Furniture

With Sparks fast completing rooms and 'signing them over' to Mum and Dad, they can get involved in bringing furniture into the house. Some of it was dismantled for removal in the 'Big Green Lorry' so it needs re-assembling from flat pack as if it was new. We have long since lost the instructions for this but Dad took them apart only as recently as October and kept all the bits of one piece lashed together with brown parcel tape and the nuts, bolts and widgets in a small plastic baggy or tupperware pot with the main bits of wood for that item. Other bits were transported whole or with just the cushions removed. It was stored in the two main outbuildings, the Tígín (wee housey) and the milking shed, both of which have reasonably intact roofs and anyway the stuff was sheeted over with huge plastic sheets. For the most part, it survived this abuse although three months, even under cover in the often-damp Roscommon air some of it has started to mildew up and came out needing a good clean and scrub, a good rub down with teak oil or beeswax, and in the case of the dining table it got its top well sanded down before re-waxing. These restorative processes have kept Mum and Dad amused while Sparks has carpentered away and Dad has only really got involved in house woodwork when following Sparks around with a varnish pot or when helping with any two-man lifts, offering up doors for marking etc. There are also the two pieces that Dad brought up in the 2CV trailer on Sunday which have been living in Silverwood. They are warm and dry at least but Mum still wants to sand them down and recoat with either oil, varnish or wax. The sofa was a story in itself. Readers may recall the fun we had getting it out of the Faversham house. Not particularly tall or deep, it is very long. Dad can lie full length on it with room to spare and then there's the arms. It must be 7 feet long, way taller stood on end than any doorway. In Faversham there was not the option to walk it in horizontally as the stairs were in the narrow hall just outside the living room door, so its only way in and out was to have the double glazing guys lift out the main glazing panel of the bay window and to lift it in from the drive. Mum was acutely aware of this and worried that it wouldn't come back into this house - fit through the front door and round the corner into living room. When the wall to the right of the stairs went she relaxed a bit but as the stairs went in and then the banister, at each stage she'd growl at the boys "You'd better measure it and make sure", "Are you SURE it'll go?" and "I'm gonna kill you if it doesn't fit!". There is no bay window here as an option. The boys, especially Sparks teased her a bit with "Ah..not a bother! Of COURSE it'll fit" and "Easy" and "No sweat". It had gone into the Tígín easily, hadn't it? Last minute, Mum measure the door of the 'Tig' and found it to be 3 inches wider than the living room door aperture (with no door or door stop yet). "I'm just saying...." she said heavily. Finally the day arrived to heft it in. The boys went to get it OK but on the way round, Sparks said to Dad, "This is the day we could die, you know?". They solemnly shook hands and said "Nice working with You" to each other. In the event the sofa, hefted onto its back slid in without a bother, but the boys were a bit relieved that this was possible, acting more cocky than they had any right to be! Nice one lads! Deefs

Jezz the Window

Sorry if this is a bit of a bizarre, snatched image of a man apparently holding nothing recognisable in a living room. If the photographer had had any idea how to take a good picture you'd realise that it is Jezz-the-Window holding one end of our 3-seat sofa, while the other end rests on the window sill, which is currently open to the elements because Jezz has just deftly removed the glazed panel. Dad has just lifted that up there and is meant to be racing round outside to grab the outer end to help Jezz hoof it out into the front garden but has sneakily paused to take this picture leaving poor Jezz holding his end up. Suffice to say that the sofa is now out of the house and the window is re-instated.

That job done we head for the allotments for probably the last time ever to pull the last of the onions and dig the last spuds. We took the wheel barrow and therein lies the reason why we did it today - you need a barrow to do it sensibly and the barrow will shortly be off into storage along with all the other furniture and house-stuff. Anyway, the onions needed pulling - it is about now that if they are still in the ground they start to re-root and to bolt, and also to go soft with basal rot at the bottoms. You need to haul them out and invert them in the sun (in our case in the greenhouse) to dry the roots out, stop the bolt and stop the rot; to 'ripen' them in fact.

I say 'all the furniture and house stuff'. Well, that's not quite true. Dad decides that there are items lying around which are 'clutter' and would be better off left behind, so the best bet, as we know form experience' is to create a pile on the front drive labelled 'free to a good home' and let the locals give it an onward journey. Out goes the old deep and heavy wide screen TV, the video player, its stand/base and video drawer and all the videos (Yes, Mum said, even the Shakespeare ones; this is a serious de-clutter). Up from the shed comes Dad's old pair of skis and ski poles not used for 20 years or so. Down from the loft comes the cat basket, a kiddies high-chair, a wine rack, the ski boots and gloves , the bass guitar amp and a big old picture of a dolphin, framed and again, not seen for decades. By evening we have only the dodgy wine rack and the video drawer/TV stand thingy.

Dad then has to make a million phone calls to utility companies to tell them we're moving out, and ends up scranny over the number of answerphone options he has had to battle through. To be fair you can now 'move house' using their websites and this is very well set up on most of them. We get a nice walk round the boat yard later on in the evening, before Dad cooks himself a thawed out chilli (trying to empty the freezer too!) and we all watch the Irish RTE programme "Late Late Show" with Ryan Tubridy on RTE's version of i-player. Can I just say how funny it was when Dad decided he'd watch TV, grabbed the listings mag and walked through to the living room only to find no sofa and no TV! Do I come here often?

Haha!

Deefs

Sofa Back

Here is a girl who knows how to relaaaxxxxx, in this case in my favourite place, the back of the sofa while Mum and Dad are both in the room preferably watching a nice long TV programme or film. Only then do we (Haggis and I) seem to truly relax. Any other activities or positions, or having Mum and Dad not in the same room render us a bit fraught in case we miss something or one of them sneaks out without telling us.

I have to admit, I look a bit disreputable here but that was yesterday. She whos word is Law round here didst sniff of Haggis's ears and did declare unto Dad "These dogs ming and need a shampoo". That was it. No arguments are brooked. As soon as we got back from a run down to visit Pud Lady in Hastings, Dad laid the fire (so that we will be warm and dry out quickly after our bath) and then nabbed us one after the other for a trim of the aforementioned manky hair in our ears and then a shampoo to within an inch of our lives. Now we are white, fluffy and fragrant. It'll never catch on.

We hear that following the daring commando raid by Mr Silverwood and the abduction of Maxwell in the dead of Dublin night, Max's former owner may have been having a re-think and is possibly going to ask for the puppy back. Given that the pup is still only 10 weeks old and therefore as capable of pooing and peeing everywhere and eating the house, it will be interesting to see how this one plays out.

Hope you had a good weekend.

Yours, Fragrantly and Lovelililily

Deefs

On the Sofa

Thought you'd like this picture of Meggie, just to prove Westies can swim. She's in the forest here on a hot August day, and they were walking to one of the ponds "built" by the Friends of Kingswood (of which Dad is Treasurer). Megan had not shown any inclination to swim before, but that day she trotted round to the back of the pond, then strolled in down the "beach" and swam straight across the middle

I can now leap onto the sofa from the floor un-aided. There is now no escape from me for Haggis there, so if he gets fed up with me he has to go upstairs and leap onto the bed, which is still too high for me.

We were down at the boat yard ("Iron Wharf") today and met up with "Alfie", ship's dog for the Sailing Barge Greta. Fantastic dog.

All the best

Deefer

Lost down the back of the sofa

At home there's a superb long sofa, which I like to jump up onto the back of and then sleep between the back-cushion and the house-wall, basically stretched out along the hard back-plank of the sofa frame. Here is a pic of what happens when you try this at Silverwood's house, where the sofa has a big gap between the cushion and the back - no "plank". I was tired, so i was fast asleep, and the rotters got a pic of me disappearing out of sight as the evening went on. I think that's my ear at the top of the picture

Meanwhile, a progress report on Archie, who is still strapped up but now apparently feeling a lot better, so has now to be limitted on his desire to charge about on 3 good legs and a strapped-rigid one, still trying to fight his Dad (Hector). His human parents can't wait till he's let out again! Driving them crazy. other sister, Ellie is off to pup-classes tonight. Her Mum and Dad are worried that without a Hector/Mollie or Megan/Haggis to play with, she'll not get properly socialised. maybe she'd like a go with ASBO ?

Deefer