What's wrong with this picture?

This is my fabulous, shiny, new, state of the art guest bathroom.
Except it isn't.
This isn't what it should look like, two weeks before the house guests arrive.

This is half of the brand new bath-cum-steam room ensemble thing. In the kitchen. In the place where the new sofa should be. Which hasn't arrived.

And this is the dining room which should by now be half-full of wonderful, thoughtful, beautifully hand-crafted Christmas presents. We can't currently get in the for all the shower equipment.

I didn't take one of the tiles, sink, toilet and various other "oddments" in the bedroom.

Things are never that easy, are they?

Why I love Freecycle

Before Mr Marmadaisy hurt his ankle, he had arranged to go to London for the week. Being extra organised, he had booked his train tickets in advance (first class, because they cost a fraction of the price if you book ahead). Anyway, after buggering his ankle he obviosuly couldn't go. The tickets are non-refundable so he thought he might as well give them away on Freecycle. A man came to collect them on Monday night and mentioned that he was using them to visit his elderly mother.

Yesterday, we got a hand written letter:

"Thank you for giving the rail ticket, and giving my son the opportunity to see me in London. He doesn't come very often because he can ill afford it ... and I am no longer able to travel. Thank you again for your generosity."

Awwww.

Being very brave

Thank you for all the kind comments about Mr Marmadaisy.
Because of wearing a cast (which **fingers crossed** comes off on Friday), he can't do all the usual "man-jobs" around the place. Which means I had to conquer my fear of ladders this week to mend a crack in the outside wall.
I mean, I'm fine with heights, it's just being at a great height on a wobbly thing that I'm not too happy about.

Anyway.
Here I am getting stuck half-way.

Here I am getting stuck three quarters of the way up.

And here I am letting go of the rungs long enough to actually fill the crack.

Phew!

All About Mr Marmadaisy

(Lots of pictures)

Mr Marmadaisy has been very busy this weekend.

The weather was glorious so he took the opportunity to get out his new scaffolding and paint the back of the house.

It's a big job!
And some bits were a bit tricky ...

Mr Marmadaisy also made some yummy (healthy) juice for breakfast.

1 orange, 2 carrots and about 1 inch of ginger:

(Mrs Marmadaisy's tip: use a biodegradable bag (or piece of newspaper) to tip the solid bits into then just throw in the compost.

And then THIS happened.

It's either fractured or badly sprained. He has fractured it so many times that the doctors don't *think* it has broken this time but aren't sure. It certainly wasn't fun to hear him screeching in the garden and running out to find him on the floor. I was expecting to see the bone poking out when we took his shoe off. Oh! The perils of walking on your own lawn!! He tripped over a small hole (probably done by one of the diggy dogs).

He's fine, by the way. This was just the temporary cast, we went to hospital again today and he chose a hot pink one (Manly!!) which he will keep for 2-3 weeks.

So I'm on 24 hour tea duty (and get my slippers, get my glasses, carry my laptop ...... ad nauseum)

Tree Fella

As seems to be the common theme in blogland this week (at least in the UK) we have been making to most of the break in the rain and tidying up the garden a bit. That's a "Royal" we, of course. I've mainly just been supervising.
The extent of my participation was when I had to drive the tractor with the trailer on while Mr Marmadaisy carried the other end of a 21ft tree.
Anyone who knew me when I was learning to drive will have an idea of what this was like.

What I should have done was take a picture of the original location (the bottom field) so you could appreciate how difficult it was to get this tree from there, across 2 fields, round the back of the house and into position at the end of the garden. After getting it off the tractor we had to carry it between us (6 inches at a time) another 30 feet to position. It's going to form the side of a path that Mr Marmadaisy is making to link two sections of garden.

Watching all that hard work is exhausting!

And here is the "so far" picture of our bonfire. We're having our first bonfire party (get set for your history lesson and Guy pictures)* this year, so it needs to be a goodie.
* My friend April doesn't need the history lesson. I know this because we sat next to each other for 2 years of GCSE history where we learned all about Guy Fawkes.

The great recycling scandal

Image from here.

Like many of us, I spend quite a lot of time each week making sure that our rubbish (or "trash" if you're in the US) gets sorted properly to be recycled. In many areas of the UK you now get a hefty fine if you inadvertently put a bit of plastic in with your paper. Anyway, I was shocked to see this report this week.

This kind of apathy and "well I've done my bit" attitude quite literally stinks.

I guess the only way is to try to avoid producing so much waste in the first place.

Appley ever after.

Have I ever mentioned we have an orchard? Well, orchard might be stretching it a bit. We have a semi-fenced section with various trees in various states of decay from lack of care. Neither of us knows how to deal with them all.
Anyway, among the trees are a couple of apple trees. Every year, we say we ought to pick the apples. Every year, we leave it too late, the birds eat them, they rot, end up on the floor and get wasted. ("Always stick to the path. Never eat a windfallen apple. And never trust a man whose eyebrows meet in the middle").

It's not that we're lazy, but neither of us are that good with ladders and it's so uneven and the trees are in such a state that we wouldn't feel safe climbing up. Not anymore.

This week, Mr Marmadaisy bought himself some scaffolding for a few jobs outside, and what a perfect excuse to have a practice run at putting it up.

Of course, the goats were on hand to deal with any that we dropped.

They are quite difficult to eat whole, apparently.

Anyway, we haven't weighed and sorted them yet - they need to be sorted into "eating", "horses" and "juicing" but we have 3 trays full. I wish I knew how to make cider.

This is my ..... Work In Progress!

I am knitting a cardigan for myself. This is the first thing I have made on circular needles and the idea is that the back and front pieces are made in one. It's slow going, but getting there.
The yarn was a present from my mum and I love the colours. Hopefully, I'll get to wear it some time this year!

This is my other Work In Progress. At 6 1/2 months, and with 3 older dogs who know the routine, she should be well and truly house-trained by now. But she isn't. She is doing everything else perfectly, but she still hasn't learned how to ask to go out, or that she needs to go when I take her. One of us is doing something wrong!



Thanks to three buttons and kept in a jar

The choice is made!

Thanks for the comments/ emails about the overlocker.

In the end, I went for this one.

(picture from sewingmachine.co.uk)

I picked the Janome because:
I have a Janome sewing machine that I really like, so I trust the quality
It can be used as a 2,3 or 4 thread machine
It has an easy thread lower loop
It has a built in rolled hem
It comes with an instructional DVD (very handy when you don't know what you're doing)
It comes with a project book (as above)
It didn't come with extra feet, but I was able to buy £190 worth for £50, and the machine was £30 off anyway so effectively I got twice as many feet for the same price as the Babylock
It has a retractable knife (I imagine I might sometimes want to produce an overlock stitch without trimming??? maybe??)
It has an adjustable cutting width

I can't recommend that particular website enough, by the way. I bought my sewing machine there last year and they do the best freebies I have ever seen, and it's free next day delivery, and they are extemely competitively priced anyway! What's more, within 10 minutes of getting the confirmation email (at 15.04 today), I received another email from them with the courier number confirming that it had been dispatched.

The even better thing, it didn't cost me anything. After watching me mooning over these for the past few days, Mr M said to me today "why don't you use my credit card to buy your interlocker?". Bless.

Much Ado About Nothing Part II

OK, I know the quality isn't great because I took it on my camera, but you'll get the idea.

Much Ado About Nothing

Last night we braved the rain to see The Lord Chamberlain's Men perform at Harlech castle. I love this group; we saw them two years ago and have been dying to catch another of their productions ever since.

They keep the performance as authentic as possible, with a wooden stage and an all male company.

Unfortunately, the weather was so bad they had to halt for a quick non-period squeegy mop of the stage (after Benedick took a nasty tumble off the stage).

The rain soon stopped and as darkness fell the stage looked magical.

Why I hate people

.. alternative title: I have worked in retail WAAAAAY too long!

This post from my old friend (see what I did there? I did that on purpose teehee) reminded my that I have meaning to share a website with you for ages.

My first job was working in my parents' newspaper kiosk at the train station, my first real job (by which I mean one where I actually got paid the going rate) was in a bakery. I never liked serving the customers, I liked being out back making sandwiches. Honestly!

My next job while I was at university was in the kitchens of a very snooty boarding school where I had to deal with snotty, spoiled, rich kids and snotty, spoiled, rich house staff. But I was a student, and I got fed.

Then when I left university I worked in a bank (oh! I met the most stupid and annoying people ... on both sides of the counter) And with my maths skills I didn't last long...

Finally, I moved to a call centre dealing with business mobile phones. This was a good call centre, not one of those "press 1, press 2" types of places but one where the number you had actually got you put through to a real, live person who knew what they were talking about. Our team was the best trained in the company and eventually I worked as a manager there with a team of very intelligent and sensible (and patient!) people. But the customers .... oh my! And talk about high pressure ...

All this left me with a nervous breakdown aged 25, I took a sixth month break and when I came back to work I couldn't be arsed with it all anymore. I decided to give it all up and move to the countryside.

Which brings me here. If you have ever had to serve stupid, ignorant, rude people, you will get it.

The curious incident of the blog in the night-time

Well, although it was a gloriously hot day (26 degrees), it was a bit too windy to take the dogs out, so we had a "jobs" day. This included fixing a trailer, cleaning and vacuuming the car, cleaning all the mirrors in the house, gardening, laundry, and playing with the Big Ball (that last one was just the dogs, but it's a very important job that MUST be done at full speed, regardless of the weather).
As a treat, Mr Marmadaisy and I took ourselves off the the outdoor theatre in Harlech to watch The Hound of the Baskervilles. If you are in the UK please do check out this theatre company , they are touring all over the UK this summer and the performance was absolutely fantastic. It was witty, energetic and very entertaining. Take a picnic and a comfy chair.

I didn't get any shots of the first half, because I was worried about the noise my camera would make, but in the interval I worked out how to turn the sound off.

Here is Mr Marmadaisy being arrested because of his beard. Stangely enough, they didn't comment on his trousers - so obviously not the fashion police then!

This was the stage set up in the grounds of the theatre.

The cast (all four of them!) played various roles, and the use of props was so imaginative and witty.

Carriages were depicted by vigorous bouncing up and down and coconut shell noises.

The denoument!

This is the third spontaneous thing we have done this week! For a couple of anally-retentive, obsessive planners that's very worrying!

Playing hookie two days running ... and I don't care!

(Lots of pictures in this one, sorry)
Mr Marmadaisy has been planning to go to his mum's in Oxfordshire for months and because of problems with having no-one to take care of the animals we were not planning on me going, until this week my parents came to the rescue and said they would watch our dogs for us (thanks MUM, I hope you don't regret it!)
You know how when you plan a last minute trip away there's always lots to do: ironing, packing, making lists for the dog sitters, cleaning, gardening ...?
Yesterday I woke up with stomach cramps, sweats, and general crappiness which I can only attribute to Monday night's prawns in spring onion and ginger sauce. So I did none of those things and spent the day on the sofa in my pyjamas. Which meant I had double jobs today. Except, I didn't do them today either, I went here instead:


This is Tre'r Ceiri, an impressive Iron Age Hillfort. It sits some 500-odd feet at the top of this hill. And it's a steep climb!

We were a little worried about the sea mist, but it turned out OK. There are something like 150 huts still visible, I couldn't get too close to take pictures as it's a preservation site and you're not supposed to climb on them.

The site dates back to about 70AD and was a stronghold against the Romans - some walls are still as much as 3m high.

I hope these give you some idea of the height.

Of course, some people always act the arse in photos!

Right at the top of the fort is a Bronze Age Cairn which, unfortunately, we couldn't get to because of this swarm of biting-flying things.

As I went to take a second picture of them I realised that the cloud had dispersed and we were suddenly under attack. Blech.

On the way home we stopped at this sweet little church which we found by accident last year.

St Beuno's Church was a stop off point for Pilgrims on their way to Bardsey Island. It's also the resting place of actor Rupert Davies (TV's Magrait).

It was quite over-run and I really wanted to go in but I didn't like to intrude into the grounds, so I just perched on the wall.

Then we went to see the derelict hotel Pistyll. We drove past this once impressive building about a year ago (which is how we found the church) and had to stop to take a look, I've been itching to go back and take pictures ever since. (By the way, how smart does my car look? Couldn't you just see me living in that great mansion? Hmm read on ...) Unfortunately, it was all fenced off. We did talk once about how amazing it would be to rennovate this fantastic building, but then we found out it's falling into the sea - which is why it's now derelict - and we decided not to put all our money it it!


So that concludes today's trip around the LLeyn. I now have three days' work to do tomorrow but guess what? If it's nice, we're going to take the dogs to the beach instead. Ha!

IN YER FACE, HOUSEWORK!!