A day in...

the life of the Wrenery.

Has anyone an idea as to what this pretty little interloper is.

I simply adore plants that turn up: don’t they just know what conditions suit them far more than these supposedly superior 

human beings?

In answer to...

anonymous I would never ever harm a bee.  I ought to explain the Wrenery is an open sided  addition to the cottage.  It has a glass roof which is the problem.  They waste valuable energy endeavouring to get out.  As the roof is high I need an implement to shepherd them out... hence the feather duster to gently show them the way!  Just holding a broom aloft gives them the message without much style though.  As I’m a style over substance sort of a woman the extending howsyourfather seems to fit the bill.  Added to which visiting friends might think I have finally found housework!

I’ve decided what every girl...

needs is a tickling stick.

Well to be more exact what this girl needs...

Why, you might well wonder?

In my infinite wisdom, as the dog pestering has to take a back seat as the sensible bit of me... yes I do have a tad, realises that with all the upheaval, a nervy rescue dog wouldn’t settle with all the stuff that is going on at the mo.  Long sentence... sorry!

I am now set on a feather duster... no, no NO, not to do anything so common as housework!  To direct, marshal, persuade the many and various bees that find their way into the Wrenery to work the roses... home with their rucksacks loaded with pollen.  A very good idea I modestly think!  Where I went wrong was to have the husband in tow when I went shopping in town.  Starting off in Ludlow’s answer to the pound shop, the guinea shop, their offerings were not to put too fine a point on it beyond the pale.  On we trogged, I eventually found just the thing, a  wonderful being of an item... hold tight, my heart is going all of a quiver at the thought.  A magnifico black ostrich feather duster with an extendable stick.  Good job I had my smelling salts with me as I nearly had a severe case of the vapours with the excitement of it all! I casually looked at the price £35!  Over my shoulder I felt the presence, sniffing in disgust or maybe horror... dunno!?!  That in an instance completely and utterly put my grand idea of buying it and passing it off as an upmarket £5.99 Ludlow special.  Mind you, so much cheaper than a dog and I would be doing my bit for the bee population with style and panache.

Yes Joanne...

 I’m ‘painting’!  A picture of what actually happened.  It may not surprise you to know I never read instructions, another one of my odd habits.  The husband reads them to the letter.  Why oh why did I a.) allow myself to be party to this strange practice and b.) then not follow through on the final and important advice to enclose the wormery to prevent escapees?

I wouldn’t mind but yesterday sat in the garden having lunch, two of the little buggers slithered by.  They were smartly returned from whence they came.  In the meantime we await another flaming bag of the vipers nest of worms we have had to pay more good money for!  Blooming serve us right some might say!

You’re a worm...

okay?  

You have just had the most horrendous experience, having been wrenched away from your chums, alright 500 of your best mates and family members did experience the same trauma.  Into a bag you were put and then into a box at the start of an epic charabanc trip to Ludlow.  On arrival you could hear the delight of the two dorks who had paid good money for you.

The slave trade is obviously alive and well in Shropshire crossed your mind.

From inside the breathable pod you heard them reading the instructions, excitement quivering in their voices.  Giving them credit where credit is due they followed the literature to the letter. At great length they discussed whether to follow the advice as to prevent you from escaping by putting your new abode into a box or plastic sack.  Their decision to disregard this vital piece of advice gave you an idea?  You decide on a plan to see for yourselves if the rolling Shropshire hills are as good as Sir Edwin Elgar’s music portrayed?

Under cover of darkness you made your escape laughing all the way imagining their faces as they peered in to coo over their newly acquired chums...

‘Twenty six!’

My funny little foibles?

Everything in my world is 26!

Where does this come from? Who knows?

To give you an example if the husband asks how many slices of toast, my reply is always Twenty six! I only ever get one weekdays, two at the weekend.  Why does he ask I idly wonder?  Just asked him what else I say the same to, his reply try the word anything and everything.

As I sit up in bed tapping this out I am surveying the three quarter painted room.  Now the thing is... Pale Oak looked superb in our timber framed rooms in Goudhurst, here on smooth even walls I’m not so sure?  I sort of get the feeling I am waking up in a newly born babies nappy!  Especially as I am advocating doing the ceiling the same colour!?!  I could always blame it on the light in Ludlow as I trog up to the garden room to survey 
the twenty six sample pots of the wonderful Craig and Rose chalky emulsion! 

The trouble is the magical figure is actually getting closer and the more colours I have to choose the harder it is getting.  Mind you by the time the fitted wardrobes are made the funky rad. installed, the pictures on the wall, all twenty six of them, the wall colour will hardly show through!

Ludlow Update...

moving is for the young, I’ve decided.

When you take up residence in a new town it feels like you’re on holiday...

You treat yourselves to trying out the new restaurants.

The shops and what they sell need to be given a whirl.

We now have a fishmonger, a dying breed if ever there was one, it means we are eating lots of fish.  Living right next to the sea at our last house, the very first time I went into our local beachside fish shop I was charged £17 for a small piece of sea bass.  Strange to say I never had the desire to darkened their door from then on.   I had the distant impression that they charged what they thought you could afford?  I made a mental note to never go out dripping in diamonds ever again!  The funny thing is the fish here this far from the sea is sparkling fresh.

The dreaded three letter word with four legs is currently occupying my head.  Himself is weakening, and sad to say I am, much against 

my better judgement agreeing with him... that now wouldn’t be the ideal time to get a dog.  However that doesn’t stop me each night 
ploughing through the 75 pages of dogs at the Dogs Trust looking for

 a home! In fact after a hard day in the garden I am just off to 
have a quick look, just in case, 
you understand?

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?