Tuesday 4th August - tomorrow's the day

when the hup! installers get to open up the hundreds, well, definitely scores of packs of components stacked on the grass at the front and back of the house, on the sub-floor of the extension, and even stored inside their van for a couple of days in case it rains. (Rains?!)

    It's like a mad, insane, crazy IKEA construction. These are just the walls and roof; the glass, and the window/door frames, will arrive 'sometime next week'. As for the end window, which forms the boundary between us and next door, well, that's not expected until 'sometime in September'. That will be the 30th, then? I'm told that delay won't cause a problem as they will board up the opening to make it water-tight so they can continue to work indoors while waiting for the glass to be delivered.

Now, when I open the back door first thing in the morning and stand n the step to take in the glories of nature, I lift my eyes to look at the trees, as lower down it looks like a construction site. I'm not complaining; 'eyes on the prize' - wasn't that a line in the first 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' film?

.....

On Monday I spent the day not taking up my new trousers. Truth be told, it's taking me a long tine to get round to them, which is silly as they are what I think of as 'heatwave trousers', cut on the lines of my pyjama trousers. And a heatwave is what we are having, although it's a bit cooler today, and maybe tomorrow. Instead I made a cover for a plastic fruit punnet to capture the various potions I like to keep ready; hand cream, lip salve, lunchtime meds etc.

It was easier than I thought; I took a piece of fabric (checking it was big enough) and sewed a simple hem along the top and bottom sides. Then I wrapped the punnet in the fabric, and everywhere where I would have put sticky tape if I had been using paper, I sewed instead. The buttons, from some vintage ones Ang gave me, are sewn on through the sides (the needle went through the plastic quite easily) to catch the fabric folded to the inside and keep the cover on. I think that was the most taxing bit; I'm not a fan of sewing on buttons and I used ten.  

....  

One of the builders said he would like our settee and took it, strapped precariously to a heap of wheelbarrows, cement mixers, shovels and I don't know what on top of his truck.  

I'm sitting on my grandmother's old Windsor chair instead, suitably padded. It's a much better size and shape for me.

     My parents brought the elephants when they came back from Singapore back in the 1970s.  

'Step by step we're moving forward, little by little we're gaining ground'...

Which reminds me of that lovely, light-hearted song 'Mairi's Wedding', sung here by The Corries;