Miscellany for Sunday

When I first moved into this house, I declared it to be completely liveable-with for now. And then I proceeded to not live with it, but to start chipping away at the edges, making little changes here and there, and suddenly finding that they had grown into major undertakings.

It felt strange, and sometimes wasteful, to be undoing the work that the previous owners had put so much time in doing. But I was helped by being so much shorter and smaller than they had been, and needing rooms to be scaled down, made less cavernous, softer, homelier.

Remember the work that was being done on the bathroom? All the mess and disruption, caused initially by the replacement of an ancient and deeply undesirable concrete-and-asbestos soil pipe? Then the bright idea of moving the toilet along to the right by a few inches? Then the addition of a walk-in shower?

This is where we're at today:

And remember the utility room? The soil pipe again - and connecting drain - that had to be replaced? The floor that had to be levelled by several inches?

 Followed by the notion of a run of worktop with appliances beneath? Oh, and a sink for buckets and bathing of small dog? And a new roof? And the removal of all those spidery beams?

And the boxing-in of pipes and vents?

The utility room is still unfinished but with not much left to do, waiting for the woodwork to be painted, the floor scrubbed, and the planned dresser to be found to replace the old bookshelves that have taken much of the clutter out of the dining room - looks like this:

And now it's starting to feel almost there, almost my home, rather than someone else's, or a holiday cottage that I was allowed to 'do things to'. It's very different from my old home, yet very different from the cottage that I moved into almost five months ago. I feel ready for my first Christmas in my new home.

Speaking of which.... it's not Christmas yet, but my birthday today.

The un-Christmas packages, some of which have sat for weeks, tantalisingly full of secrets, were opened this morning, and revealed this:

And scented narcissi are filling the sitting room with the perfume of Spring. Lovely gifts.

I am now 63 years old. Not young, not old; just 63.

I might give myself a day off.