Home and what I have been up to!

I am here in my house in Essex all alone and have been since thursday! Although it has been raining and the grass needs cutting I love this garden, the leaves are starting to turn Autumn colours and the crab apples are turning red too.  My friend Yvonne came thursday evening as she had two days teaching here. She and her partner have moved down south to Worthing and the invite to go to stay is very tempting. Saturday I went to a Cross Stitch meet up through the Sampler Guild of which I am a member and loved the whole day. I met some super women and wonderful stitchers. Their work was inspirational.   I can't wait till the next one in  April next year and this group meet each week so I will definitely join that.

  

This is my swish front door, it was a special design and I had forgotten how lovely it was. Not a very good photo perhaps I should have taken it from outside? It is irises, with dragon flies in the two bottom corners and butterflies in the two top ones.

And this picture is in the hall, it is my favourite I bought it in Brixham on a family holiday many years ago and it has survived three moves and suits this hall. I think this hall sold me the house, because for a three bedroom semi , it is quite spacious. The rest of the house was awful when I first looked around back in 2001. But I could see the potential and of course with the old concrete garage pulled down it opened up the garden and thats a nice size too, not too big and not small. To those friends who say it will be too big when I am older??? Poofff I shall spend my pensions on a gardener!
And what have I been doing all this time by myself? Well..... I ordered this yarn and had it delivered here!

to do this.......

A wavy ribbly throw for this old chair in the kitchen! I have three of these old cane chairs all waiting for me to do them up! All different, my son got them for me when he had his furniture shop. When he delivered new beds he always took the customers old one away and sometimes they asked could he dump other furniture as well, ( I think for the price of  a pint!! LOL) And the chairs came to me.
This chair is in my kitchen as it is such a lovely room, I had it all built and done in 2005. It is beautiful and I love it. I had forgotten how much I loved this house. It took three years to get it straight, I had it stripped and completely re-plastered, new windows, new doors, and decorated  and then when all that was finished I had the kitchen and down stairs loo built so more mess but all worth it... and a soon as it was done. I had a new bathroom.... so even though it has been leased out for four years it still looks good. Some carpets have had to be replaced and my raspberry pink one which is all down stairs and hall, stairs and landing looks good after its professional clean.
So I feel at home.. and very, very happy.
I have missed Mike and Nell as well.  In the past each day when I came home, I always had a dog to greet me, so a bit strange walking into an empty house. Mike is arriving this evening so I best get my party frock on and rustle up some thing good for dinner; I have planned coq-au-vin, which I haven't cooked for a while, so hope it goes ok!
I shall post stitchy pics next time, they have all made progress.
Happy days everyone, and thank you for all the lovely comments onmy autumn leaves throw, I am trying to catch up on blog visiting.