A little jar of heaven

Freya doesn’t like adverse weather conditions. When it rains, she hates going outside; when it’s too hot, she huffs and puffs and curls up, waiting for a breeze. We can add to that shivering in the snow, because that’s what she did today.

Mind you, for all of her dislike of these extremes, she is always keen to go for a walk. Like today. The wind was chill, the snow was falling, but she was well up for a walk around the woods. And while she was right about the cold, it all looked lovely.

As you can see from the photo, Emma loves rubbing her face in the snow. So much so that I renamed her Princess Emmadora Snowface.

We managed to walk right around the woods today, given I hadn’t had to walk anywhere else. In fact, most of my morning was spent checking Harald’s work from yesterday. And I have to say, he did a splendid job.

In particular, his fix of the panel under the carpet in the stuga was fantastic. I thought he’d have to cut the carpet more in order to unscrew and replace the panel but, no. He cut back the panel and replaced a thin sliver of wood instead. An excellent repair job.

Mind you, I then had to pull the carpet back in order to unscrew the panel to find out what was underneath. It was a bit disappointing because we were expecting some sort of crawl space where the foundations could be checked. Instead, it was insulation.

As you can see, I had to pull the carpet back in order to get to the panel. It served to remind me of a job I had for a few days a long time ago. A job I forgot to mention to Princeton and Mia when we had dinner at Matstudio back in August.

It was with Garry Hinchcliffe, who was going out with my sister, Denise at the time. He was a carpet layer and the company he worked for was looking for people to go door to door and cold call at houses for work. I was at a loose end at the time so went along to the training day.

It would be fair to say that I hated it. I think laying carpet would have been better. I can’t remember exactly how long I lasted but I feel certain it couldn’t have been more than two days.

Anyway, if nothing else, it gave me the skills required to pull up and then replace the carpet in the stuga bedroom.

Back in the house, lunch comprised two of the Italian surprises that Mirinda gave me last week. This time it was a tin of Italian sardines and a tiny jar of artichoke spread. I had both on some crispbread for lunch. Obviously, I already knew that the sardines would be amazing but the spread…wow, a little jar of heaven, is the best way to describe it.

My only complaint would be that the jar was far too small.