Plans and Projects

Time to reclaim my blog before Jake gets ideas above his station.  He has already started telling me when he wants to eat, when he wants to walk and in the past few days, expressing his opinion on where he wants to walk by digging his heals in if I head in the wrong direction.  I have to thank him for raising my usual monthly hit rate of sixteen thousand to well over twenty thousand so I can only assume that folk care what this dog thinks. 

While on a flight of canine literary fancy I have also been busy making my house in Bodrum more comfortable. This winter seems to have been particularly cold for a long stretch (hence the shortage of mediterranean lettuces in UK supermarkets) and the house is built to the 20th Century Bodrum design of small windows and thin walls - even if the sun is out it has little chance to warm the ground floor living area. So having always wanted a window seat and the proceeds  of the land sale rapidly dropping in value as the Turkish Lira crashes, I ordered windows for my hardly used balcony and created a reading nook for myself.  It took 15 days to finish from ordering to windows to hanging the fairy lights and I'm having fun filling it with fripperies.  When a crisp North wind is blowing the clouds away and it's 5 degrees C outside, my snug with its East, South and West facing windows, is a toasty 24 degrees. 

Encouraged by the stress-free balcony project, I decided to make the evenings warmer too and bought a wood-burning stove.  That was the easy bit - it got messier as I got in a builder to knock down the existing fireplace, fit the pipes and re-plaster the wall.  This took 5 days and a bit of vacuuming and I have now joined a new class of folk who discuss logs, kindling, the price of a ton and the best type of chestnut to roast.  Keeping the stove fed and pumping out heat is a satisfying challenge and I hope my electricity bills drop as a result. 

My next project can be achieved without help but was suggested by Mary of The Adventures of Cılgın Kız Blog. My window seat has an empty white wall crying out for decoration so my crochet hook has been busy and although I haven't any idea how yet - my wall hanging should be catching the rays by the end of next week.  

Jake is annoyed at my constant concentration on a crochet hook and has been stealing leaves and balls of wool whenever he gets the chance. He probably has a project of his own in mind.