Two Whole Years in Cornwall

I cannot believe that two years ago today we were piling everything into a huge lorry, loading up the trailer and driving down the motorway for 6+ hours to start our new life in Cornwall.

All of that stress was well worth it though. Our lives are so different down here. The air is clean and smog/exhaust free. The evenings are peaceful, its a rarity to see an aircraft in the sky overhead, unless it's a coastguard, on a rush job to save a holiday maker from the cliffs, and every Wednesday evening we get the faint drift of the church bells in Carn Brae village, as they practice their ringing for the weddings etc.

Don't get me wrong, when it rains down here it really pours it down, but I only ever see the place with blues skies and sunshine and the promise of great things in our future.

Two years down, roll on the next 50 or so!

Visiting Friends

I have been like a bottle of pop for a good few days now, as my friends are coming down to visit me whilst they are on holiday in Cornwall.

And more to the point, I get to meet little Wilf their new beautiful baby boy, who was born in September, for the first time.

I made scones and got some proper Roddas clotted cream for an afternoon cream tea, and was able to coo over little Wilf and catch up on all that has happened since we last met up - and that was about 2 years ago just before we moved here!

I love being Auntie Jo Jo, and despite Fred's very curious interest, he was actually quite good. Despite trying to climb over everyone to get to the soft toys.

They have only been gone a short while and I'm missing the little man already - and you two guys of course!

New family...

For a few years now I have been tracing my family tree, and with a little help from some very good friends have done not a bad job, with 900 or so people found so far.

Anyway, today I was contacted, by someone through Genes Reunited who thought we may be related based on some family links that appeared to match.

It's been a while since I have done any work on my tree, and I got really excited when I realised that, yes this lady was a relative. She is living in Sydney Australia, and has sent me some fantastic info so far, that I am trying to correlate into my tree before sending it all over to her as a GEDCOM file.

I have loads of new cousins. Anne, if you are reading this, my family lines will be winging their way to you very soon.

Unpacking the boxes...

Those 96 boxes have all to be unpacked and built up at some point, and there is no time like the present...

I wanted a larder unit so that I have somewhere to put my vacuum cleaner, dustpan and brooms - and am really pleased with how well it is going to work, using this little test scenario...

I now have units everywhere - in the kitchen - obviously, in the living room (above), in the two spare bedrooms and on the landing!

we now have the all of the units built up - here are the fist three all ready to be put into the kitchen when it is finally taken apart.

Singing in the rain - literally

Last night it rained - and it did not just rain - it poured - at 3am we were awake and reading our books because of the noise of it on the slate roof tiles and smashing against the windows.

Anyway it has not let up all day, despite me promising my friends that their holiday down here will be sunshine filled - yeah right - sorry guys!

This afternoon we went off to see Singing in the Rain at the theatre in Redruth, done by the local amdram society.

It was fantastic, despite the chaps flies being undone in one scene, and a mike being missing and someone rushing off for it in another scene. It was well done, well acted and had a huge amount of scene changes which they pulled off really well.

The rain scene was a triumph - it had real water coming from above the stage onto a pad for the Don Lockwood character to dance his famous scene on - wonderful.

Then we had to walk home - and you guessed it - it was raining!

Can you tell what it is yet????

Yep you guessed it - the kitchen finally arrived....

and as Paul watched box after box come off the lorry, he was told.....

'Thats 96 boxes - there is one more to follow on Monday!!!'

and, once we get ours heads around the fitting instructions it will be replacing this....

YUK!

Ground Force 3

Once the mortar had gone off on the brickwork, Paul started to do the roughcast rendering.

One layer of render later, all scored up and ready for the top coat and whitewash...

Ground Force 2

Saturday dawned with beautiful blue skies and the promise of a fantastically warm spring day.

With this in mind, we decided to start the next phase of our garden makeover - my brick built raised planter. Our garden is most definitely not on a level so we hope that by the end of this whole building project we might get a garden with stepped levels and a lot less grass for Fred to dig up and bring in the house when it's wet.

We started by placing the breeze blocks in the general position that we wanted - with me shouting orders from the bedroom window! Well it was much easier to get the full picture for my 'vision' from up there!

Then it was a case of skimming off the grass and digging out the footings

Then the concrete footings get placed and levelled out with a spirit level to ensure a good finish for the brickwork

Then, once the concrete went off, the bricks get placed back in position and the mortar is used...

At this point many many swear words are used, at me as I wanted a long sweep on the front of the planter instead of a squared off flat wall - Paul had a real game making the front sweep of bricks stay put and ties in together

and as you can see he has managed it - and done a marvellous job of it too!

Once the mortar has gone off, we (that's the royal we of course) will render the front and inside lip of the planter and paint it white to match the garage wall and tie it all in together.

Whilst Paul was being creative, I was getting down and dirty with a paint brush and a tub of creosote.

the initial brush strokes were a little scary, as the colour was so dark

but once it was finally complete - it looked a darn site better than it had

All in all a very productive weekend, despite the severe sunburn to both of our backs and faces!