Weird feeling
I bought an oil painting of my house I found on Ebay. Imagine that.
Just for fun, I decided to search the name of our house. Never done that before. What are the odds?
I have a standing search on our village name, but the listing had the house name right but the location wrong (the label was torn and they guessed), so I never would have found it otherwise. I wonder how many other things I may have missed.
It’s a view from the 1960s. Small painting, not brilliant, not expensive. I’m chuffed.
The pic up there is a photo, of course (bonus chicken!). I ain’t post a clear shot of my house to the internet and all.
February 20, 2024 — 7:32 pm
Comments: 5
No shit.
Our fancy, computer-controlled, hippie-approved septic system broke down over the weekend and took our electricity with it. Uncle B spent all Sunday morning isolating the source of the power outage.
We didn’t install this thing on purpose. It was a condition of the sale of the house because our waste discharges into a stream. Our neighbors are grandfathered in and don’t have a fancy system *grimace emoji*
It’s been a maintenance nightmare.
Outlet pump this time. We were told they usually last 5 years and ours lasted fifteen, so yay I guess. Somehow it doesn’t feel lucky.
If you’d like an explanation of how it works, you can watch this video on the Septic Tank TV channel. Or don’t. He does a lousy job explaining how waste water gets from the dirty side to the clean side. You will learn the charming old English term “poo water” however.
February 12, 2024 — 5:49 pm
Comments: 9
There’s a hole in the sky
Near as I can figure, this was a thin layer of cloud and a little plane flew through it. Here it is large and in color.
I’ve become something of a professional sky watcher this week. We’re having our one heat spell of the summer and I’ve been rolling around in a deck chair every possible minute of the day.
And night. We don’t get a lot of nights warm enough to sit outside and stare up. Very little light here and many stars. On very clear nights, you can see the Milky Way!
And that’s where we’re headed now. It’s just dusk – if we’re lucky, we can see the bats. Don’t be forgetting the Dead Pool tomorrow!
September 7, 2023 — 6:23 pm
Comments: 3
Happy Solstice!
We did not dance naked and saggy-titted around Stonehenge this morning, but I do believe we will sit in the garden this evening and drink wine in observance.
When I were a lass, every year I was hauled off by my grandmother and auntie to the rhododendron festival. Lordy, that was boring for a twelve-year old, but the two of them would stare in astonishment at one identical pink flower after another.
I came to the conclusion that nature, for old people, is a kind of hallucinogenic.
And here we are. The sun is shining, the temperature is just right, and all I ever want to do is be out in the garden pulling weeds or cutting back hedges or just staring at pink flowers with my mouth open.
I am old and tripping on nature.
June 21, 2023 — 5:54 pm
Comments: 9
We’re seriously cottagecore, y’all
Poor old Uncle B. All Winter long, he carries bags of logs and buckets of coal into the house, then buckets of ash out. All Summer long, it’s endless watering of pots and flower beds. And some years – like this year – the two seasons overlap.
They’re claiming this is the seventh hottest May on record. How they’re standing up that lie, I do not know. We’ve only not had a fire at night maybe twice since September.
Some day, I suspect, he will haunt this place – a weary shade carrying heavy stuff around and around the grounds.
June 5, 2023 — 7:48 pm
Comments: 5
The white fluffy month
The farmer next door has for some reason herded his sheep from the big field behind us to the small field in front of us (they do this by driving Land Rovers at them and honking). This means lots of sheepy noises this evening.
For the record, sheep do not go baa. They go AHHHHHHHHHH! Which is pretty funny, to be honest.
May is my favorite, and not just because I indulge myself the whole month. All the various thorn trees explode into poofy white flowers (mayflowers, as it were) and the fields are full of poofy white sheep. It’s purdy.
In conclusion, AHHHHHHHHHH! Have a good weekend. The fête season starts tomorrow!
May 19, 2023 — 7:24 pm
Comments: 6
What it is living in a 500 year old house, part #563
Ivy. Growing through a tiny hole in the wood of the windowsill.
I went outside and stripped the brick of all the parent ivy, but this little shoot still thrives. You know what that means, yeah? It’s living off stuff in the house.
The walls are about a foot thick and apparently solid…cement? So godnose. Some Georgian peasant probably walled up grandma.
Eh. I exaggerate. The house was built somewhere between 1505, when the first house in the neighborhood was built, and 1610, when we have a delinquent tax bill for the property. So somewhere between 413 and 518 years old. It’s a real fixer upper.
No, we don’t owe 413 years worth of interest and penalties. They forgive it after seven years.
May 15, 2023 — 6:54 pm
Comments: 6
Floor porn
In yesterday’s thread, BJM posted a link to these engineered recycled wood planks. And very lovely they are, too, but not quite right for Badger House. Everything in this house looks like it was gnawed into its present shape by woodland creatures and then left in the rain for 100 years.
There’s not a large enough area of floor showing upstairs to demonstrate what I mean. I tried to find something similar online and found the mother of all floor porn sites. Look at that parquet!
Each floor is a one-off project, and takes on average 6-9 months from first enquiry to completion. We only take on 5-6 projects per year.
No, we are not in that bracket. That is rockstar money. That is Henry VIII money. We’re hoping for a hod of old bricks and lad who is clever with his hands.
Boris has fallen. I’m not a fan – he was a pretty awful PM – but his hounding out was clearly a media-orchestrated coup. And the lot mostly likely to vie for his job are a dreadful pack of globalists, remainers, greenies and people who think some women have dicks.
I despair.
July 7, 2022 — 5:54 pm
Comments: 5
Wait, I haven’t posted yet?
I didn’t go in to work today. It was absolutely glorious and I sat in the garden and drank herbal tea and shitposted on Twitter allll day long on me phone.
This is the front garden, where the chickens live. It’s where our garden chairs are and we look out over the sheep field. But the real miracle is the back garden this year, out the kitchen door.
Uncle B has been working on it for years, and it’s really coming into its own. Last year was good, this year is spectacular. Everything is a harmonious height and color.
I’m trying to work out how to walk down it with a video camera to give you an idea.
June 15, 2022 — 8:19 pm
Comments: 5
Your daily dose of adorable
This was shot from the garden, my dudes. By Uncle B on his fancy new phone.
I know I was complaining I couldn’t see the lambs for the overgrown hedge. That’s the super big field behind us where most of the flock hangs out. There’s a smaller field next to us (the one I tried to buy for lama keeping) and the flock has access to it. A few sheep wander in it sometimes.
These little puff balls came right up to the fence. A gang of six was pronking around in the grass.
This is the *best* time of year here.
April 25, 2022 — 5:35 pm
Comments: 6