Promises, promises….

It’s a lovely spring morning in Somerset, and so I took the dogs out to play whilst delivering some postcards to local businesses, plugging my new website. If you happen to know of anyone in need of a good web designer, I’m your gal. A shameless plug, I know … but a girl’s got to do what she can.

I’ve been quite bad about updating this blog, haven’t I? SO much to do, and I’ve spent the last couple of days just feeling incredibly drained and tired. I don’t know why, I haven’t really been pushing myself too hard of late but there you go.

So things are cracking on at the cottage. The kitchen arrived last Thursday, which could only be described as a massive relief. Originally, the kitchen company told me that the kitchen would come flatpacked, one of their guys would assemble it and then my chap could fit it. What they meant to say was that they’re a lying bunch of toerags, who you wouldn’t want to leave your Grandmother with, who would try to screw me over the minute they laid eyes on me. Bad luck for them that they didn’t know who they were dealing with *wry grin*. So this leaves us with a set of flat packed boxes, no instructions and a customer helpline that would be better run by a group of mentally deficient pigeons. My builder and his good lady, being the good people that they are, take a deep breath and tell me not to worry, they can deal with it, not a problem at all. (Here’s a pic of the dynamic duo in progress)

So, on they go, assembling units, oiling my worktops and so on until we realise that the kitchen designer (who most definitely needs psychiatric attention) has not ordered any drawer handles but instead used the door handles for both, which would have been fine IF they were multi-purpose handles, which they clearly are not. So I ring up the mentally deficient customer care line to be told that we cannot do a straight swap, I have to pay for the new ones (and bankrupt myself in the process) and then post the others back before being refunded. So … slowly now so that we can all understand … I am paying because their designer messed up. Yes, it makes perfect sense to me too.

However, my bookshelves arrived on Friday evening – A day early! I thnk I might have frightened the poor chap with my rant about poor customer service and how customers shouldn’t have to pay the price for their incompetence. I dare say I might have gone off the deep end a bit, but I’m not in the slightest apologetic about it. If you take someone’s money to provide goods or services then they should get what they ordered in good condition within the timeframe specified. In basic language – don’t make promises you can’t keep! But anyway …

They arrived, and the delivery chaps were the same two lovely chaps who delivered my bedroom furniture (pictures to follow once the final piece arrives…), veyr pleasant young Irish chaps in their mid-twenties, who were the epitome of ‘amenable’. God bless them. and found that they look spectacular in place, and fit like a glove and I couldn’t be happier with them. So here come some photos of the living room with the lovely bookshelves.

It sounds ridiculous really, but I feel so much better with the bookshelves up and the books out of boxes. It really makes a difference and the place starts to feel a lot more like home, instantly. It has been suggested before that I could be addicted to books. There is a strong possibility it could be true. I love stories, no matter whether they’re old stories, new stories, poems, songs, they’re all stories in their own way. In the same way that we’re all stories in our own ways, and we use these stories as a way of connecting with one another … weaving ourselves into each other’s lives and sharing our thoughts, and dreams and opinions. So I suppose you could say that they’re almost like old friends, that you can connect with any time you like, and it DOES make me feel better, seeing them there.

So, feeling a bit inspired at the weekend, I decided to do something with the bits of driftwood I picked up in the US when I went to see my friend Dragonboy and figured that since I could use somewhere to store various bits of jewellery, I could perhaps get started by creating somewhere to store my necklackes … so here’s what I came up with:

Right, now I must away as I just sliced open my finger when I went to make a cup of tea. Long story but drawer got stuck and I sliced my hand open trying to open it. Now I’m dripping blood. I CANNOT wait for my new kitchen!!