welsh hills again

Life is full up on the hill at the moment. The kitchen is still in progress. Here is Ian taking out the sink and then the new ceiling in all its newly plastered glory. Still to be done? Don't ask. It will happen, eventually. The garden is throwing stuff at us faster than we can eat it: cavolo nero, onions, chard, beetroot, potatoes, raspberries, blueberries, beans, salad stuff. And the cutting garden too is full: full of dark purple sweet peas, orange marigolds, orange and gold cosmos, black cornflowers and White nicotiana. There are jugs all over the house but I still can't keep up. And of course there are the projects which have totally stalled. The quilt which hasn't moved on since last November is lying in a box upstairs. At some point it will start whimpering reproachfully when I go by but just now it is dozing quietly. The socks which I dropped a stitch on in January have already got to that reproachful stage. Every time I go past my knitting bag they sigh heavily....

I only usually blog once a week or so but I thought you might like to see a bit of house renovation - some of the dust and slog behind living the dream! Last year we moved the main cooking kitchen back into the old part of the house where it belongs.  We were left with an early 80s horror in the back kitchen, the peeling melamine and stained worktop setting off the mouldy patches on the wall a real treat. So this year's job was to redo the back kitchen as a scullery/utility and work started yesterday with the emptying of cupboards. So the new kitchen fills up with boxes from the old one, which go under the table and on the table and on the freezer and the diswasher and out into the laundry and just about everywhere. The cupboards come out and it is going to get worse before it gets better. Here it is getting worse as the tiles come off. We are trying to leave the sink connected for another day or so and here is Ian actually making it a bit better by cleanin...