In other news I have no windows in the second bedroom and its en-suite and it’s raining. Damn.

Our excellent carpenter / joiners are refurbishing all of our sash windows so that they:

* actually open
* have working locks
* are rot free
* are draft proof
* look smashing

They are starting with the sitting room bay which is enormous. It’s very weird to not have any windows in at all, I can see and hear the whole street and it’s right there.

After the windows are renewed we can actually clean them – no more seagull poo! – and get the wooden shutters in. Then we will be toasty and have some privacy.

The post where I talk about Etsy and the wonderful things it does

The post where I talk about restoring my antique desk and my poor shredded fingers

The post where I get excited about all the lovely furniture that has arrived from eBay

The post where we have our first houseguest at Bobble Towers

The post where I decide what colours to paint my house

What a lots of lovely posts.

The chimney is also being surveyed to see what state our flue is in so we can look to having a proper fire again. We need a new mantle, hearth and fireback too as the originals are long gone. The mantle is original – we think – but covered in many years of paint, it’s also wood and I’m hankering after something more robust. We also have restrictions around here about solid fuel so we’re looking at gas stoves that look like Scandinavian wood burning affairs with glass doors. They are so convincing you wouldn’t know that they were gas unless you poked around inside them. I have high hopes of being toasty this winter.

When I was on hold for the chimney sweep on Saturday I had to laugh – their hold music was ‘Chim Chim Cher-ee’ sung by Dick Van Dyke – lovely.

These lovely posters arrived today. They are produced by graduates of Falmouth University to pass on advice to first year students. They are from a project called “Advice to Sink in Slowly.” Beautifully printed and a wonderful concept. Go here to see the whole range and buy prints.

The boiler installer was brilliant though and asked lots of questions about which floorboard I’d prefer him to cut and was the carpet tacked down enough etc. etc. If anyone needs a plumbing company in East Sussex I can recommend them a good one.

The three old lead crystal chandeliers are back from rewiring and look marvellous. It’s a pity our Electrician can’t hang them for another three weeks as he is booked up but I am already imagining scenes such as the one below occurring in our drawing room:

We couldn’t find energy saving light bulbs that were pretty enough for the chandeliers so we have gone old school and bought clear incandescent bulbs in a flame shape. They are the most gorgeous light bulbs I have ever seen. To offset them not being energy saving we’ve bought dimmer switches for the rooms they’ll be in. We’ve also got some very pretty ‘dolly switch’ toggle light switches for the rest of our rooms. They make a very satisfying clunk when you switch them on and off.

Today I am expecting a visit from ‘Shutterly Fabulous’ to measure our huge windows for some shutters. The quotes we have had so far cost the same as a small car so hopefully this one will be a tad more reasonable. Unlike most people I want solid panelled shutters like the house would of had originally not plantation or louvre shutters. I think I have a phobia about louvres shutters on Victorian houses… but that could just be me.

So one month in: a new boiler – check.

This month: getting the sashes restored, a new consumer unit, some new wiring, new down-lighters and the chandeliers being hung.

Did I tell you about my teapot? It’s like this:

I think I may have to change my surname to Morland or Dashwood.

We had approximately half of the time away under serene blaring hot blue skies, half under some of the worst storms Northern Italy has seen for years. Maltempo indeed. So, erm mixed.

We drove up and down many ace passes and managed to do the two big hikes we couldn’t do last year because of the snow (yes, we had snow last year in the Dolomites in July. Guess what, we had it this year too.) I now have Catinaccio and the Tre Cime hikes done. We even did some bouldering. I ate canederli (dumplings), deer, rabbit, speck, lard, bream, bass and sole. M even ate some meat, get in.

But the mother of all passes, the pass that ‘Top Gear’ made even more famous, the biggie: Stelvio. It was bloody shut. Yes, shut for a whole week to “protect workmen”. We drove to the other side of the region, up to a vertical weeny no horse village in the rain (to a hotel that didn’t have Italian TV despite being in Italy, only German and Austrian) only to find out it was shut. Was a teensy bit pissed off? Yes.

Oh well, there is always another year… We decamped from no horse village and scarpered back to the Lakes and booked in at one of my favourite hotels in Torri and indulged. Cocktails and lounging by the water while lotharios in speedboats tried to pull women half their age. It was good.

I took about 300 pictures and have looked at none of them. Busy y’see.

My laptop died. That was a nice surprise when I got back from Italy. My macbook isn’t even a year old and it was kaput. I got it back today (thank you warranty) and it was the hard drive. So they popped a new one in. Unfortunately I lost all my data. Fortunately clever clogs M backed it up before we went away so I’ve only lost the newest stuff. Bah. Thanks heavens really as I have two lots of wedding photographs to process (again). It could be worse. Apologies for not replying to emails, fakebook etc etc. I know I have heaps to do.

I have also been buying lighting and entertaining workmen. After looking at a hundred seemingly identical modern acrylic chandeliers I’d given up hope of finding something nice. So we bit the bullet and bought antiques ones at ouchy prices but by god they are lovely. They are being rewired at the moment so we should have them next week.

We are totally sticking to the mantra “if we don’t love it it doesn’t cross the threshold” with this flat. We have to absolutely love it to buy it. We’d rather save up or sacrifice on other things than buy something twice. We also are trying to buy all ‘old’. Reuse, reduce, repair and recycle at its finest. The Independent only had an article on it last Thursday. Next on the list is a Georgian-a-like ladies battered writing desk for the macs.

I discovered today a brand new shop near me on Blatchington Road in Hove (near ‘Ethels Kitchen’) that I have totally fallen for. It’s a little shop that sells beautifully girlie secondhand china, unusual stationery and handprinted bags and homewears called ‘Bird & Rose’. It’s run by a lovely lady called Sophie. I came a cropper in there today… some of my haul below:

I can now make a very posh afternoon tea in a Jane Austen stylee if anyone pops down from London.

We’ve had plumbers, electricians and carpenters ’round nearly every day to quote for the grand project. The local plumbers are ace and we’ve already been entertained by Jeremy the project manager and Richard the chap who installed the washing machine and dishwasher (thus bringing us into the 21st century.) If the guy who comes tomorrow to install the boiler is called James I shall laugh my head off. They managed to fit us in at short notice for the boiler refit due to a cancellation. I am very happy as it means from Friday I can have a shower without it being hot-tepid-cold-hot-tepid-cold all the sodding time.

We’re also looking at wallpaper and old school chunky style radiators to replace the hideous 70s ones we have currently. For the vaguely interested here is the wallpaper we’ve chosen:

I never thought I’d have wallpaper in any house I lived in. Just goes to show how you change.

Ooh that looks a bit steep doesn’t it? (Sadly, we won’t be doing it in a Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera ala ‘Top Gear’.)

See you on the other side.

I’ve uploaded about a milliontyone cameraphone pictures to Flickr.

Which – by a quirk of fate now it is finished – we are selling! Jobs call us elsewhere and M has had enough of his long commute. We want gardens and maybe even stairs. So it’s Brighton way we are looking at…

This is what my fingernails, health and sanity have been sacrificed to these past months:

Lounge / Dining Room / Kitchen (view to balcony and garden)

Lounge from balcony end

Kitchen

Bathroom

Master Bedroom

All those months of hard work and strife are over – let’s hope we find a new flat that needs nothing doing to it!

I’ve pounded the streets of Brighton today looking at yet more flats and now have an inflamed knee, it won’t bend – ouch.

I’ve slightly tweaked a Nigella recipe from her ‘Feast’ book for Orange Scented Brioche Pudding. I made Brioche Bread and Butter Pudding with Orange Marmalade and Sherry.

Ingredients – serves 4 people

Butter for greasing dish
50g golden sultanas
3-4 tablespoons sherry
8 slices slightly stale brioche
Orange marmalade – shredless or very fine shred
1 tablespoon caster sugar
1 egg
2 egg yolks
250ml double cream
125ml milk
2 teaspoons demerara sugar

1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees C.
2. Butter a 1 litre oval pudding dish.
3. Put sultanas and sherry into a pan and bring to boil, turn down heat and simmer for 2
minutes. Leave in pan so that the fruit plumps up nicely with the alcohol.
4. Take the square brioche slices and cut each slice on the diagonal to give you 16
triangles. Spread marmalade on one side of each triangle.
5. Put triangles in the buttered dish one at a time, put one slice point up and the next
point down. Squish any remaining triangles around the edge of the dish if you have
too many.
6. Pour over the sultanas and any remaining sherry juices.
7. In a bowl whisk together with the caster sugar, whole egg, egg yolks, cream and milk
to make the egg custard. Pour slowly over brioche. The brioche will absorb it all, just
take your time. Leave to stand for 15 minutes.
8. Sprinkle with the sugar and put in oven.
9. Cook slowly and gently for 45 minutes or until egg custard is just set. The brioche
should be toasted not burnt.

Serve warm and enjoy on it’s own or for extra indulgence with more cream.

I used skimmed milk and reduced fat double cream (Elmlea) and it worked just fine. I also used my favourite sherry in the world ever – El Candado, Pedro Ximenez, AR Valdespino, Jerez de la Frontera, Spain (alc 18%, approx £11.99). Treat yourself to a bottle, you will not regret it. A wine buff says:

“Don’t rush for the corkscrew. The key to opening this luxuriant sherry is hanging on the padlock that secures the bottle’s cork in place. Produced from dried Pedro Ximenez grapes, it reveals a luscious, sweet, sultana-like palate that is perfect as an after-dinner sipper, or as a wonderful complement to vanilla ice-cream or a rich Havana cigar.”

M pronounced the dessert to be “super nummy”.