Resolutions & Good Intentions

Sorry it's been a while again!! My slow start to the year has not gone to plan, as January had other ideas.


I've been doing a lot of thinking about my plans, resolutions and intensions for 2015, I always like to have some form of targets for the year as I find it gives me something to aim for and gives me focus on what I want to do with my year.


So here it goes.....
1. Take part in Water Wipeout.
2. Do more running.
3. Put up my house planning board - Done :)
4. Increase my core strength (should help my running) - balance board bought.
5. Do more things that take my fancy - Went to a vintage fair today with my Mum & Dad.
6. Do a photo a day photo diary - Started, check me out on Instagram (netty_Armstrong).
7. Make my Vogue 1419 coat pattern.
8. Finish unpacking the boxes!!
9. Loose weight, we've got three weddings to go to this year and it would be good to look at the photos and think, I look nice!
10. Put up my year wall planner, I need this to stop me loosing my mind and so I know what's going on.
11. Dress up more when we go out. I have a surprising number of dresses and tops, but never seem to wear them. I need to make more of an effort.
12. Refurbish the Living Room
13. Refurbish the Master Bedroom
14. Get to grips with the washing pile!
15. Do a tour of the house on my blog ;)
16. Read for at least 1 hour a week - Going well so far and I'm enjoying it.
17. Do more on my family tree.
18. Make a patchwork quilt.


Well I think that's it for now, next blog post the house tour, I promise!



If there’s anybody out there, bye for now!


Netty :)

Work Done So Far & The Vogue 1419 Pattern

Although we haven't started the main renovation yet (we are thinking about ideas, I promise!), we have done some things around the house & garden.

The first thing we tackled was the fruit trees in the garden. When we viewed the house back in February we were aware that there were a lot of trees, but didn't realise just how many of these were fruit. So this summer the garden was starting to look like a raid in the Tesco fruit aisle!  There are currently two pear trees, one of which the pears grow so high there was no hope in hell of us managing to reach them.  There’s a greengage tree, but unfortunately the squirrels are rather fond of these so we didn’t get a look in!  Apple tree wise we have a selection of both eating and cooking apple trees, and there are seven of these in total two of which didn’t fruit this year.  So as you can imagine it was like apple wonderland.

We have some friends, Rob and Sarah, who have started there own business (The Kitchen Swanscoe) making juices, jams and biscuits (the fudge is amazing).  So we asked if they wanted to come and help us collect the apples in return of some of them, as there was just no way that we could use / store them all.  By a random coincidence they had just started an initiative called The Random Apple Company.

So on the last Bank Holiday Monday in May August (I appear to be losing my mind and track of time!!), they appeared all ready to go to pick some apples and pears.  We decided to start with the largest tree (which was a fantastic idea as we were totally knackered after this!!).  The first thing was to pick up all the apples from the ground and put the rotten ones in a spare water butt that had been left with the house, this was to stop us picking up the same ones all the time.  Due to the size of our largest apple tree (estimated at 150 years old), we couldn’t shake it by pushing and could reach to ‘poke’ the apples.  So Mr A and Rob from The Random Apple Company tried to get higher into the tree using a ladder….

…. This didn’t fully work, so Mr A gamely climbed into the tree and started to ‘ride’ the tree, which worked much better and it started to rain apples!

It was a most productive day’s work and we got as much as possible off the trees, there’s still a lot left that didn’t want to fall off.  So I’m still going out at the weekends to collect the rotten fruit and am still trying to pass apples on to anyone and everyone that I know!!

So the photos below show the outcome of the day in relation to apples and pears, the first is the volume of rotten fruit we managed to collect from the ground…..

…. and finally the fruit (and Rob) in the trailer waiting to go to back to The Random Apple Company base.

In other non-renovation related news, my little sister has encouraged me to take part in a sewalong for the Vogue 1419 Coat!

I am a total beginner when it comes to sewing (I can do minor repairs) but am so very taken with the style of the coat I’m going to give it ago, so we shall see how I get on.  I’ll never keep up with the sewalong but hopefully I will manage to get it finished.  Although time could be a massive issue - work, travel, Hybrid 9 band stuff, house renovation, normal day-to-day house related stuff and running (I did the Chester half marathon this year and am hoping to do another next year)!!  The way I see if, if you’re not maxed out to the edge, then you’re not doing life properly!

If there’s anybody out there, bye for now!

Netty J

P.S. Hello to my first follower on BlogLovin you made my day on Thursday! J

P.P.S.  We took the stud wall in the music room out this weekend, but more on that later!