Hobbit-forming

Behold, the first selfie I took in 2023. (Yeah, body image issues.) But this was a fun one, taken over the long Easter weekend when we redecorated the dining room.

Can you call it redecorating if it's the same colour? Our house is a late Victorian two-up-two-down red brick terraced house, which had an extension put on the back at some point in the 1980s or 1990s, and as a result the dining room with its one little window, despite being south-facing, is very dark. It's also the room with the stairs in, in the centre of the house, so it's as much a corridor as a room. We've tried colours on the walls in there, but it just ends up looking too dingy, so we've settled for magnolia. That's not as dull as it sounds; we've taken inspiration from rooms in old buildings in Cuba and Spain, and the mix of dark wood, pale walls and shade works pretty well. I think it does, at any rate!

We repainted the walls magnolia, then took on the big task: sanding the floor and using proper floor oil on it. It's Polyx Oil, the same stuff we used on the living room floor in 2017. It's expensive, but works really, really well – hardwearing, and doesn't chip the way varnish does. And once it's on, if it needs redoing you don't need to re-sand the floors, you can just go over them again. We had to do the dining room in two halves, moving the furniture first to one side, then the other.

Moving the furniture meant emptying the furniture, and I was very good and actually sent a few things to charity shops. There were a number of vases I can only assume were free with bouquets in the past – at any rate, they were plain and modern and not our style, and I've got half-a-dozen I'd use before those, so out they went. There were also a few charity shop impulse buys that never got used enough, cut-glass bowls and cake stands and the like. Clearing those things out gave us room to rearrange things so hopefully we'll get more use out of what we kept. 

Anyway, if you catch me looking at homewares in a charity shop, please stage an intervention! I can just fit it all in nicely now. Look at my cocktail cabinet. There's happiness for you. Not because it's alcohol, but because the glasses are so pretty, and it's fun deciding which ones best suit which drink, and then taking time to mix it.

Continuing the Hobbity lifestyle, we've been enjoying the garden as the weather's warmed up. I've had a really good tulip display this year, though the dwarf irises did virtually nothing. We got leaves, but only two flowers. Mum said hers were the same, so maybe the winter was wrong for them. The tulips have made up for it anyhow. 

Today I put my tomato plants outside, and stuck a few of the flowers I've grown from seed into the borders. (Mainly Bishop's Children dahlias and lime-green nicotiana. I expect the dahlias will get slugged, though I have been using nematodes to try to keep the blighters at bay.)

I'll finish off with a nicer selfie. It's all clothes you've seen before, but I took it mainly to prove to myself that the image I have of myself in my head is a bit distorted. And now I'm off for a read of everyone's blogs...