New things
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♥Apr. 5th, 2019 // 07:40 pm♥
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My Grandad, who in his younger days was often to be found with a paint brush in his hand*, left me a bit of money, so I decided that we'd (pay some people to) do some decorating in his memory.
* From my uncle's funeral speech: Grandad, a draftsman, was off work once with an eye problem that meant he couldn't do close-work. The Big Boss wanted to consult with him about something, and another colleague had once been to their house so offered to show the Big Boss how to find it. They travelled in separate cars, and the colleague parked slightly closer to the house than the Big Boss. He got to the house only to see, through the window, Grandad up a ladder painting the ceiling. Furious gesticulation occurred, and when Big Boss knocked on the door he was greeted by Grandma, hair in curlers, wearing Grandad's paint-spattered coverall and holding a paintbrush (possibly for the first and last time in her life), while Grandad lay on the sofa looking stricken.
I've never been terribly keen on the (old, and so both worn and inherently less good than modern) laminate floor in there, so we've had a new floor and then the walls painted. (By the same people who did the living room, as they both did good jobs.)
(We kept the old curtains, because they're fine and that many curtains is expensive even if I make them myself. We were going to have them dry-cleaned, but the chap came to do them today and looked dubious, which turned out to be the right reaction after he did a patch test and they discoloured; he also advised against water, so steam cleaning is out. So I guess we'll just give them a good vacuuming.)
Anyway, new dining room is new:
A month or so after we moved here, we signed up to a local veg box scheme. It was a particularly local one, as everything (except mushrooms and sweet potatoes) came from within ten miles of their farm; it's a lot easier to do that in Kent than in many places, especially if the UK's largest greenhouse is within those ten miles. A couple of weeks ago, we had an email saying that they were going to close down: parents wanted to retire, and keeping it and the other businesses going would have involved hiring a manager, at which point it wouldn't pay. I suspect that last summer had something to do with it as well: the effects are still very clear, with shortages of some veg and incredibly tiny onions for the last month or so.
They sold their customer list to a larger and slightly-less-local company (that uses many of the same suppliers), and this week was the first delivery from them. It was supposed to happen yesterday, but this morning the rather apologetic owner arrived, explaining that he followed the road sign (and a half-remembered instruction from Old Veg Box Guy) rather than his sat nav and turned the wrong way at the end of our road. Hopefully that will be a one-off thing, because so far we're pretty impressed: we're allowed four do-not-wants (bye bye beetroot, and probably also courgettes because we generate plenty of those by ourselves when they're in season), and we're not guaranteed carrots every week. We're also not guaranteed onions, which is a slight problem as we get through a lot. The kale we got this week is nicer-looking than we've been used to, as well. Hopefully it'll continue to be good once they're no longer trying to woo us! |
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