Bookish Quotes: Real Art

I have both listened to Normal People and watched the TV adaptation over the last few months. 

One of the things about listening to a book is that if you hear something that think would make a good quote, it's really difficult to get the quote to share. It's also a bit difficult to skip to the end of the book I probably shouldn't mention that.

When I was listening to the book there were a couple of lines in this quote that really caught my attention, so I straight away requested the ebook from the library. It has taken months for the book to come in and then I nearly missed it because you don't get a notification when the books comes in on the app. Luckily, I checked just in time.

This was also the only book that I borrowed from the library this week too, so this post is doubling up as my Library Loot post as well.

But here's the quote:

This is what it's like in Dublin. All Connell's classmates have identical accents and carry the same size MacBook under their arms. In seminars they express their opinions passionately and conduct impromptu debates. Unable to form such straightforward views or express them with any force, Connell initially felt a sense of crushing inferiority to his fellow students, as if he had upgraded himself to an intellectual level far above his own, where he had to strain to make sense of the most basic premises. He did gradually start to wonder why all their classroom discussions were so abstract and lacking in textual detail, and eventually he realised that most people were not actually doing the reading. They were coming into college every day to have heated debates about books they had not read. He understands now that his classmates are not like him. It's easy for them to have opinions, and to express them with confidence. They don't worry about appearing ignorant or conceited. They are not stupid people, but they're not so much smarter than him either. They just move through the world in a different way, and he'll probably never really understand them, and he knows they will never understand him, or even try.


He only has a few classes every week anyway, so he fills the rest of the time by reading. In the evenings he stays late in the library, reading assigned texts, novels, works of literary criticism. Not having friends to eat with, he reads over lunch. At the weekends when there's football on, he checks the team news and then goes back to reading instead of watching the build-up. One night the library started closing just as he reached the passage in Emma when it  seems like Mr Knightley is going to marry Harriet, and he had to close the book and walk home in a strange state of emotional agitation.  He's amused at himself, getting wrapped up in the drama of novels like that. It feels intellectually unserious to concern himself with fictional people marrying one another. But there it is: literature moves him. One of his professors calls it "the pleasure of being touched by real art." In those words it almost sounds sexual. And in a way, the feeling provoked in Connell when Mr Knightley kisses Emma's hand is not completely asexual, though its relation to sexuality is indirect. It suggests to Connell that the same imagination he uses as a reader is necessary to understand real people also, and to be intimate with them.

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Sharlene from Real Life Reading that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries

Top Ten Tuesday: Books with Colour in the Titles

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week's topic is Books with Colours in the Title.

When I looked at my books read spreadsheet, I realised that I could have done entire Top Ten lists of red and blue books. Instead, I am going to focus on the primary colours - red blue and yellow - to make up my list for this week.

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chinamanda Ngozi Adiche - I have long had an interest in reading books set in Nigeria. This was a particularly good one.

The Girl in the Yellow Vest by Loretta Hill - This is a book features a female engineer working in a construction environment in Queensland. I really enjoyed Loretta Hill's writing. It doesn't look like she is writing anymore which is a shame.

The Yellow House by Patricia Falvey - I do enjoy a book set in Ireland. This one is set in Northern Ireland in the early years of the 1900's which was quite a tumultuous time.

Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland  - This book follows a painting of a girl (in hyacinth blue) through the years from owner to owner. I really enjoyed this book!

Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore - This is the third book in the Graceling YA fantasy series. Just thinking about this book makes me want to revist the series.

Blue Shoes and Happiness by Alexander McCall Smith - This is the seventh book in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series and features a pair of talking shoes.

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant - This book holds a special place in my blogging heart. I read this book and I just wanted to talk to someone about it and it become the first book I wrote a review of. When I read it years later it wasn't a great review but it was the start of this blogging journey.

The Red Tree by Shaun Tan - Shaun Tan writes and illustrates the most amazing books. Whilst The Arrival is my favourite, and probably always will be, this was an enjoyable.

A Red Herring Without Mustard by Alan Bradley - Among the many series that I keep on saying I really need to get back to soon is the Flavia de Luce mystery series, featuring a precocious young girl as the sleuth. This is book 3 in the series.

The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett - I am cheating for this last book because once you have all the primary colours you can make all the other colours, which quite frankly is magic!

What colourful reads do you have on your Top Ten list.

This week...

I'm reading....

While I am spending plenty of time writing blog posts and visiting other bloggers, I am not doing much reading, which obviously is going to have an impact soon because how can you write about books when you aren't readingmuch?

I did start reading Jenna Guillaume's new book You Were Made For Me. I am not really the target audience for this book, but it is a lot of fun. It was perfect 4am reading over the weekend.

I am also a mere couple of hours away from finishing The Switch by Beth O'Leary and then it will be time to pick a new audiobook. There are several options,but I don't really know which one I am going to pick yet.

I'm watching...

Over the last couple of weeks we have been all about the feel good crafty type shows. Last week I mentioned that we were watching Great Canadian Baking Show and The Repair Shop. We are still watching those, as well as shows like Selling Houses Australia.

This week we added another crafty show into the mix - Making It which is hosted by Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman. This show is so much fun. The only thing that was a bit odd is that the first five episodes were available to stream, but the sixth episode, which also happens to be the final, was not available. In order to watch it wehave now had to subscribe to yet another streaming provider.  We got a free two week trial so I assume we will see what else is  available on there, and then maybe cancel it, if we remember.

We did start a couple of other drama series this week. The first was Trackers, which is based on
a series books by Deon Meyer featuring a former policeman by the name of Lemmer. I have read one of the books in the series. This show is set in South Africa which is where my husband was originally from, and the series rated really highly there, even beating out Game of Thrones apparently. The first episode was a fair bit of set up and introduction of the characters  so was a bit slow but there was enough to keep us interested in what happens next.

We did come up with one fun game. I pronounced all the place names in the most Aussie way possible and he got to correct my pronunciation. Hours of fun. Although he does win because he doesn't need to read the subtitles when the characters are speaking Afrikaans.

We also starting watching Singapore Grip which is a story set during WWII. The series starts just before the Japanese invasion of Singapore. The main families are involved in the rubber industry and live a lavish colonial lifestyle. Years ago I read a book called Tanamera by Noel Barber and it had a very similar premise and I loved that book. There was also a mini series made of that back in the 80s.

It's interesting to think how huge mini series used to be back in the day. The whole coming soon scenario, a stunning/gripping/enticing 4 part series. And there was some great TV. Series like North and South, The Thorn Birds and so many more. There is some times that sense of anticipation now, but it is usually expected that it will be for a whole series, rather than a 4 part epic, and of course, there's always the expectation that there has be

In Life

It was very exciting this weekend. Remember we bought a car a month ago. We finally put petrol in the car! It is so economical. I mean, it's taken a month to need to put petrol in. Let's not talk about the fact that is because we aren't allowed to go anywhere.

On that basis, the current tank of fuel may end up lasting us until November because we have now gone into Stage 4 Lockdown for at least the next six weeks. There has been a state of disaster declared and as such there is a curfew in place from 8pm to 5am. You can only leave home for work, medical reasons and caregiving. Only one person per household can leave once each day to purchase food but you have to stay within a 5km radius of your home. Schools go back to online learning, and non essential businesses are closing. There's more but that is most of the rules.

While the numbers continue to increase I do understand the need to put these restrictions in place, but it is disheartening. We have now been working from home for nearly 5 months, and as much as we are trying to keep ourselves entertained, there are moments in the day where it is easy to feel discouraged.

Don't forget you can now follow my blog on Facebook here.

Posts from the last week

Top Ten Tuesday: Books Set in Paris
Alphabet 2020: New and Old
Paris in July: Cheese and Books
Weekend Cooking: Miss Graham's Cold War Cookbook
Reading Reflections: July
Six Degrees of Separation

I've linked this post to It's Monday, what are you reading? as hosted by Book Date

Six Degrees of Separation: How to Do Nothing to What I Like About Me

Welcome to this month's edition of Six Degrees of Separation, which is a monthly meme hosted by Kate from Books Are My Favourite and Best.  The idea is to start with a specific book and make a series of links from one book to the next using whatever link you can find and see where you end up after six links.  I am also linking this post up with The Sunday Salon, hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz.

This month's starting book is How to do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny ODell. I don't read a lot of non fiction so this is a book that I wasn't familiar with, and I am unlikely to read.

Having done this for a few months now, I am coming to realise that often the first idea is the best, if you have an idea in the first place! I probably should at least look at the cover before I decide on a theme though because I could have done something around flowers too. Anyway, the first thing that I thought of when I saw the title was to focus on the word how, and that then led to other interrogative words like how, who, what, where, why, when.

So here are my connections:

How to Bake a Perfect Life by Barbara O'Neal - I first read Barbara O'Neal around 9 years ago when this book beat out two other books that I loved to win a RITA award in the Novel with Strong Romantic Elements category. I have since read a lot of this author's books and I always enjoy them. (review here)

The Ape Who Guards the Balance by Elizabeth Peters -  This is the tenth book in the Amelia Peabody mystery series, which is predominantly set in Egypt in the late 1880s through the 1920s. It is such a fun series, featuring Egyptian archaeology, a dastardly archenemy, humour,crimes and so much more. I might need to go back and pick up where I left off. Or maybe, restart at a point in the series and then go forward. (review here)

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens - This is one of those books that sticks around the bestsellers list for a long time. It was also a selection for Reese Witherspoon's book club and then with a movie adaptation in the works, it will probably stay around for a while longer yet. I listened to it on audio earlier this year.

Why Shoot a Butler? by Georgette Heyer -Georgette Heyer was much better known for her regency romances but she also wrote a number of mysteries. I read this one many years ago!

When It All Went to Custard by Danielle Hawkins - From a book that I read many years ago to an author I have only discovered this year, Danielle Hawkins is a New Zealand author who writes rural romance. I have read a couple of her books so far and I have thoroughly enjoyed them

What I Like About Me by Jenna Guillaume - This was Australian YA author Jenna Guillaume's debut novel. I am due to read her second novel in the next few weeks.

Next month's starting point is Rodham by Curtis Sittenfield. As of now, I don't even have a first idea. Good thing I have a month to come up with something.

Where has your six degrees taken you this month?

Reading Reflections: July 2020

July felt like a very slow reading month for me. I am not sure why. I think it is partially as a result of us going back into lockdown and I just felt unsettled. Who knows. Maybe August will be better. Maybe not.

Here's what I did read

The Goldminer's Sister by Alison Stuart 5/5 (Australian Author)

I thoroughly enjoyed this book as you can see from my review here. Only my second 5/5 read for the year.

Something to Talk About by Rachael Johns 4.5/5 (Australlian Author)

Rachael Johns is one of my go to authors. Even when I wasn't reading I would read her books. This is the follow up book to Talk of the Town, set in a small town in country Western Australia.

Tiny White Lies by Fiona Palmer 3.5/5 (Australian Author)

Two families decide to go on a roughing it holiday to get away from their normal lives, but this may lead to lots of secrets being revealed.

Miss Graham's Cold War Cook Book by Celia Rees 4.5/5

I read this for a blog tour and I am so glad that I got the chance to read it as it was a very unusual book from the setting to the events in the book. You can read my review (and see a recipe for a Beesting cake) here.

James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl 4.5/5

I feel like I am cheating a bit by counting this as a book read, but the reality is that it is not dissimilar to listening to an audiobook. Listening to Taika Waititi and his celebrity friends perform this book is nothing less than pure delight. This is also yet another opportunity to share the first video. If you haven't yet watched this, treat yourself because it is a delight.

I am linking my post up to the Monthly Wrap up which is hosted at Feed Your Fiction Addiction

Weekend Cooking: Miss Graham's Cold War Cookbook by Celia Rees

Welcome to today's stop on the blog tour for Miss Graham's Cold War Cookbook by Celia Rees and to this week's Weekend Cooking post.

It's 1946 and the war is over. It's time for everyone to go home and start to heal. And yet, as much as it was the end of the war, it was also the beginning of the Cold War. Germany has been divided into sectors amongst the Allies and the tensions that shaped the world for decades were building. The rebuilding of cities and countries across Europe has to start, rehousing of displaced persons needs to begin, and the search is on for the Nazi's who disappeared into the general population at the end of the war, with the assistance of some of the population who still were believers.

For teacher Edith Graham this is also the chance for a new beginning. She has spent the war at home looking after her mother. Now, she's been recruited by the British Control Commission to go Germany. Her job while she is there is to set up schooling in the ruins that is the city of Lubeck. The city is full of people living in the amongst the rubble, with barely enough food or clothes, scrounging the ruins for an existence with little time for schooling.

But Edith is not only there for the recovery effort. She has also been recruited to provide information to the British government. They are keen to located her former lover Kurt von Stavenow who was a doctor that they believe was involved in the medical "research" during the War. Edith and Kurt were close in the years before the war and she can't believe that the Kurt that she knew could possibly be the same man. After all, she had spent time with him and his aristocratic wife, Elisabeth, in Prussia before the war, and now Edith is tasked with finding either of them.

Von Stavenow is the kind of man that has caught the attention of lots of interested parties. The US and the Russians are both interested in what they can learn from him in the name of science. And even in the British government there are those are that are interested in the same thing. And then there are the parties that want to see people like him face justice for what they did during the war.

With all of these different agendas at play, it's hard for Edith to know who to trust. Everyone wants the information that Edith has collected, not least of all her friend Dori who is still in London. In order to pass information back Edith and Dori come up with a code that is centred around sharing recipes. And then there is Edith's American friend Adeline who pops up with alarming regularity. How is she involved?

In addition to Edith's female friends who all bring interesting voices, there are other characters like her driver Jack, the young refugee Luka who appoints himself as Edith's protector, and her occasional romantic interest Harry. Even within those closest to her, Edith has to question if they have their own agendas.

This book is very unusual. There are plenty of historical novels out there which talk about the female spy experience during war time, but I don't think I have ever read one in this kind of post war setting. The book also had a Cold War thriller feeling where it was hard for Edith to know who in her life she can trust, where there was danger and betrayal at every turn. And the ending. Oh my goodness I did not see that coming.

Celia Rees has written a lot of young adult historical fiction novels, but this is her first for adults. Based on this book I will definitely be looking forward to reading more from her in the future.

Using the idea of recipe as code was a very clever touch. There were plenty of examples of delicious sounding recipes mentioned, but this was also in the immediate aftermath of the war. There were shortages everywhere, and so there were also several recipes that I would be happy to never have to eat.

When I was reading the book I was trying to come up with how I was going to include a recipe for this post. There were a couple of recipes in the book that I have made before and shared on the blog including Lebkuchen (recipe here) and Apfelkuchen (recipe here) but the one that I decided to post is Bienenstich or Beesting Cake. I made it a while ago using this recipe from the Queen website. It's an unusual cake as it is made from brioche dough rather than cake but the combination with the custard was delicious.

Beesting Cake

Custard
2 cups (500ml) full cream milk
4 tsp Vanilla Bean Paste
6 large egg yolks (approx. 110g)
½ cup (110g) caster sugar
1/3 cup (50g) corn flour
45g butter, room temperature

Brioche
½ cup (125ml) lukewarm milk
¼ cup (55g) caster sugar
1 ½ tsp dried yeast
2 cups (300g) plain flour
50g unsalted butter, softened
1 tsp Vanilla Bean Paste
2 large egg yolks
1 large egg

Topping
70g unsalted butter
¼ cup (55g) caster sugar
2 tbsp honey
1 tbsp thickened cream
1 cup (120g) flaked almonds

For the Custard

1. Place milk, and Vanilla Bean Paste in a large saucepan over a low heat and bring to a simmer. Remove from heat and set aside.

2. Combine egg yolks, sugar and corn flour in a large bowl and whisk to form a thick paste. Add a few tablespoons of warm milk mixture to thin out the mixture if necessary.

3. Slowly add half a cup of milk at a time to the egg mixture while whisking. Continue until all the milk has been added. Pour mixture back into saucepan over a low heat and bring to the boil, stirring constantly. Once mixture starts to boil, keep mixing for 1 minute and then remove from the heat and pour into a clean bowl.

4. Place a piece of cling wrap directly over the pastry cream and allow to cool for 30 minutes before whisking through butter. Allow to cool completely, before refrigerating until chilled.

For the Brioche

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with dough hook attachment, combine milk, sugar and yeast and allow to sit until foamy. Add remaining ingredients and mix on low for 1 minute, before increasing the speed and mixing for a further 5 minutes. Place cling over mixer bowl and allow dough to rise for 1 hour or until almost doubled.

2. Grease and line the base and sides of a deep 20cm round cake tin. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured bench and knead for 4 minutes, adding more flour if needed. Press into the base of prepared tin, ensuring dough covers the base of the tin. Allow to rise in a warm place for 30 minutes.

Method - Topping

1. Preheat oven to 180°C (fan forced). Prepare topping at the start of the second rise. Place all ingredients excluding flaked almonds in a medium saucepan over a low to medium heat until butter melts and mixture starts to simmer, cook for 1 minute until slightly thickened, do not brown. Remove from the heat and add flaked almonds, stirring well to combine. Set aside to cool.

2. Spoon almond topping over risen dough, do not worry about spreading the almond mixture as it will flatten out during baking. Bake for 25-30 minutes until golden. Allow to cool for 10 minutes in tin, before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

3. Slice cake in half and spread custard over the base of the cake. Place top half on top of custard.

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page.

Thanks to Random Thing Blog Tours for the invitation to participate for the blog tour and the review copy of this very interesting book, and for a review copy. Be sure to check out the other stops on the tour!

Paris in July: Cheese and Books

And so, we come to the end of this year's Paris in July event. I have had a lot of fun talking about food, books and just generally feeding my desire to visit Paris again some day soon. Of course, like everyone else I have no idea when that might be! We were supposed to go in April this year but COVID got in the way. Maybe we will be able to go next year, although I suspect that might be a bit soon. Maybe in 2022!

This is a quote from Aria's Travelling Book Shop by Rebecca Raisin. I enjoy Rebecca Raisin's writing, especially when she writes about France, food and books, and this quote ticks all those boxes.

We head into our new town, chattering about the beauty before us as we wander down narrow medieval streets. The brisk morning air is like a tincture and I feel refreshed after the long drive the day before and I soon forget Jean-Pierre.
"I didn't even consult my maps for a bookshop for you," Rosie says.
I raise a brow. "Progress."
"No, it's not that. I know you'll sniff it out, you're like a bloodhound when it comes to books. Is it something you learn, or does it just come naturally to bibliophiles like yourself?"
I knock her with my hip. "Very funny."
We zigzag our way through the streets full of colourful buildings before Rosie stops at un epicier to stock up on baking essentials for the fete. The figs are lush and ready to burst and will make the most delicious jam for her French twist Devonshire teas. The grocer promises to deliver her haul to the campsite in a few hours' time.
Onwards we go, stopping at the fromagerie which is ripe with the smell of exotic cheeses. Rosie gets to talking to the fromager about all the various types. She's a wealth of information about French cuisine from her fifteen years at Epoque, a French restaurant in London. He offers us a taste of an aged comte that is so delicious I'll die if I don't eat more. Next he cuts a wedge of gooey camembert that's so creamy and lush I vow to only eat French cheese for the rest of my natural born life. I spend far too much money but leave the fromagerie happier than when I came in.
And I put all thought of a budget to one side. The universe will provide, isn't that the Van Lifer catch phrase.
The hair on my arms stands on end and that can only mean one thing. I'm close to a bookshop. I can almost smell it, the heady scent adventure trapped between parchments. Eventually I spy it. The most beautiful bookshop I've ever seen; the curved old stone building that leans slightly to the left as if seeking tentative rays of sunlight that eke in from the open square. Pale-blue weather-beaten shutters are thrown open, ivy snakes through the wood.
Rosie sees the excitement on my face and with a sigh glances at her watch. "No more than one hour, Aria."
I scoff. "It depends on how many floors it has." I gaze up at the windows, sheer curtains flutter in the breeze as if welcoming me in: We've been waiting for you, Aria...
"One and a half, that's my final offer." I grin as I pull her inside. "OK, nope. I  take that back. I'm going to need two hours," I say breathlessly. Tiny fairy lights blink in the shadowy space, dark wooden shelves curve around the room in an arc, snaking from the floor all the way up to the ceiling.
It's my kind of bookshop, shelves full to bursting, novels spilling over, double and triple stacked. In the centre of the room sit two antique French chaises in pale pink and ruby red, chenille throws draped over the arms patiently waiting for a bookworm to plonk down and relax for a time.
Magazines sit atop a coffee table, all that's missing is a pot of tea and a tin of biscuits and then no way would one and a half hours suffice.
A staff member wanders over and asks in perfect English,"May I help you find something?"
"Where are the cookery books, s'il vous plait?" Rosie asks.
"Back there to the left." She points to another rabbit warren of rooms. "Let me know if you'd like any further assistance.
"Thank you." We watch her walk away on sky-high heels. Even booksellers are glamorous in France.  I dip my head to my own outfit which could be described more as bookworm chic. Jeans and a literary tee is about as fancy as I get these days. I don't think I can even walk in heels anymore.

I am all about the comfy shoes these days too! In fact, this week my lovely husband bought my new slippers because that is literally all I am wearing on my feet all day every day whilst we are back in lockdown!

Thank you to Tamara from Thyme for Tea for hosting, to everyone who shared posts and who visited during Paris in July this year. I hope we get to do it all again next year!

I am also sharing this post with Weekend Cooking.

Alphabet 2020: N and O

I have missed a couple of weeks of my Alphabet 2020 so this week I am combining N and O together.

Together it could be NO. NO going out, NO leaving the house without having a mask with us at all times, NO commute - so many NOs that I could do.

But instead, I am going to do a bit of a New and Old feature, talking about the work we have done around the house over the last couple of years.  I have mentioned a few things here on the blog but this will be the post where I put them all together.

When my now husband moved in, I am not sure if he bought his checklist of things to be renovated with him or if that has just evolved over time. I have made the joke that when he finishes renovating this house then we either need a new house to work on or he might need to find a new wife! He assures me that neither of these are true though. That's when he can turn his attention to his hobbies.

The very first thing on the the agenda was to tidy up the laundry, adding in a bench top that we can use for folding clothes and things, or at least that's the theory! And then we added solar panels.

The first major reno job that we did was the kitchen and it was completed just over two years ago, and I have to say I still love the way it looks, and the benchtops! I quite often stand at the stone benchtops and just caress it! I did a quite lengthy post about the reno process which you can read here, but here are just a couple of pictures.

One of the clever things that Bob the builder did was to take the kitchen cabinet you can see on the left and repurposed it for more storage in the laundry!

The next major job that we did was the deck. My intention was always to completely close the deck in. As you can see from the before photos it was kind of closed in and that was definitely what I thought would happen, until one day I had the brain wave to open it out. That was the time when I learnt that I need to have ensured that I had thought things through before I say anything because within a few days of suggesting it we were already ripping out shrubs and flower beds.

And what we ended up was this great outdoor space that gets used way more than the old deck ever did, and we even had it all decorated for our wedding celebration last year. And those plants on the edge of the deck. I hadn't realised just how much they have grown since we put those in.  We have subsequently removed the washing line and put in a fire pit which we love too.

Next job was the flooring. You can see in the before photos for kitchen the floor tiles were very 1970s so doing the flooring made all the difference!

Next stop was my son's bedroom. It's amazing what a difference moving a wardrobe makes because I would never have thought that we could have fitted a queen sized bed in that room the way it was configured before. Unfortunately,  it appears we didn't take before or after photos which is odd.

The next projects were the laundry/toilet

And then the bathroom which is a job that was very overdue. We are super pleased with how the bathroom has turned out. It feels so much bigger than it was, just by taking out a lot of the brown, and by moving the bath around.

So the parts of the house that are still old are the spare bedroom which we are currently using as an office, our bedroom and the ensuite. One of the biggest changes when we get to our ensuite will be the removal of a chocolate brown toilet suite - no I am not joking!

We also plan to change the heating/cooling in the whole house, the window coverings, replacing the front door which features lovely orange frosted glass, and now we need to clear the frontyard so that we can create another car parking space.  This is the before of that particular project. Who knows when we will finish the after!

The amazing thing about all of this is that my husband has done the vast majority of the work. He loves the research and planning, and then the ripping out and fixing up and the sense of satisfaction when the job is done.

So there we have the New and Old of our house. If I had to gauge I would suggest that we are more New than Old but there's still plenty to do. Guess that means the husband will be here a bit longer yet!