A change of tack = a productive week!

After last week’s barely productive week, we took a different approach to getting through our endless job list – committing to just two jobs each evening at the start of the week, rather than being overwhelmed by choice after a long day at work. And it paid off! We’ve ticked off incidental jobs including installing towel and toilet roll holders in the bathrooms, and have got one step closer to completing the spare room with a new curtain rail. We also took the advice of a couple of friends and treated ourselves to an SDS impact drill, after giving up trying to drill through a stone wall with our cordless Bosch. Best move ever – it’s made such a difference. After all, who doesn’t like a new toy to play with!! 

A dry weekend meant we could make progress outside too. We repointed the back of one of the kitchen garden walls, and filled the gaping holes in the other one – stopping only when darkness fell just before 5pm on Saturday. Hopefully it’ll only take one more day before the whole wall is finished! And we managed to start on our ‘November Garden List’ on Sunday (although there’s no way we’ll get through it before the end of November at this rate!!). But after last week, the feeling of being able to cross jobs off, however small, is a well-needed boost. 

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This week was also the week our medlars were suitably bletted!! Having never even heard of these fruits until we learnt we had a medlar tree in the orchard, we’ve spent evenings googling recipes and preserving ideas. We’ve learnt that there’s only a very short window between being bletted (left to ripen and soften) and going mouldy, so we had to move our preserving plans around to avoid throwing many away. We’d normally use up fruit in gins or liqueur recipes, but given that medlar liqueur must be left for 6 months, we’re attempting jelly and ‘cheese’ first so we don’t take up all our large jars for ages! 

A long weekend coming up means we’re planning to redecorate our fourth room (the lounge), and finish the woodwork in the dining room and spare room. Our aim is to complete all three rooms by Christmas – although with time quickly ticking by, this is more of an aspiration than a hard objective!! 

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