Lovely day - a guest post

Hello! Flossie here. I haven't been on Slow Lane Life for a while because I've been very busy helping the builders. 

I love the builders!

We had a day off from building  today. Firstly, Tosca went off to have her hair cut. She looks and smells a lot better now.

 Meantime, Tricia took a photo of me with Lady, my favourite toy. She says I make her laugh.

I love Lady!

Later on, we went to the beach.

I love the beach!

We took a ball.

I love a ball!

And we met Pippa, who is so like me - she has a ball too, and doesn't like to share it, but we ran in and out of the water trying to steal a ball from each other.

I got Pippa's yellow ball.

And she got my pink one. Her human couldn't make her drop it. Rachel laughed at this; she said I was just the same.

Then Pippa went home, and we carried on playing and walking.

Tricia took lots of photos of me. I don't know why, really, because when I'm wet, she complains about the smell in the car.

But I love being wet!

Rachel took photos of Tricia and us with her phone.

Then they said we had to go home. The painter and the joiner would need a cup of tea. Tosca and I thought we would like a little something too.

The sun was going down.

But there was just time for another gallop into the waves.

And then we really had to go.

Everyone was going home for dinner. And so were we.

We love dinner!

See you soon. Big wet licks from Flossie. xxx

Note from Rachel: sorry about all the exclamation marks. They're a Flossie thing.

Window saga

Poor R, the young joiner. He has been busy for days on end, opening long-sealed windows in the sitting room, replacing  modern 'brass' fastenings with traditional curly-tailed iron ones,

building a cupboard to hide the gas meter, deepening the windowsill,

 taking out a window that is beyond saving if it is to be draught-free in winter,

and boarding up the void. All under the watchful supervising eye of a small tabby cat.

And trying again and again to hand-build the replacement to fit perfectly, without a router bit being available that could replicate the angles of the glazing bars.

The window went back and forth from the house to the workshop, until eventually the match between the ancient, uneven frame and the new 'light' was satisfactory.

All done. Not much of a view, but definitely an improvement on a sheet of plywood. Thank you, R.

Next major event: choosing the curtains....

Of mud and mayhem

Just for those of you who like to know how a major renovation can go wrong is getting on nicely, this is a glimpse of my revamped bathroom as of 5 o'clock this evening. It requires a little explaining.

Top right: a corner (well, leg) of the freestanding bath, finally plumbed in and working at 5 o'clock, after a drama with the wrong-sized waste and some improvisation by a determined plumber. There's a window where the builder broke two panes of glass.

I only wept once today, and then secretly, alone in the sitting room, and only for a moment, honest, when it looked like I might not have a bathroom for yet another weekend.

Lower left: the corner of the walk-in shower, not working because of wrong/missing fixings; our second attempt to have them posted out from the manufacturer won't yield results till some time next week.


Centre: the missing floor tiles? Well, before they were even finished being laid, let alone grouted and sealed,  a builder who shall remain nameless trod large clods of red mud all over them. Then a joiner who shall also remain nameless swept them with the broom, smearing the mud liberally all over those tiles, by now firmly cemented into place. Whereupon the mud stained the tiles - not cheap tiles, mind you - and could not be completely cleaned off. I went on a bit about this, as you can imagine - "my friend has cream porcelain tiles in her kitchen, with direct access to the muddy garden, and her floor always cleans up like new...." and so on.

And so the foreman was summoned, and the worst tiles were chiselled out laboriously by the two nameless ones, somewhat subdued by now, and are to be replaced; the supplier will be given a stained tile to ponder over quality issues.

The rest of the bathroom looks no better; in fact, for authentic bleakness, it should smell of carbolic soap and have a ragged scratchy towel hanging up on a nail in the wall. And maybe one splayed-bristle toothbrush used by the whole family and for cleaning the plughole.

It will get better though. The supplier sent the wrong size of basin but a bigger one will be in place on Monday. The toilet seat and lid will also be replaced with a soft-close one (honestly! how princessy of me!) and behind the slatted blind, the rattly broken window will be removed to be repaired and completely reglazed, and hopefully won't allow whistling winds to make little waves in the bathwater.

So we must try to imagine it with the walls painted in some yet-to-be-determined gorgeous colour, heaps of  lovely fluffy towels, candles, plants, a shiny chrome towel radiator, gleaming mirrors, delicious scents, and me having forgotten all about the past two weeks' rather spartan arrangements, accidents and mud.

But now - well, I'm going to find my scratchy old towel and that bar of carbolic soap, and .... no of course I'm not. I'm going to have a lovely bath in my unlovely bathroom, and just be glad that we got this far.

Family resemblance

Millie had a birthday-wishes email last night from the foster carers in Northumberland in whose house she was born.

They also sent photos of Millie's sister Luna, and of Banjo, their latest rescued cat, who had been taken in as a 3-week old kitten with meningitis, and who is now hale and hearty, but, sadly, blind.

Here they are.

So, can you see the sisterly resemblance between Millie (below) and the tabby (above)?

Well, you're wrong.

Meet Luna. Big sister.

Three!

It's Millie's birthday today. The only one of the menagerie whose date of birth is known.

The naughtiest kitten ever is growing up. Still adventurous and sociable, but no longer the whirling dervish getting into everything everywhere.

From the Prosecution's evidence file archives:

Thank goodness.

Happy 3rd Birthday, lovely girl. Whiskas cake fish Philadelphia cheese* later.

* such a fussy eater, but she knows what she likes!