Another week that flew by, leaving me wondering ‘where did it go?’ Three lovely babysitting days meant extra fun, which included a dowsing from a hose pipe; also time spent catching up after taking the day off last week to go to the LBF. I hadn’t fully caught up before the weekend was upon me again and it was manic! Not least because the moving bug has arrived…
Whilst we absolutely love Byre Cottage, our converted cow shed and hayloft, it is now finished. For Lawrence that means boredom. So once again our heads are full of plans. It might also be time to start thinking about that French holiday home we’ve been promising ourselves. Saturday found us up at the crack of dawn, me jumping online to set up Tweets for the fab Brook Cottage Books giveaway weekend that included two of my books. Barely time to answer a few emails, then jumping in the car for the hour-long drive to view some properties in and around the Forest of Dean. You’ve guessed it – we fell in love with a barn conversion that needs a LOT of TLC and immediately rang our estate agents to bring forward putting ours on the market, to Monday. Another unexpected thing to add to the ‘to do’ list – ready the house for photos!
We had a quick bite to eat in a lovely pub we found in Littledean between viewings. It served traditional English pub grub. Late afternoon we headed to Radstock, nr Bath (heading in the opposite direction to home and about a two-hour drive due to traffic and a motorway diversion) for an important delivery.
I have a lot of decorators’ pieces in storage – ornaments and metal objects like candle holders etc that I’ve used in the past when dressing houses. It’s quite a large haul and includes several ranges of china to display on kitchen dressers etc. Most of it is country style or shabby chic, that’s the style I specialised in when I was designing interiors. My brother’s renovation project is going on the market soon and so we had to deliver one desk and several crates of bits and pieces. The sofas and furniture we chose together last week had arrived and everything looked wonderful. The oak mirrors looked amazing in place and transformed three of the rooms. The kitchen has a huge mirror on one wall and a smaller one above the worktops on the opposite side of the room. It doubles the space and the brand-new country kitchen looks stunning. A large mirror in the lounge adds light and there’s also one large mirror above the bed head as a feature. Only roman blinds and bedding to source now, and once everything is ‘set up’ it will look fabulous. He’s done a great job and it’s a beautiful cottage.
It was then a case of racing home to Arlingham in Gloucestershire (another hour and a half journey) after a day of stop-start travel. Quickly grab something to eat, then prepare and load the Twitter schedules for the three websites for the following day. A quick check on JB at Brook Cottage Books and load more Tweets for day two of the awesome giveaway. A trawl of the inboxes meant I spotted a few urgent emails and then before I knew it, it was ten o’clock.
Straight to bed as it was another early start on Sunday with babysitting fun after we drove into Bristol to pick up our little charge. It was chilly, but sunny, and I’d forgotten that if you give a two and a half year old a hosepipe to water the new plants… It wasn’t intentional, well, at first! He simply turned around to talk to me and it was one coldddd shower that sent me running off shrieking! He then turned to talk to Lawrence and we both had to run away as he then decided it was a fun game. I had to fold the hosepipe in two and say ‘oh, we’ve run out of water!’ to end that game pretty fast.
The day included one serious derailment on the Thomas the Tank line, which called for heavy lifting gear. Aside from that it was another fun day.
A quick bath and bed for a tired boy and then waiting for Mama and Dada to come home from a friend’s wedding, before yet more motorway closures due to roadworks lengthened my journey back. I arrived home at 11pm to find Lawrence was asleep, so I quickly loaded the Twitter schedules for Monday and dropped into bed.
However, my head was spinning. I now had to get up early Monday morning to clean the house and get it ready for the estate agents to photograph. I also had a HUGE backlog of emails and a massive pile of ironing. So up with the lark again, ironing done, house cleaned, quick soak in the bath and calm myself in readiness to meet the lady from Perry Bishop Estate agency. Whilst the photos were being taken, I climbed onto the well in the garden and cut back the ivy, then did some weeding … I’m not good at whiling away time for the sake of it! In between I managed to dive onto the internet to sort more emails and a few problems. It would be so nice to have an admin person to do that so I could concentrate on website development, but unfortunately the websites are non-profit making and there is no income. It is a shame though, as it’s frustrating sometimes when life is busy and I just can’t get around to the ‘to do’ list. Importantly I had to tie up the author interview for the next edition of the LLm Newsletter and also the reviewer. Having sorted that I felt a bit calmer, but then it was time to think of feeding Lawrence and getting the next day’s Tweet schedules sorted.
It was also a week where I dropped two balls … it was bound to happen with so much going on, but in both instances lovely friends bailed me out! Aside from that, wearing my author’s hat I wrote three posts for forthcoming guest features about The Restaurant @ The Mill. Once you’ve written more than a couple of books it can seem like a lot of water has gone under the bridge (or in this case, under the mill…) since you wrote it. Writing those articles brought it all back and I felt a strange sense of nostalgia. With each book I’ve written I’ve enjoyed the time spent in the special little world that is created when you write a novel. Characters who become friends, and then are gone. However, it was an emotionally tough week for me…
The truth is that whilst Saturday 20 April 2013 saw the start of a special promo to celebrate the four-year anniversary of the day I began writing my debut novel, it was also four years since my treasured mum passed away. She died at the end of March and it was whilst I was still home sorting out her things I began writing. I did have some tearful moments last week, and think that was why I dropped a ball or two, my head was all over the place. I do know she’s with me and whilst I still miss her every waking day, you learn to live with the inevitable. But anniversaries bring back that longing; needing to throw my arms around her and give her a hug. Instead I talked to her a lot; more than usual – and she got me through the week and out the other side.
My week was spent in a spin for so many different reasons. Sadness, excitement, fab fun with a cold shower… I’m blessed and I was meant to have a busy week with little time to dwell, for a reason. I really hope your week was an exciting one and that you found time to do something that made you feel energised and positive. Life is what you make it and there’s never a dull moment in our house!
If you are interested in interior design tips, I’ll be included some in my once-a-month newsletter starting at the end of April 2013, thanks for joining me today.
PS For anyone fascinated by “coincidences” – as I was drafting this piece I was sitting across from the kitchen at my son’s house. Little Bill was napping and I was working fast. Just as I finished writing about my mum and wiping away a tear, the electric kettle suddenly switched itself on. I went into the kitchen to turn it off and flicked it a few times to see if it was loose. It wasn’t, in fact it was quite stiff, needed a firm pressure to push it down….