Gradually making it our home...

For all of you who worried about my right hand that you saw all bandaged in my last blog entry, I'm including here a photo of how it looked the day the cast came off after four weeks. You can perhaps see the two incisions in my forearm where the surgeon split the tendon from up near elbow on the inside of my arm, left one half of my tendon attached as per normal, then threaded the other long half down, through the wrist, up through the thumb and through a hole he drilled in the thumb, then made the remaining part of the tendon into a ball and plugged up the empty space at the base of my thumb where he'd removed the arthritic bone (you can see a long scar at the thumb base). A huge pin held the tendon transfer in place under my cast for four weeks. Although my wrist and thumb were totally stiff, immovable, I got to move them after two days of physiotherapy. And now it's almost back to normal, except for less strength and pinch, and the occasional twinge and pain, and the daily ongoing tenderness in my wrist/thumb base which will eventually lessen and disappear (I hope!). On October 13, I go to hospital for the same operation on my LEFT hand. Wish me luck!


Someone recommended us a gardener. He spent a couple of full days pruning and weeding, and then cleaning up. Here are the front steps to the house.


Here's the front path down to the road.


This is the backyard being powerwashed. Unfortunately I think the gardener overdid it with the water and chemicals, and caused some damage to several plants which have since gone brown on me.


Our Leyland cypresses just after trimming... now there's a very popular bird feeder in front of them, and we so enjoy watching the aerial acrobatics of the birds. The feeder's squirrel-proof, in that if a squirrel tries to land on the feeding bar, it drops down with the weight, and of course closes the feeding source! Too many birds on the bar can cause the same effect - so that too is a comical sight to watch!


Here's a peek through one of the panes of the sunroom door. I've planted some nice herbs - several different basil plants (I made a great pesto the other week from the basil, and just made some Thai stir-fry with the Thai basil I have outside too), mint, parsley, rosemary, etc. I decided to plant some colourful flowers amongst all the GREEN in our garden, but they soon dropped their flowers. Unfortunately I've discovered that there is no soil... just a little bit, and lots of stones and rocks below... still don't know how the trees hold up, and actually the tree at the very bottom of the yard will have to be chopped down: Dutch Elm disease, black spot and other problems. :o( We had a long consultation with a tree specialist this morning, September 30. There's quite a lot of work needed to be done with our trees.


After these photos were taken, the patio furniture was delivered. We're delighted with how it looks. Chairs are really comfortable! (The only item in the garden that still hasn't been photographed or used yet, is the gas grill for doing some serious barbecues. We hope to try it out before winter comes.)


Back inside, here are two views of the mirror I bought in an antique shop north of here. This was all that was missing from our 'powder room' on the ground floor. And it actually is not antique and was inexpensive, but really looks good there.




Finally, three views of our front porch by night. Walter bought a 'glider' - a kind of rocking seat - to sit outside. Walter also repainted the porch floor which was neglected and stained from use and work that was done on the ceiling of the porch. The last photo below shows the white boards of the ceiling and the brown trim, just finished recently by the building contractor, who also fixed our back gate, a couple of pillars holding up our garage, and who built a shed below our kitchen window to store our bikes, garden tools, etc.
It's gradually all coming together!






Next up: Shelves, cupboards and desk space in our dens. Our cabinet maker came today to take final measurements for the units in both of our studies. We hope to have them built in by mid-November. After that I want to get curtains for the lower half of many windows, and replace all the plain blinds, and even have some full curtains too. Paintings will be hung. THEN we can maybe relax for a few months!
That's it for now!



P.S. October 1, I completed the preparation of my Yellow collage, to follow my Red collage before the move. The yellow one has yet to be glued in place on the board, but here it is, with the red one as well. (Remember to double-click to see more detail...!)