Another busy weekend

This weekend I went to South Wales, Newport to be exact. An aunt of mine has recently gone to live in a care home and has decided to sell her house.

I turns out that there is a relatively new washing machine in the house and as mine was not great I decided to find a way to get it from Newport to Ilfracombe.

As you can see North Devon and South Wales are relatively close, pity about all that blue wet stuff in the way! So we have to take the long way round via Bristol and the bridge.

A lovely friend of mine has a small van and agreed to be my transport.
We set off   Doreen, her elderly dog Bonny and I, on Saturday morning. We took our time getting there as we couldn't load anything until Sunday morning.

Some entertainment at the services we stopped at, it had a barrier to get under as the car park was multi story so it's necessary to check you can get into it; 2 people drove in with bikes on their roofs! The first man, despite yells of  No! NO! NOO! from the cafe patrons, drove right under, ripping the bike off his roof and damaging his rack, the second guy had slightly better reactions, or possibly memory, as he stopped as soon as the bikes hit the barrier. There was, of course, another entrance leading to the other car park above ground, but these clever people missed that fact.

Later on we stopped to visit Tredegar House near Newport, a National Trust Property, lovely gardens and a great surprise on two of the large trees on the lawn.

 Now that's a tyre swing! These superb horses are made from one tyre, so cleverly cut and bolted together into horses, what's really clever is that the child is sitting on the inside of the tyre, the tread is underneath. With the addition of a little rope you have a wonderful, lovable horse to ride.

If anyone knows the genius who designed them I would just like to say  - brilliant!

The gardens are lovely and will probably be even more so when the roses are out.  Both Doreen and I like to follow out of the way paths so we came across this little grotto, there are bits of maintenance material in the background and there's a cone in front to stop you going in but what a pretty picture it made.

We had a pleasant evening with a glass of red, drunk from small whisky glasses as my sister had taken the wine glasses away previously. A good explore to see what else I might want to take, got the machine disconnected from power and water and we collapsed into bed ready for the major loading in the morning.

We had help from a lovely neighbour who has known my Aunt amost since she and her husband moved there, in the very early 70s I think. My uncle died a long time ago and Auntie has lived there on her own for years. Luckily we found some old blankets to wrap things in, Doreen managed to get an enormous full length mirror off the bedroom wall for me. I also took a large old Z bed, some bits and pieces of china and an elderly Kenwood chef. My brother in law requested the small tv from the living room which we managed to squeeze in, along with a step ladder and a folding hostess trolley. I found an old brass oil lamp in the utility room so we squeezed that in too.
 Before the major loading we had a little walk up to the green behind the houses and found these lovely millennium chairs.

Anyone who knows the area will now know where my aunt's house is.

I now have a house full of old blankets, towels and some old regency stripe curtains, I might even use them as they are pretty much what I had in mind for my living room; soft, sort of regency colours.

With a fully packed van we set off back to home, stopping off near Cheddar to visit a friend of mine, who provided tea and lemon drizzle cake, thanks Anthony, sorry we couldn't stay longer.

Once we got close to home I starte asking for help with unloading, unfortunately the neighbour I was hoping could help was visiting his parents. when we reached home the other possible source of help was also out. Luckily I spotted the guy across the road in his garden so Andy was kind enough to get the machine in to the house, he picked that heavy mirror up under one arm! He and I carried the zbed in but getting in to the bedroom had to wait 'till today. My neighbour Ross kindly came and helped me carry it up to the bedroom.

I now have two nice 70s storage canisters to sell  along with a large Colmans Mustard recipe storage tin.

These are really nice, both quite large but the one at the back is bigger. Just couldn't leave them behind.

If you like them make me an offer.

The washing machine has done three loads already! I've been without one for a week!