 😄

The end of an era...

Well, the end of me being a 'mature student' anyway. My final assignment (3000 words on ideals of masculinity from Shakespeare to Austen) went in at the end of May and I've been recovering ever since 😂!
The results are meant to be out by mid-July but every year so far, they've been out just before my birthday, so I'm thinking 6th/7th July. Am I doing a countdown? You betcha!

I can't quite believe that I'm finished - that there won't be a box from the Open University in September with a new set of module books, that I won't have any more tutorials (live or online) to attend, no more Tutor Marked Assignments to agonise over, no more heart-stopping moments when the email flashes up to tell me that my marked assignment is ready for collection. Oh, to win the Lottery and be able to afford to do a Masters in English Literature. Or Children's Literature.

Still, I have my Graduation Ceremony to look forward to - we have squirreled away the money
for months and now have enough for my gown hire, Kevin's ticket, the official photos and a nice celebration dinner.

Now I need to get some work - there must be someone out there who would LOVE to pay me for tutoring their GCSE or A Level offspring!

In the meantime, I have a whole garden to reclaim from weeds/Spanish Bluebells (so many Spanish Bluebells) and a vegetable plot to plan out. I have a conservatory full of fabric and wool to turn into something lovely (quite what I have not yet decided) and there are books - oh so many books - that I have put to one side because there were set texts that had to be read instead.

Then there is my involvement with our Village Hall which I have been unable to fully commit to until now, not to mention helping to plan the Christmas Concert and maybe doing some singing with a friend at local Care Homes.

Oh, and the five bar gates need refinishing, the guttering needs painting, the kitchen/dining room, bathroom, main bedroom and the stairs and landing all need redecorating.

Somehow I don't think I'll be bored 😄

Spring at the Little White (and slightly green) Devon Cottage

Slightly green, because there is a fine mist of green all over my car, the cottage walls, the Land Rover...courtesy of a wet winter. Still, Spring is clearly here, as witnessed by the snowdrops and daffodils popping up all over!

These were poking their noses out on 5th January this year - and there are far more snowdrops this year than last, they have clearly multiplied around the copper beech!

And they are so pretty close up!

It may have been a wet winter, but it has also been pretty mild for the most part and my herb barrow has survived surprisingly well.

These are the miniature daffodils that I brought in pots from Camberley. They have also multiplied well, and keeping them in pots means that when they have finished flowering, I can move them to the lower garden so that the leaves can die down naturally without making the top end of the garden look too untidy!

The miniature cherry that Kevin bought me from Wisley as an anniversary gift is coming into flower, but I think that this must be the last year that I keep it in a container. When we clear TDC (the damned conifer) out of the way down by the pond, I'll plant the cherry out there.

Prunus incisa 'Kojo-no-mai'

The cats have been pretty disgusted with the rain over the past few days - this is Bearz, in his 'do not disturb' mode, next to the log burner.

  

 Hobbes - aka 'Cheesed off of Chilsworthy', until 

he kicked Bearz out of his basket...*sigh* 

Only to have his fireside spot stolen by Rosie!

 Meanwhile, Paddy has amused himself with a well-catnipped mouse - these things are seriously scary when you come across one in the half-light!

I'm SUPPOSED to be writing an essay on the 2012 RSC production of Julius Caesar, set in Africa...you can clearly see how well THAT is going  #procrastinationcentral 😄

Ah well...back to work!

Running the gauntlet...

Or, how not to get wiped out when cutting the beech hedge by drivers who seem to think that 30mph is a suggestion, rather than a mandatory maximum!

Yesterday, Kevin and I decided that we needed to give the beech hedge its annual haircut. This hedge forms our boundary with the village road; there is a pavement, but it is very narrow and is even narrower when the beech has had a full summer's growth, not to mention the invasive ash seedlings that pop up here and there, or the brambles that stick out to attack the unwary.

So, armed with the electric hedge trimmer, long handled pruners, a rake, yard broom and snow shovel (the latter makes a great 'dustpan'), we pushed the green wheelie bin out so that it was just over the curb and began the assault.

Almost immediately, three cars came past, going up through the village on our side of the road, and they were definitely not doing 30. Nooo - I reckon that they were doing at least 40mph and the drivers seemed surprised that there were actually people on the pavement. The bend before the cottage makes it difficult to see whether there are people or parked cars but still people gun past us. 
The village road is narrow, and there is a point just before our cottage where two vehicles can only just get past each other - the clash of wing mirrors is one of the sounds that we didn't really expect to hear in a quiet Devon hamlet, but it happens a lot. It has happened to us, when despite pulling the Landrover over so that the passenger side was almost in the hedge, an SUV clipped and broke our driver's side mirror (electric, colour-coded and expensive to replace - thanks so much, that driver!).

Anyway, we became adept at hopping back into the beech hedge at the sound of any approaching vehicle but the point is that we shouldn't HAVE to do this. We were on the pavement, not in the road and yet we still felt incredibly vulnerable.

At the beginning of September, we had a water meter fitted; for two days, there was a Transit van outside the cottage, with plastic barriers to protect the workers. The difference in the speed of passing traffic was incredible - most went past really slowly, others at a modest 25-30mph. A couple had to noisily apply their brakes (N.B. not all would-be racers are kids, I've spotted middle-aged drivers charging past us).

There have been talks at the Parish Council meetings for months about a Community Speedcheck being set up - I'll be the first to volunteer! If the speeders are locals, they should know better - they know that livestock/tractors/cyclists are likely to be around any bend in the road. On a stretch that is de-restricted, just outside the village, Kevin was toddling along at 30mph past my friend Helen's cottage; he was going slowly in case she was trying to get her car in or out. Instead of Helen, he had a doe leap across the road in front of him. If he'd been going any faster, he said, there would have been venison all over his bonnet.

Why the need to rush through our pretty little village so quickly? Surely a brief spell of 30mph isn't going to make THAT much difference to your journey!

The Beginning of the End...

 Wow - that's possibly a bit too dramatic! The website for my final Open University module has opened and all of my books have arrived...it is starting to look terrifyingly real now.

This is the module that will determine my degree classification - hence the nervous smile!
I'll be studying some wonderful texts:

Three Shakespeare plays: As You Like It, Hamlet and Julius Caesar
Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy
Edmund Spencer's The Faerie Queene
William Wycherley's The Country Wife
Molière's Tartuffe
Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Turkish Embassy Letters
The Arabian Nights' Entertainments
Rousseau's Confessions
Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion

and along with these individual works, there are sections on poetry by John Donne and his contemporaries and, later in the module, an exploration of the Romantic and Nationalist movements in poetry.

I adore Shakespeare and Jane Austen, but have already found a great appreciation for the amazing Lady Mary - what a woman! If you get the chance, I urge you to read her Letters - she was possessed of a wicked turn of phrase and was obviously highly intelligent and independent!

I am also required to undertake a fair amount of independent study - not that daunting, considering that when I studied the Children's Literature module, I did look at other novels that were contemporary with Alcott's Little Women, just to see how different her work was from that of her peers, and used the information in my assignments as well as in my final, externally marked work. I am also able to spend time doing this - there are some advantages in being unemployed, I suppose - I'm not sure how much independent study the OU expects from students who, for the most part, are also working full time.

My study corner is prepared. I am working on all the projects around the house and garden that need to be done before the module officially begins in October. Hopefully, I'll be using this blog as a bit of light relief from university  - after all, all work and no play, and so on...

Progress in the Garden

Not much, admittedly, but the herb wheelbarrow is doing well - the larger of the two parsley plants went in over a year ago (just goes to show that we didn't exactly have a harsh winter last year) and the rest of the plants are new, all but a rosemary cutting that I didn't expect to root at all; it was one of the bits cut to cook with the roasted root vegetables and didn't get used. I had put them all in a little vase of water in the kitchen, so they were decorative as well as useful and, blow me, when I came to change the water I found little roots growing. I left it a bit longer, then planted it out and it seems to be doing well!

We have cleaned up, varnished and painted an old and very decrepit Apple Press to use as a quirky planter and at a recent trip to Waitrose for their Essentials Chicken in Jelly cat food (the only one that our fussy lot will eat), we spotted a sedum that we thought would be perfect in it - Sedum 'Rose Carpet'

The grey-green of the leaves goes well with the Hammerite Smooth 'Wild Sage' paint that we used on the apple press and with the Garden Colours used on the bench and small table.

The pond is looking much better now that we have cleared a lot of the duckweed!

Though we haven't got all of it yet!

The 'Scrumptious' apples on our tree are colouring up nicely, though we have had an attack of Apple Scab and, of course, we can't use anything on the tree now as the anti-fungals have been withdrawn. It was a very wet winter and spring, which didn't help; we'll just have to make sure that all of the leaves are swept up in the autumn and hope for less rain next season.

The two hawthorn trees on the boundary are thick with berries - the birds are going to have a feast this year, there was far more blossom this spring and this is the result!

We have measured up for the fencing panels to divide the garden and Kevin started to chop up the last remaining Hebe in what will become the vegetable garden. 

We also have to get rid of the two conifers, but I doubt we'll be able to get those in my little car to take them to the dump - we'll need someone with a trailer!

The Very Vigorous Evergreen Clematis had to be pruned to within an inch of its life as it  had rendered the pergola on which it was draped somewhat unstable. It looks awful at the moment but the pergola has been mended and repainted and hopefully the clematis will stop sulking and return next year, all invigorated. I hope so, it has the most beautiful fragrance that fills the whole garden with perfume in the mornings.

We've also done a Feed and Weed on the lawn - it will never be a beautiful bowling green sward (it is far too uneven for that) but it looks a lot happier now and we'll reseed the odd patches in September. Considering how awful it looked the year after we moved in, what with all the to-ing and fro-ing, installation of the oil tank and so on, it has recovered remarkably well.