New door

Yesterday we had a new front door fitted.  I can hear you saying, in this weather?! Yes, we are obviously nuts. Lack of a door for much of the day meant that the house became bitterly cold. Trouble was, the old door had taken as much objection to the cold and wet as I have. Swollen joints, creaks and groans from both of us. What a tussle it had become to get the blasted thing to open, and then twice as hard to shut. It was a solid old door with handsome fittings. But it's goodbye to all of it because we've replaced it with (oh, wash my mouth out) plastic. And the plastic door comes with some very ordinary, modern furniture. There was a time when I would have objected strongly but now I've conceded defeat, I just want a door that doesn't sulk or fight back but one that opens, closes and locks with ease.
We had to clear the area ready for the workman. We moved from a farmhouse to this cottage twenty years ago and are still not quite accustomed to the lack of space. Don't mention the word, declutter. (I have a super friend who is an organising consultant. She worked in Japan for several years and her business is called taisei, the Japanese word for system and order. She's very sweet-natured so she doesn't look me in the eyes and tell me to get some control.) So, we took the pictures off the walls and moved the carvings from the floor. How strange it looked without them.
Today the new door is fitted. The surround needs to be painted but things have been put back, more or less, in position.

Phew, door sorted, just before the next deluge arrived.

It's Shrove Tuesday. I hope you're eating pancakes!

Keeping out the cold

We are getting through a lot of wood this winter. Our small woodburner is lit in the morning and by the time we flop down in the sitting room in the evening it has built up a luxurious level of heat . We had another delivery of logs this afternoon, I think it's the fourth truck load.

Himself helped the woodman to chuck the logs into the store. The sun was shining and the wind had dropped. A nice day, but you can see from the roof on the store that where the sun hadn't shone for long a dusting of snow remained.

Himself was well wrapped up in his Rupert Bear scarf!

It's heartening to see spring flowers appearing.

Primroses by Maisie's grave.

Even the rhubarb is pushing through.

By 'eck, yon Yorkshire rhubarb's tough!

Friday Skywatch

As well as a ridiculous amount of rain, we've also had some fierce winds over the last few weeks. No tree branches down in the garden this time, but the neighbour's chimneystack gets the brunt of the west winds and has become somewhat the worse for wear. They put scaffolding up on Wednesday while we enjoyed a rare sunny, dry day, but then the wind got up and it has been blowing merrily ever since. Very sensibly no-one has climbed up to do the necessary work. Perhaps next week!

Sharing my skyline 

with Skywatch Friday.