Nobody knows we’re...

here, well apart from a few well

screened friends and family...

Oh, and the three men and a dog that look at my blog on a regular basis!?!

For some unknown reason just this afternoon I have developed a very bad case of the giggles.  I’d love to say it’s the wine, sadly I have morphed into a boring old fart since giving up the Oh-be-joyfuls.  The reason is we have had quite a day trying to find a fridge/freezer to fit into a space that no self respecting fridge/freezer would be seen dead in.  The husband featured in the garden picture has been on a mission to look up the dimensions of all John Lewis’s stock.

He is now lying down in a darkened

room after not only drawing a blank but being the butt of my hilarity.

As if that wasn’t enough he kicked off the morning by sweet talking the lady I possibly, more likely definitely, offended on the dog and bone on Friday afternoon.

His immortal words were

‘LL has been allowed out under caution!’  

Can’t you just tell he was a very

 proper copper?

I have enjoyed my day getting the little kitchen in the

garden room cleaned and shipshape.  And the top part of the garden,  just outside the West Wing, organised. A happy day, is it any wonder I got the giggles, I ask you? 

The thing is...

I do tend to act my shoe size instead of my age.  Today was a case in point, excited to get in the same post, the quote from the company making our fitted wardrobes and my first ever pair of crocs.  On both these counts I am fully aware that excitement isn’t what you would expect from  any sane person?  Crocs, I have always been very sniffy about; who in their right mind would clap rubber/plastic ugly footwear to their trotters, I ask you?  Being of an impressionable age (!?!) on seeing my lovely new osteopath wearing them I thought, maybe, just maybe, they are the thing to wear to cushion the old wear and tear on the ancient bod?

Putting them on and just like Cinderella donning the glass slipper, finding it fits and more to the point, comfort is the name of the game. I got rather overcome!  On the blower I go to 

chat about the quote, blow me down

 with a feather... the line is only engaged.  When a girl’s on a roll it is very frustrating to have to wait.  Then to add insult to injury after a squillon try’s they have only gone and put the blooming thing on answerphone! My message started sedately enough,

 well for me sedate, then got 

cheekier by the minute, ending with something along the lines of can you call me back after you 

have had your sarnie (it was 

lunchtime)and got your feet off

 the desk.  Well, I mean to say,

 what was I thinking about, even 

himself looked up, he who is used

 to my utterances.  Later on after much thought and since I have been meditating I haven’t had regrets about things I’ve done and said... until today!  I decided I ought to email and apologise, which I have done.  What possessed me, I ask you?  All my life I have sailed close to the wind, even in the very exalted circles I used to work in, I always said stupid 

stuff.  Please tell me one day,

I will grow up?

Watch the birdie...

the reason we moved...

pure and simple.

Hands up...

I am admitting I need help.

There you have it, brave don’t you think?  As we trundled through town the husband suggested I pay pound notes, scones and any other enticements to get me clued up, in the technological kind.  And kind is how whoever is brave enough to take me on will have to be.  My trouble is I limp along just about getting by.  Then that horrible Mr Google throws in a googly.  Yes, I am still chuntering  on about this comment as google account carry-on. My trouble is, brace yourself, big confession coming up, I pretend I know what folk are talking about when they try to help!

As we strolled into the computer shop I plaintively appealed for help.

‘Yes, we can help you with your little computer problems!’ the fresh, smooth cheeked chap said.  Got my doubts he will be the same as he staggers out from the old homestead after an intensive twenty three and a half hour lesson.  Half hour off for lunch obv. 

Another view of the Wrenery.

She walked by holding...

aloft a willow dragonfly.

A beautiful dragonfly made from willow.

I couldn’t resist asking where she had got it.

Over the tipperty-trap wooden bridge.  As we parted, I said... you were sold a pup with that parasol.  Her and her husband laughed as like little Billy Goat Gruff I went Trip-trap over the rickety-rackerty bridge.  On a mission I was!

On discovering a hitherto undiscovered crafty part of the Ludlow Castle Spring Fair: common sense prevailed, and I decided that my still very cluttered life could manage very well without the addition of a willow dragonfly.

The wrenery...

seen from the orangery.

It is a completely safe area for 

garden birds.

A pair of robins have been feeding their young.  The young robins speckled breast a-go-go have also come to help themselves.  They must feel a degree of safety due I suppose in no small part to the fact the glass roof gives them a feeling of security.

Of the wrens just one fleeting glance; surely they know the whole shebang has been named after them and this is all the thanks I get?

I seem to be...

losing the blogging plot,

only in order to try to be just Lettice, not a lot to ask is it?

My posts since we moved here have mysteriously disappeared.

This amply illustrates that a little knowledge is a bad thing.

All this has come about by me trying to re-jig my settings.

All I have managed to succeed in doing is buggering everything up.

This post is purely a test, so once again I will be unable to reply and in a puff of smoke all might float up, up and away?

The staddle stone has landed in Ludlow.  The garden is truly superb, the lady of the house was a garden designer and it certainly shows.

We have arrived...

the cottage is beautiful, all I hoped for and more.

We are working flat out cleaning and unpacking.

I still can’t seem to reply to comments, sorry!

Just a flavour of where we are...

Lucky or wot?

Lots of things...

first and foremost...

sorry I can’t reply to my comments.  The weird thing is I can do this?  Once I have posted, I will endeavour to reply as Lettice, thus far I am stuck as reply as google account which won’t accept me.  No names, no pack drill, however it goes back to a man trying to be helpful and getting me more email addresses than is good for a girl!?!  Well that is if you are honest and really don’t need to be one step ahead of the law?  Even techwhizzes can’t get me back on the straight and narrow, so what hope for a  quill-toting lass?

We are well ahead with the packing; we leave here on Wednesday to arrive in Ludlow on the following Wednesday, our furniture arriving the next day.  This allows us time to walk the course and finally decide where the many and various treasures (alright to some, old toot!?!) can
 go.  

My plants are going to be a worry! The huge palm I have arranged with my removal beau to put in their reception. You just wouldn’t believe the price I had to pay for this concession!!!?!!!  My odd unusual triffid like succulents are coming with us in the car.  What they will make of being in such a hostile environment, baked

 in the sun, chilled in the night, heaven only knows?  I will cover them with fleece to protect.  Hubs just wishes I loved him enough to lavish such care on his ancient bod!

This is what I plan to call the Wrenery.  Why?  As we sat talking to the vendors the last time we viewed the cottage, I watched a wren bobbing along the space between the stones in the wall.  Each end is open and I can see us having our breakfast out there most sunny mornings.  To call it a lean-to just doesn’t have the same 

style and panache!  As I have made style over substance so much part of my life it seems only 

right!

Saturday I am off to have an MRI scan on my knee and lumber spine. I have been on our osteopath’s rack and in just a week have gone from 5’4” to 6’2” At this rate I can see myself strutting my streamline bod. down the runway at the Milan fashion show!

Gorilla rope tales...

funny thoughts from the 17 months

living by the sea.  A look back as we prepare to move away.

The regular three or four women who swim every day roughness permitting, seem to me to have very thin legs?  Is it the effect of cold sea water on their pins as they slice through the surf?  Maybe the shock melts the muscle?

They do all seem tanned though.  Weather beaten maybe, but brown of bod., who knew?

What causes an empty beach suddenly out of nowhere to  erupt with fishermen?  A mermaid’s eerie call from the depths of the sea causing them lemming-like to come?

Family Crack... not so much in evidence.  Huge top tucked into commando trousers, let’s face it it would never do to get a chill in your crack!  He still does insist on putting bollards outside his own house on a side street in order to disallow kindly folk from parking outside of Chez Craic, 
then has the cheek(get it?) to park his massive Crackmobile outside some other innocents’ abode!

The seal offshore, goading the glaring fishermen with a nonchalant partaking of brekkie right in front of their glaring eyes.

The old gorilla rope given to me by our much loved builder fresh out of their cage at Port Lympne 

zoo. Packing up I carefully unwound it from the railings.  Out of nowhere sparrows appeared keen
 to help me clear the the hairy 
bits left in amongst the plants.  Ruefully I smiled as I watched them work... Wimpy Homes eat your heart out, them there sparrows know how to make a cosy home?  The funny thing was, all along I have missed the garden birds having to content myself with gulls, crows and the odd starlings and then out of nowhere the sparrows arrive! 

Funny old world... 

Two weeks on...

Wednesday will see us gone... I can hardly believe it.

Our buyers came to view on Friday, we haven’t seen them for months.  Then a call from the people who bought our last cottage to ask if it was convenient for them to visit. Their first... how strange was that?

Both sets of buyers were the first to view and decided there and then.  With all the hassle we have had with this transaction I just couldn’t get it out of my head that lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place!

It did!  Added to which Geoff coming from Goudhurst seemed to have a comfort blanket effect on my worries that we should never have left.  His visit squared the circle allowing me to kick the regrets into touch and move on.

I am also happy to announce I am now back in Google’s good favour and am allowed to comment as me again!

A win-win situation.

A lovely photograph of Lettice who I take my blog name from.

Much loved and sadly missed