Snippets of Home

The only part of Christmas that has not been packed away ... the weedy little Poinsettia that Alan bought me to replace the magnificent specimen he murdered last year!!  Somehow it's surviving, although the first few days we had it, it jettisoned leaves like a porcupine under attack from a rabid pack of wolves.

Anyway, this post is just a collection of photos of the kitchen and conservatory of our little Welsh cottage, as asked for a couple of weeks ago in the comments.  I can't remember who it was that requested a tour of our Welsh home but … this is for you.

This image in one arrangement or another must be so familiar to most of you.  

We've had this green colour on the wall in the kitchen and dotted throughout the house in various ways since we moved in.  It has been the only colour not refreshed during the massive refurb and redecoration of the cottage.  Therefore the shelves made from slices of leftover worktop could remain in situ whilst everything else around them was re-painted with a fresh coat of white.

The foods in all the jars are in regular use and the only changes you will ever see in photographs is varying levels as the contents are used up and the jars refilled with fresh supplies.

I'm no longer the sort of person that feels the need to change things around for change's sake, if something works well and looks good it simply stays as it is until there is a real reason for a change.  These shelves are just that, full of all my day to day needs, pleasing to the eye and just useful so I doubt that you will ever see any major changes on them.

The opposite end of the kitchen windowsill to the Poinsettia holds the Spider plant currently home with me from the Van, along with a little Puggy penholder from blogging buddy John Gray.  He knows the way to my heart and how to sneak in a bit of useful clutter.

A useful corner beneath the shelves.  

The little plug-in monitor is for the oil tank at the back of the house.  There's no need for a dipstick these days everything is done electronically, I can check the level from the reading on it.  The only thing oil-fired here is the heating and water boiler, so we don't use that much oil as the house is warmed by the Aga and the log burner.

Speaking of the Aga, here she is doing a sterling job of keeping a sleeping Pug nice and cosy.

Everything on this shelf is again in daily use ... you will be getting the drift now that we have jettisoned most of what was just pretty and kept things that are pretty and useful.  The photo of the parsnips is from blogging buddy Jack Monroe that I have had for a few years.

One of my favourite kitchen corners, the radiator cover with its top shelf that holds my cookbooks currently in use.  It is usually a bit of revolving collection on here, so at the moment it is mostly vegan books as we are just into Veganuary and I have been cooking from them over Christmas, and I'm trying to help out a bit on the Facebook page answering questions and giving advice.  I need to collect together the rest of my vegan collection and have them all in one place I think as I really like having them together this way.

If I pull back a bit with the camera you will see that this is also an alcohol storage corner and where the dogs and Gingers water bowl sits.  Don't worry things don't warm up too much as this radiator is never on.  You really don't need a radiator in a room with an Aga  😄

The reason we have so much alcohol leftover (including bottles of wine in the cupboard) is that being the contrary sort of person I am I actually gave up drinking just before Christmas.

A quick step through the open plan squared off 'archway' and you are into what we still refer to as the conservatory. 

 Long term readers of my previous blog will remember a few years ago when the plastic conservatory roof came off and a new proper tiled roof and framework was installed instead.  So really and officially this is now a 'garden room'.  A room with brick lower supporting walls, lots of windows, in our case on two sides, and a proper roof.  So it is cosier these days and much quieter on the few days we have rain here in North Wales, but we are just not posh enough to call it a Garden Room!!

Yes … I am being sarcastic … it never stops bloody raining!!

 My, I hear you saying it is all so neat and tidy … except for the manky old fleecy blanket on the table.  

That is because our puss cat Ginger is a funny puss cat and prefers to sleep on the table, whatever we put on the table he will sleep on.  Shopping bags, boxes, Alan's work clothes, table mats, piles of newspapers waiting to go out to the chicken shed.  So we have given in and simply put a fleecy blanket there.  In a couple of weeks he will change his mind and start to sleep somewhere else for a while, but he always reverts back to the top of the table … he is a cat and what he decides goes.

Although why he can't sleep on the chair with the exact same fleece on which is much cosier, or the cat bed tucked in the corner out of all draughts and light we have no idea.  This is the other side of the conservatory and just holds a chair and my old Welsh Cheese cupboard, or as we call it the jam cupboard as it's full of homemade jams and chutneys and all my jam making supplies.

If you enjoyed this little photographic journey around two of our rooms let me know and I will choose two more for you.  If you hated it also let me know ... and I'll sob into my cushion and eat some more chocolate!!

Sue xx