I've got those ol' TMA blues...

The TMAs (Tutor Marked Assignments) are beginning to come thick and fast now - the consequence of studying two modules at the same time! Not that I had much choice once I deferred, but that's another story.

 I have just submitted one for A215 Creative Writing and have a 1500 word essay on Conan Doyle and Robert Louis Stevenson to submit by mid-day on Thursday 26th.

So what, you may ask, am I doing here on my blog?

Fair question.

I am the Queen of Procrastination - I have to log on to the Open University website daily, to go over the Prose Skills Tutorials, but from there, it is a short hop to Facebook and the Open University groups, of which I am an enthusiastic member...and then I am lost. Posts about cats, things that my non-OU buddies are up to, more posts about cute Red Pandas, things that my OU buddies are up to... and then I look at the clock and OMG, an hour has passed and I haven't done a stroke of work towards the TMA.

So I am here, trying to convince myself to switch off the Internet.

Just for a couple of hours.

Surely I can do without my emails, Facebook OU Groups and the more legitimate uses of the Internet for research purposes?

It is now gone 17.15hrs and I won't get any more done on this TMA now, so I am setting down in writing exactly what will happen tomorrow.

I will get up, shower, have breakfast, switch on my laptop and DISABLE THE INTERNET CONNECTION for three hours, during which, I will work on my TMA04.

I will have an hour's lunchbreak and read my Kindle.

Then I will do another three hours on this damned TMA and break the back of it.
I want it gone before the deadline, so that I can get going on the next two TMAs - a piece of Life Writing and an essay on James Joyce and either the New York Poets or Metropolis. The Life Writing is to be submitted 13th April followed by another on 30th, but I should also be working on the EMA (Externally Marked Assignment), which is due on 28th May.

The essay (TMA05) has to be in on 2nd April, followed by TMA06 on 14th May and then, while I'm trying to get the EMA done, I have to be revising for the A230 exam on 4th June.

So you can see why the Internet has to be switched off. I have the entire summer after 4th June to 'play' (unless I screw up the exam and have to resit *sob*).

In October, I will start the first of my Level 3 modules - Children's Literature and frankly, it will be a relief to be studying just one module.

This will be my last blog entry for a while - unless I need to come on and wail about exams and EMAs. See you after June 4th

We are finally here..........

Well, we have actually been here six weeks, during which time we have:

1. Built the cat enclosure and laid new turf to create a cat garden for them. Collected the cats from their holiday home in Dorset. Watched them gingerly walk across grass for the first time to stare in disbelief at the sheep in the field that borders our garden.

2. Donated several items of furniture to the North Devon Hospice, as this cottage is way smaller than our old home in Camberley.

3. Replaced the vile cooker and refrigerator, both of which had not been visited by the Cleaning Fairy for a very long time. Bought a combined washing machine and dryer because the cottage is too small to accommodate two separate appliances.

4. Had the oil tank installed and filled and the oil-fired boiler commissioned, so that after several weeks using the electric shower to wash and Kevin's Swan Boiler for washing up, we had the luxury of turning on a tap, from which steaming hot water gushed (the pressure here is phenomenal). First long soak in the bath was absolute bliss (big bath with a lovely view over the fields and the garden). The central heating gets connected next week, but with an 8kw woodburner, we may not need all of the radiators switched on!

5. Unpacked a number of boxes and visited the Anvil Corner Recycling Centre on numerous occasions with cardboard boxes and other detritus - some of which was left here by the previous owners.

6. Hung curtains, altered curtains on the old Singer machine (because the Bernina is in a box in the Conservatory, under lots of other boxes that still need to be unpacked!) and ordered new cushions for the sofas which are third-hand to us and the cushions are somewhat "stale, flat and uncomfortable". to paraphrase Shakespeare.

7. Started to get to know our neighbours! I have already been asked to join the Ladies Choir (first rehearsal for Christmas is next week in the Village Hall Bar) and another neighbour would LOVE me to join the local brass band - had to 'fess up that I haven't played the french horn in years, to which he blithely said 'Oh, you'll get your lip back in no time'. Have ducked out for the moment as studying two OU modules at once is likely to take up most of my time this year.

As you can see, we are sideways on to the road - this was
taken when I first went to view the cottage.

This is the view of the cottage from the garden 

This is the sitting room - the woodburner was installed last year and
 our next job will be to build and stock the log store! 

Hobbes has, as usual, claimed his place on the sofa!

This is the view from our bathroom, just after sunrise

Our big blue Land Rover 'SallyB' - the farmer kindly allows us to park her here,
 while we wait for planning permission to widen our access.

The view from one of our bedroom windows.

Paddy and Bearz in their purpose-built Cat Garden.

This is the detached conservatory - once we have moved out
all of the boxes, it will be my studio

A view down the garden to the wildlife pond, taken on our third visit.

We are two miles from the market town of Holsworthy, half an hour from my cousin in Hatherleigh and fifteen minutes from the coast at Bude. Exeter is an hour and fifteen minute drive (I will have my tutorials there) and both Barnstaple and Bideford are about 45 minutes away.

We have been so fortunate with the weather for most of our time here so far; the late summer allowed us to get so much more done. Now it has changed, Autumn is truly here and we have had torrential rain, gale force winds, thunderstorms and hail. The wind really wuthers round the cottage but it has been here for the best part of two hundred and seventy five years, so it is only those new additions (the greenhouse and the conservatory) that might see some damage.

The cottage IS small, but it has made us think about what we truly need to have around us and how we are going to live our lives from now on. And frankly, there is nothing better than waking up and looking out over fields, or down the garden after years of living fifty feet from a road used by traffic twenty-four hours a day

Getting closer to the Big Move!

We finally exchanged contracts on 21st July and have a completion date of 14th August!

This meant that we had just four weeks just to clear out the house and get ourselves ready.

Kevin has been here since 1988, I've been here since the end of 1992 and that's an awful lot of stuff to go through. We have a suitcase full of photographs - some of which are memorable like the photos of our grandchildren as babies, photos of me with my beloved mum, odd wedding photos that for some reason never made it into the wedding album. I can see us spending winter evenings going through every photo and deciding which to keep and which to throw.

There are enough glasses in boxes in the attic to stock a pub; there are two sets of china, now surplus to requirements. We are moving to a Really Small Cottage - it is highly unlikely that we could accommodate more than six of us in there at any one time, so we hardly need all that tableware.

The local charity shops have done REALLY well! We have been through all of our clothes and donated six big bags to Macmillan Cancer. The Pareto Rule certainly applies to us, we are definitely wearing 20% of our clothes 80% of the time so someone else may benefit from the things that we no longer wear (or in my case, which no longer fit, sadly). We have also cleared a lot of bric-a-brac - vases, pictures, ornaments that we no longer loved or cherished - again, this stuff was taken by the British Heart Foundation.

The attic is finally empty of all but the things that we are keeping,which have been stored to one side of the hatch. Everything else has slowly made its way downstairs and out, either to eBay or to the local Recycling Depot.

We have been through the sheds (garden and tool) and done a lot of "rationalisation" - much of which has gone into the big yellow skip-sized Hippobag. I have tidied up my workshop and store, carefully packed the essential oils and stock and disposed of the soon-to-be past due date base oils at the Recycling Centre.

The interesting thing is how liberating all this feels. We are starting a new life in Devon and it feels good to be taking only those things that we know to be useful or believe to be beautiful (good old William Morris - very wise words).

Got soap?

Oh boy, do I have soap!

Despite the need to get rid of STUFF before the move, I was desperate to do something creative yesterday. I had packed up some of the Green Witch equipment and was checking the oils and butters for their Use By dates when I realised that I could "reset" some of those dates by making soap. That way, nothing would be wasted and I wouldn't have to dump a whole bottle of Rice Bran Oil (for example) just because it would be out of date by the end of the month.

So....I soaped.

I made a Hot Process "Keen Cook's" Soap, with pumice, coffee grounds and citrus oils; this is great for removing strong smells like fish, onion or garlic from your hands when you have finished preparing these foods - and my sister-in-law likes to use it on her back and her feet!

I then made my "Lemon Sherbet" soap with May Chang and Lemon essential oils - great for brightening up the day when used in my morning shower. I even did an "in the pot" swirl with this one.

Next, I made Kevin's favourite "Bay Rum" soap - I usually do this with a line of cocoa running through the middle, but Kevin requested a plain one this time round and as I only make it for him, I did so. I also used the sheep moulds that my soap-buddy Elaine sold me, and made some "BaaaRum" ones too *groan*.

The last soap of the day was a new one - using rice bran oil, palm and coconut and adding some oatmeal to make a scrubby bar, fragranced with rosemary and lemon essential oils. I'll be interested to see what the soap made from this blend of base oils is like - I haven't made this recipe before.

All soaps are now ready to be cut into bars and set to cure.

And I have got that "itch" out of my system and am ready to tackle the attic (well, almost ready).