We are into the best time of the year.
As I discovered last June, as the sun swings round into its highest orbit, so it lays out more and more late evening sunshine into my back garden. For about a month in total, in the latter part of the day, sun streams through the windows in the back of the house into the kitchen, the music room, Ross's studio and the guest bedroom. It fills the house with light right up until bedtime.
The energising sun has prompted another spurt of activity around the house. For some time, shelves and storage have been assembled and erected. Then the boxes were opened and possessions that have not seen the light of day for over two years began to emerge. Some have gone to the tip. Some have gone back into boxes and into the attic. But there's a sense of movement and clearance. Rooms that were cluttered are emptying. Floor space that was covered is re-appearing.
After one visit to the tip, I took myself off to the local nursery to buy my mum some clematis for her birthday. I took the back roads through Lunt and round the back of Ince Blundell Hall to Lady Green Nursery at Ince Blundell. It was astonishing to take a trip into an idyllic English pastoral landscape just a few miles from my own home.
I'm most pleased with the music room which is looking more and more the way that
I envisaged it when I moved in. One of the bookshelves in that photo is full of
programmes from various events I have witnessed over 30 years of events.
Goodness only know how much money that represents.
This other view picks out the CDs on the right, the black vinyl on the left and
the bookshelf with the nearly 30 years of Gramophone magazine and nearly 10 years
of BBC Music Magazine.
In the living room, we've put up some units we bought from IKEA so that the
videos now have a place of rest for themselves. It's completely opened up the
space.
The work in Ross's studio is pretty much complete. The shelves are in place and
Ross has decanted most of his boxes onto them.
I've also put up more shelves and a work surface for Ross's printer. We're awaiting
the delivery of a filing cabinet for him and that should be that room complete.
So, come early evening, I'm laid out on the lounger in the back garden getting the end of day rays. I'm reading Driving over Lemons by Chris Stewart which is a vastly amusing account of Brits setting up home in Andalucia. I'm drinking Cobra beer and chomping on monkey nuts. The sun is on my face, on my shoulders on my legs and is probably up the leg of my shorts irradiating my gonads.
Life doesn't get much better than this.