The Elephant in The Room..

What a scorcher yesterday was, we had a busy start to the day so made it an early one.
 Before lunch time the job was done and as we were half way to Neath we popped into town and went to B&M. Not my favourite shop but they have a half tidy garden centre which carries aggregates and cement.

We picked up the necessary bags of "building stuffs"not my area of expertise. 
There was  Brucie Bonus in the form of a purple leaved Hydrangea, a lovely plant for £9.99, photo to follow.

The SO is going to put some hard standing in, for the compost bins and pot storage etc. That will be the last job at the very back of the garden till Autumn when we have an area to clear of general garden rubbish, this was inherited and we just pushed it all back as far as possible and fenced it off. Now my greedy eyes are looking at it and want it for planting. Some fruiting trees or bushes probably, I have a heap of Jostaberry cutting that are coming along, and we love the fruit, so 3 or 4 of those would be great.

As we were quite hungry after our long mornings work we had a sandwich for lunch, seeded bread stuffed with some cold pork, cucumber and a slick of garlic mayo.
The heat made for an afternoon indoors, we moved some things around and added to the donate heap.

Just as we are looking to find more space in the garden (albeit to add plants) so we are looking to create more space in the house.
We made a list of some larger items that we no longer wished to keep, and decided to ring a CS today to arrange collection.

As luck would have it I walked Herbie and Ben in the evening and stopped to chat with a friend. She had the glad news to share that her daughter had got a place to learn pattern design and cutting.(someone had dropped out). The only hurdle was collecting all the things that she needed in a comparatively short time. 
Top of her list was a dress form, and that was top of my list to donate. Win Win. After a bit more chatty catch up I took the boys home and returned with the dummy.

More space instantly acquired. A favour paid forward. The feel good factor shared around.

The main change that we are undertaking is to reduce the amount of "kitchen" stuff, a start has been made on this. 
My collection of china is (or rather was) the Elephant in The Room.
I had Silver Maple in the kitchen cupboards and Old Country Roses on the Dresser. It made for a lot of walking back and forth, not to mention taking it all down and washing regularly.

So the Silver Maple will be leaving,it is boxed up already, and the Roses set is in the kitchen cupboards on hand for daily use. I have friends who car boot so they will have the offer of the  china. If they turn it down then it will be off to the CS.

There is a 2 seater sofa, banished from the sewing room, a TV/dvd/sky box unit, our TV is now wall mounted and the boxes live on a shelf, we have a small wicker chest of drawers and a small TV that are also going. If the CS does not want to collect them they will go outside with a "Free to Take" sign on them..

I know that Ben will sulk when the sofa goes but he has a bed in there anyway.

I gave the back garden a good soaking last night but the sun was still fully on the front. This morning I pulled the hose through the house and treated the front garden to a long cool shower. The pots all had rainwater so lots of steps chalked up before 7, and the dogs have had their first walk.

I see that time is ticking away, and I have only had 1 cuppa, tut tut, I better rectify that asap.

Dinner was fruit salad and slipped down a treat, I will be cooking tonight though as I have a fridge full of veg. Something spicy in the slow cooker probably.

Time to get the kettle on. Just call me Polly.

                 TTFN                                           Pam