The House Husband

with occasional entries by The Dean

“Do you do much sewing then?”

Nicktor came over last night. He still had the vestiges of a cold (‘man-flu’ Dawn calls it) but he soldiered through. We both agreed that whiskey could only help kill the germs that were besieging him. He certainly sounded a lot better this morning, though, as usual a touch seedy. Obviously this was due to a lack of sleep.

We ate at the 6 Bells – the chef was actually there – and had a couple of beers. There’s more people there on a Wednesday night than on Tuesday’s when we normally go. We had a couple of pints of a dark beer that doesn’t taste like one, called Ape Rilful (or something like that). As the barmaid pumped it out, I remarked that it was a dark beer. Nicktor said with complete authority that it doesn’t taste like one. I looked at him quizzically. Had he tried it before, I asked. No, he replied, I read it on the taste notes on the pump.

We nattered over dinner and then walked back up the lane in evening sunlight both praising the joys of daylight saving. Back at the house, the poodles went mad, of course, but finally we settled down to watch the first of our two movies.

Many years ago, when I was going through my horror film phase…actually, I’ve never really left it, to be fair…I saw I Spit On Your Grave. A wonderful revenge film which sees an abused woman kill off her attackers slowly but surely, gaining retribution in all manner of horrific yet deserved ways. If you like that kind of thing, it was fantastic. The filming was also terrific, as was the script and acting. Ok, it was never going to win any awards but it shone in a genre of movies not generally known for many artistic skills.

Well, last night we watched the remake of last year. When I heard about it, I wondered why they’d remade it. I nearly always do this when I hear someone has remade a classic movie. Why tinker with a great film? It makes no sense. Still, I tried to approach this remake with an open mind.

While I don’t think it’s as good as the original, I still enjoyed it. It’s one of those films where you have to seriously suspend your disbelief! It differs a bit from the original as well and it’s in some of these changes that it becomes a bit stretched. Nicktor hasn’t seen the original so he was approaching it with an open mind and he liked it.

The second film was truly awful. One of those films you just want to forget. For that reason, I’m not even going to mention the title (in case someone Googles the title and gets my blog, leading the person to think I watch that sort of rubbish) let alone talk about it. Enough said.

One thing that Nicktor commented on last night was our newest acquisition. Mirinda sometimes trawls ebay for Arts & Crafts furniture and ephemera. A few weeks ago she successfully bid on a sewing table. It arrived (after a bit of to-ing and fro-ing with the courier) last week. Nicktor wondered why. This is not a surprise, he often wonders why. When he told me about his latest ebay purchase, I also asked him why (though I knew full well) just to be annoying.

Our new old sewing table

We think it’s lovely, regardless of what Nicktor thinks. It’s hand made and painted and about 100 years old. It fits in well with our other Arts & Crafts pieces. Mainly because they all speak the same language.

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A lot of people sit in Starbucks and work. They generally have their laptops out on the table with their coffee alongside, earnestly tapping away, their work clothes obvious. Some have other electronic devices but laptops are generally considered de rigueur. Try and imagine my delight when I spotted this lady this morning.

A technological gran

I love it when older people embrace new technology but this is the first time I’ve seen one with a laptop in a coffee shop. I wanted to go and tell her how brilliant she was but she left soon after I took this sneaky photo. If she somehow finds my blog and recognises herself, I would like to say I think she’s brilliant.

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Tylney Hall

It was such a lovely day that we decided to go and visit an NGS garden. There were a couple closer but we’d already visited them so we decided to drive the ten miles over to Tylney Hall.

It’s actually a hotel now and has been since 1984, though a Hall stood on the same spot from 1700 until the late 1800s when it was extensively changed. The gardens were also given a huge makeover in the early 20th century. The designer, Robert Weir Schultz (1860-1951), a keen Arts & Crafts guy, asked Gertrude Jekyll to lend a hand, which she did.

Prior to this, the entire house was remodelled by Seldon Wornum (1847-1910), an architect from London, for Sir Lionel Philips. Seldon also laid out the Italian terrace garden. The whole place is pretty amazing and the sort of place the wealthy go to recuperate from counting all their money. There’s even a golf course.

The park, for it isn’t really a garden being 44 acres, is lovely and tranquil with lakes and woods and reeds and long lawns. But it wasn’t always so. The garden was doing pretty well up to 1946 but then the Hall was sold to Brent Council and became a school for children with special needs. The garden was sadly neglected and it grew like a crazy thing, swallowing up any design.

Fast forward to 1984 and Brent Council, clearly after a few quick squiddlies, sold the place to Celebrated Country Hotels who have worked tirelessly to get it back to scratch…in order to hire the place out at exorbitant rates. It is beautiful. And it even had a tree for me to climb. Mirinda thought it would be fun to show you how I managed it.

How to climb a tree

How to climb a tree

If you’d like to see the rest of my photos of the garden, they are here.

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Pig Trotters

Today was a Talking Newspaper day. It has also rained all day. There’s really no link between the two. It just meant I ended up damp.

The paper had an odd number of stories with mentions of pigs today. Naturally I played this up, making sure I found as many laughs as possible. I had one story about a charity that is going to raffle a load of giant Easter eggs. The piece had nothing about pigs, just charity, chocolate eggs and fluffy toy dogs. I managed to finish it by saying, “…and sadly, there’s no pigs.” The woman sitting next me, preparing to read next, sputtered all over her microphone.

I wasn’t the only one, either. Rosemary, sitting to my right, started her next story by saying how many pig references there were today. She then read a piece about a poor, early cuckoo which probably wouldn’t see out the spring.

Anyway, the main pig reference was in a story about the upcoming Surrey County Show. Among the various events was pig racing. I ended the piece by saying I was definitely up for that. When I told Mirinda, she put the date in her diary straight away. How could you resist?

I was so excited that I bought some bacon to have over my jacket potato tonight. Delicious.

And, especially for Claire, here’s a photo of the chest of drawers. I stood on the bed to take it and squished my head against the ceiling.

Chest of Drawers

Chest of Drawers

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Arty Crafty

Mirinda loves the Arts and Crafts movement. She loves it to such an extent that she keeps acquiring antique furniture. There’s her guitar ladder back chair. She sits on it while playing her guitar rather than it’s for the guitar to sit on.

There’s the chest of drawers from hell. It took an age to get it upstairs when it arrived. The guy who delivered it and I, both sweated buckets heaving it and shoving it. Eventually we had to remove the window frame from the bedroom, attach a block and tackle to the chimney and lever it in that way. It was a horrendous delivery and, boy did he earn his paltry wages that day! It is so big that everything in the bedroom can fit in it. Including the bed. In fact, we now use the chest of drawers as the bedroom since there is very little room in the actual room.

Then, a few weeks ago (actually it was some time before Christmas) she ordered three pieces. A bookcase, a small table and a hanging shelf thing. These were all for beside the bed and replaced the ghastly white bookcase and the little blue knick knack cupboard. Bearing a more than slight resemblance to Pa Kettle, I hadn’t put the hanging shelf thing up on the wall. I remedied this yesterday.

So…blue cupboard down, new shelf thing up, blue cupboard now in lounge.

Because I knew everyone would be dying to see it all, I have taken the photograph below. Ignore the hoopi birds, they are just nesting before flying into Mirinda’s study…as soon as I put a shelf up in there…

Arts & Crafts in the Bedroom

Arts & Crafts in the Bedroom

I would love to take a photo of the chest of drawers but it is quite simply, impossible.

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