Sister and brother in law 20 & 21 August 2016

Helen, her kids, Alex and I went up to Inglewood this weekend.  Helen got there on the Friday night, while I arrived early on Saturday morning, and Alex around lunch time

Didn't work on any projects as such, rather moved around rugs and light shades.

Took the 2 x original glass shades from the dining room and replaced them with shades which had been in the upstairs hallway. I do really like the original shades in the dining room, but with one missing, it looked a bit incomplete.

"new' dining room shades

 Put in 2 lots of 3 glass shades in the upstairs hallway, and put the other upstairs hallway shades back into the little yellow room

new upstairs light shades

Took the large original Victorian glass shades from the music room, and put them in our bedroom, where they look much more in proportion

new bedroom shades #1

new bedroom shades #2

Put some smaller shades which we'd bought in Ballarat into the music room

Music room shades #1

Music room shades #2

 

There was an awful lot of going up and down ladders...but all for the greater good.

Moved the William Morris rug which had just been rolled up in the study into the top hallway, and moved the large red rug which had been in the music room into the downstairs green room

upstairs hallway

blurry Xavier vacuuming the large red rug

Alex ably assisted me with all of this - and so did Xavier - as you can see he's vacuuming the large red rug above.

I also did some weeding, as with all of this rain, the weeds are plentiful!, and Denise visited with her new little puppy, which the kids were very taken with

Xavier & puppy #1

Xavier & puppy #2

Michaela & puppy #1

Michaela & puppy #2

Maile and David also dropped in, and invited us over for a late afternoon prosecco.  So we drove over there, and had a lovely time, and they showed us lots of photos from their recent trip to America for their 50th wedding anniversary.

It was after 7pm by the time we left, and too late to cook  - so we went to the pub for dinner, and were very pleasantly surprised at how quickly our food came!

Sunday, and it was grey and cool, and we had last night's planned dinner as a hot lunch.  Helen and Alex did it while I was in the garden.  Weeded most of this lot - remember its gravel under all of those weeds and fringed by bricks.

there's gravel under the weeds

Had a roaring fire too, very cosy, and a lovely way to spend a grey afternoon.  Lunch was roast chicken with roast vegies, peas, and an apple crumble for dessert.

a luncheon feast #1

a luncheon feast #2

a luncheon feast #3

a luncheon feast #4

apple crumble

coffee by the fire

We also had some more visitors - just before lunch.  A barrister acquaintance of Justin's who has a place off the Calder closer to Marong.  He dropped in with his partner - and had travelled here in style with a well restored Packard.  

fancy Packard #1

fancy Packard #2

fancy Packard #3

Helen and the kids left soon after lunch, Alex a while later, and I pottered around a bit, washed the dishes etc (was only fair,as I hadn't done anything for the lunch)

I should also add that Justin had fixed up the collapsed shelf in the kitchen

fixed shelf - clever Justin

While I was pottering around it started raining, and water was pouring off the tank making quite a noise - you can sort of see if if you look closely at the below photo

Rain!