Autumn projects

One of the new elms at the entrance to the village

Autumn, and there’s lots to do. In the village, the ‘new’ elms are just beginning to change colour and the field set aside for new allotments is almost ready. A team of men rotavated it and then stone-picked right across the site.

The new allotment field

At home, I’ve been laying a new oak floor in the bathroom. It’s very awkward because of the narrowness of the room and the need to cut around the pedestal and washbasin.

The planks fix to each other with blind metal clips on the backs but, if there’s anything to restrict the angle of tilt when a new plank is inserted, it’s almost impossible. Pipes around the edge of the floor are a real nuisance. I seem to have spent most of the week on my knees, rather like when I was a window-dresser in the ‘60s. Still, it will look good when it’s finished.

Earlier in the Summer, we visited the Salvo Fair at Knebworth http://livingvillage.blogspot.com/2011/06/salvo-fair-knebworth.html and was rather taken with some flashed blue glass starbursts on the Cox’s Reclamation Yard stall.

Unfortunately, they wants about £17.50 each for them. Not a bad price but more that I wanted to afford. In discussion with the staff, I found out that they were having an auction at their yard in Moreton in Marsh early this month so I went down with Marea and had a look around. The stained glass had been divided into 3 lots and I decided to bid for at least one of them. Also, there was some new limestone, cut into slabs, 1” thick that I thought would do nicely for me to practice letter carving. http://www.coxsarchitectural.co.uk/index.htm

Lots of lovely limestone

It turned out that there was rather more stone than I thought (about 10 m2) but I bid and got it for about £120 (plus commission – 10%). The glass wasn’t due to come up until the late afternoon (there were over 1000 lots) so we decided to take the stone home and bid online for the glass. We loaded the stone into Marea’s car and limped home, though without incident. I sat through quite a lot of the auction live online and eventually won the third lot of glass for £45 (+10%). When I picked up the glass and saw how much there was, I valued it (using Cox’s retail prices) at £488, so quite a bargain.

Bristol pattern glazed doors

The glass is designed to fit a Bristol pattern door but I won’t be using it for that – just happy to have it in my studio at the moment.

Because there was so much limestone, I’m going to use it to replace the dilapidated steps up to the back of the garden. I’ll probably carve some letters on the steps as well. Maybe more about that in future blogs.

Salvo Fair, Knebworth

Went off to the Salvo Fair earlier in the week.

I still remember Knebworth as a place where psychedelic raves and music festivals were held. It’s all a bit quieter these days… or perhaps it’s just me that’s quieter – viz: “The grounds of Knebworth House near the village of Knebworth has become a major venue for open air rock and pop concerts since 1974 when The Allman Brothers Band attracted 60,000 at the first large concert held at the venue.

Since then, it has been the scene of outdoor extravaganzas featuring Pink Floyd (1975 & 1990), The Rolling Stones & Lynyrd Skynyrd (1976), Genesis (1978, 1990 & 1992), Frank Zappa (1978), Led Zeppelin (1979), Mike Oldfield & The Beach Boys (1980), Cliff Richard (1983 & 1990), Deep Purple (1985), Queen (1986), Pink Floyd, Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, Elton John & Dire Straits (1990), Oasis (1996), Robbie Williams (2003) Sonisphere Festival (2009/2010).”
Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concerts_at_Knebworth_House

The Salvo Fair is the usual eclectic mix of bygones, architectural salvage, fascinating small antiques and general rubbish.

There’s always something literally monumental near the entrance and you would need to be building your own minor stately home to make use of it. Indeed, that’s the way a number of historic buildings got their various features – by recycling them from other, older buildings. Or, Like Peter Jackson in his settings for Lord of the Rings, you could strew them around the landscape to give an impression of an earlier, grander history.

I did rather like these box pews, but have no idea where I would put them. There seemed to be rather a lot of pews, and some religious statues – see later. Looks like a number of churches are closing and being demolished.

I always go looking for inspiration for my stained glass and there’s always plenty. Here, some beautiful plain art nouveau glass just to teach us that not everything has to be wildly coloured to be entrancing.

This marble floor really knocked me out. It would be worth building a house just to have somewhere to put it!

More stained glass in various sizes: the 4 dividing doors were spectacular – totally undamaged and very tall. They extend below the piece of glass that’s leaning against their bases.

More, and lovelier.

If you were refurbishing a house or building from scratch – this is exactly what you would need: multiples of knobs, handles and other fittings, all matching. One wonders where they have come from.

There’s also, I have to say, rather a lot of what is simply junk...

And here’s more junk. Makes a good photo, but wouldn’t want to expend any hard-earned cash on it.

And just what would you do with these rather forlorn statues (though the fireman looks more cheerful)

Back to the monumental and a 7ft high cast iron urn for the garden.

This is a child’s (play) shepherding hut converted from a chicken shed. It’s a bit twee and makes me think of sending children up the chimneys or out into the fields to glean discarded ears of wheat.

A Yellow submarine – not a film prop but a genuine working 2 man sub.

And this is the iconic tribunal desk that appeared on the Salvo website – hold your own trials! I don’t know whether they sold it.

But what I really wanted was this Blue flashed starburst glass. I didn’t really want to spend the money while I was there but will probably drive down to the Cotswolds to buy from the dealer.
Altogether, this year’s Salvo Fair was much like last year’s – full of fascinating objects but. We thought, very over-priced. Whether this is because it’s the Salvo Fair and they get all sorts of people who don’t know the market or whether they start high, knowing that their customers are knowledgeable and will drive a hard bargain.
We enjoyed it but didn’t really spend (we bought a couple of small teapots made for P&O in the 50s; that’s all).

What do I do now?

So... I've done the two windows in the dining room and I'm happy with the way they look.

I could do what I promised to do a put the window I removed from the dining room into the bedroom, but really I'm looking for something a bit more challenging.

I still have to do the office windows (my office; the SMALL one that comes off the dining room) and I've worked out a formal sort of lozenge design with a nice coloured diamond but I haven't worked out what colour the diamond should be yet.

So... I'm casting about, looking for a small, skilful project that won't take too long but might stretch me a bit.

My eyes lit on the front door with its poky little bottle glass puntil window. (I hate them anyway) and I thought "that's it!"

I wanted a design that would be intricate and colourful...

so I dug something out of a victorian design book.

I think it's supposed to be about a metre high so it makes the cutting for this particular window which is A4 size (approx) very intricate. We'll see how I get on!

Last hypnotherapy session and new stained glass

This week, I made my final visit to Sheila Granger, the hypnotherapist in Molescombe (near Beverley). It’s a long drive; about 2 hours 20 minutes but I have to say I’ve rather enjoyed it. This week, at my suggestion, she reinforced the image of the virtual gastric band because I wasn’t sure I was getting the ‘full’ feeling which is intended to make you want to stop eating early. I still have trouble leaving food on the plate, though I am cooking much smaller meals. I calculate I have reduced my intake by about two-thirds.

Under hypnosis, Sheila asked me to picture myself entering a hospital and passing a side room which turned out to be a mortuary with a body labelled to say it had died of some obesity-related illness. After that, I don’t know what she said because I remember nothing. When I asked afterwards whether she had talked about the band, she confirmed that yes, she had. So I was plainly too far under to remember. I now get the full feeling much more strongly than before though I have to say I have almost never felt hungry since my first visit to Sheila. I feel ready for food but, previously, I was hungry all the time.

I've lost about 19 pounds so far (in 4 weeks) so I'm feeling very pleased. I've really got to keep it up. I've taken Sheila's advice and bought some T shirts that are too small for me (at the moment) and hung them on the outside of the wardrobe as an incentive. I hope to get into them comfortably by the time we go to Spain in April. Just before my first trip up to Beverley, I bought a shirt - very cheap from Tesco and it was far too small but I've now worn it and it fits fine. I'm very pleased with progress so far. It's not too strong to say that I was desperate - not to lose weight, though that would have been marvellous, but to stop my weight rising. I've now done that and more. What more can I say? Onwards and upwards!

I’ve also found time to take out the stained glass window between the hall and dining room and replace it with one that matches the one between dining room and kitchen.

The original design

The new window

I got the old window out without damaging it.

The new one looks good

And matches the kitchen window- above

It's been a long process from the initial designs

We now have the same pattern though in slightly different sizes, on both doors. The next job is to put the window I removed into the bedroom door (if it fits – I’ve not measured it properly yet). I can then get on with designing something small for the front door. This is just a small window in the centre, about the size of an A4 page. Shouldn’t take long. The last one took an inordinate length of time to complete because I could never get time to do it. Hopefully, when I retire in May, I’ll be able to do much more – I need to practice.