Son of Buys a Boat

Having spent the summer sailing every day, Son of has bought a boat - actually two boats.  The big boat is a 26 foot double-keeled sailboat made in the UK.  She's a charming boat. Her name is Anna - that's the name she came with and Son of has not decided whether to change it. She's a Ketch - she has two masts.

She is currently in a commercial boatyard in Gloucester - a really fascinating place. Tomorrow she is being moved to Newburyport for the winter.

She needs some work - all the wood needs oiling or recoating and the windows need resealing, but she is surprisingly nice inside.  There's a main cabin and a little sleeping area, and a proper head at the front and at least one more bed at the back. (I am not using the proper nautical terms here because I don't know them.)   Here is the view from the front of the boat - it's a little deceiving because the cabin with the blue roof is from the boat behind.  And the masts are off because it's being moved tomorrow.

And here she is from the back.  

The second boat is also a little gem.  She is a sweet little Dyer Midget - a classic New England Dinghy with a sail and oars.  She is going to be used to get the Son of back and forth to the Anna.  This is not Son of's boat, but one like it. 

On a completely different note - at the moment a boat from the show 'Wicked Tuna' is in the same shipyard.  I don't even know what the show is, but apparently it's popular. We saw someone from it tonight while we were getting the boat ready to move. 

Another Project

I've been working on the shelving in one of the guest rooms.  I'm not sure it looks like much of an improvement, but it is.  The window seat is the obvious change, but the room seems much larger now, without the big top-heavy shelf jutting into the room.  We have lost some storage, but since it was always a mess with unnecessary junk just wedged in it and forgotten, I don't think this will matter.

Unlike the similar unit I built a couple of years ago in our closet, this one has a window seat with storage under it.  I wish I had done the same thing in our closet.  Alas.

Now all I have to do is sew a cushion for the bench.

BEFORE:

DURING:

AFTER:

AFTER WITH CUSHION (from our closet)

Adorable Doll Bed

The Son of made this lovely doll bed for the daughter of a friend's second birthday.

I made the mattress, blanket and pillow.  I think it turned out to be very cute.

Oh The Places They've Been

Note: I have pictures which are not available yet in my icloud stream.  I will add them.  Sometimes I hate Apple

Sister Rose and her husband, Brother Rose, spent last week with us in Brighton.  Before that we had afew days visitng family in the midlands and Herefordshire.  We did many things. Sister Rose, who apparently has more energy than me, has posted about them.  And The COG has also streamed some pictures.  I have more to add on what we did, and I will do that over the next week or so.

However, at the moment we are in Normandy-  Deauville, to be exact.We arrived on Sunday.  This is how we got here:  we took the bus from the foot of our road to Newhaven.  We took the ferry to Dieppe. We took the navette to the Gare (train station).  We took the train to Rouen, then changed to a train for Liseux, then changed to another train for Deauville.  After a brief spat at the Gare about the desirability of just taking a taxi to the place we are staying, we walked, pulling our case, to La Cerisee.  Which proved to be in easy walking distance, so no problems.

A few words here about travel by ferry.  It's wonderful.  The pace of travel is so..... right.  And the hassles - lines, sullen security people, weighing of luggage, prohibitiions on what you carry (liquids, tiny folding scissors etc.) - are minimal.  Even the passport control is easy, with no long lines. Blissful.

Anyway, here we are in Deauville and its twin city of Trouville, just on the other side of the Seine across a bridge. These are seaside towns with great beaches and have been popular resorts since the 19th century.  The Impressionists painted them a million times.  And, famously, as the Daughter of COG reminds us, it is where Gaston took Gigi and her aunt in Gigi. 

We are staying in a charming little house behind a bigger house. It must have been a stable or outbuilding of some sort.  The ground floor is one room with a tiny kitchen a table and a sitting area. There are big beams holding up the second floor. There's a charming old curving staircase that leads to the second floor, where there's a bathroom, toilet and bedroom. It's all beautifully but simply decorated.  If there were just one more room, I would happily move in forever. 

Home Improvement

We had a carpenter here for a couple of days doing odd jobs for us.  One of the big things he did was to build doors for this cupboard and to close in the top.  The cupboard is a really useful storage spot, but it was ugly.  And the doors were a bit of a problem because nothing is square. But the carpenter worked his magic.

BEFORE:

You can't see it in this picture - and I can't take another one because it is gone now - but there was an ugly gap at the top, with a big hole in it.  There are meters in the back - they're covered normally with a white curtain on a tension rod that I installed a while ago.

AFTER:

This is the outside now.  I think it's a pretty amazing improvement.  I ran out of paint and since I want to paint the inside of the cupboard, maybe put some wallpaper at the back and revamp the shelves, I will show you the interior next time. When it's lovely.  The poster on the left says Keep Calm and Carry Your Kindle, by the way.  That's my personal motto.  

Flowers

One thing I love about Brighton is the flowers.  Grocery store flowers here are so far superior to grocery store flowers in the US - they are cheaper and more various. I think it must be because there are different sources for them.

Anyway - this bouquet is so pretty. It's grocery store peonies and pink roses and 'mint' from a local florist.  I've never seen the 'mint' before but it's so pretty. The leaves don't smell minty, but the stem is square, like a mint. And they called it 'mint' at the store. It must be some kind of decorative rather than herbal mint.

London

We did get into London last week to see an exhibition at the Tate Modern.  It featured Sonia Delaunay - a Russian born French artist, married to another artist, Robert Delaunay.  She did a lot of costume design, and graphic design as well as Art Art.

It was an interesting exhibition and it made me want to go back and see another one at the Tate - Agnes Martin, another woman artist who did abstractions that I love.  Maybe in a couple of weeks.  This is a picture of people taking pictures of St. Paul's and the Millenium Bridge from a balcony at the Tate.