07/08 March - The first weekend saw us finish painting the kitchen with its 1001 corners to cut into. Hurrah, one down.
10/11 March - Popped up to London and stayed with Caitlin. Lovely to catch up with her (thank you for the okra) and, Stop The Press, I won Camel Up. Caitlin is rarely beaten at this game so it was note worthy.
On the Wednesday I spoke at a panel session at Oceanology International 2026. The session went well but the audio didn't, and I was seriously winging it most of the time as I couldn't hear the questions off the floor (the panel member next to me kindly repeated them for me). Not a fun experience.
14/15 March - JC went to Luxembourg on the Friday and on Saturday I drove to Bridport to meet Riona for Round 2 of the great wedding hunt https://notaguineapigblog.blogspot.com/2026/03/march-weekends.html. It ended well and I had a bonus that Sunday was the first time in years that I spent Mother's Day with one of my girls. Lovely stuff.
17 March - Happy St Pat's! The tights made their annual outing.
21/22 March - The third weekend of March was curtain weekend. JC was still away so I pushed back the furniture in the lounge and worked up 6 m of fabric into a patio door curtain and roman blind. The patio curtain was a large endeavour and really heavy to lug around once lined.
It was delightfully sunny on Sunday so, taking a break from tailoring, I went for a 12 km explore around Cullompton.
I headed up a track around the trig (yes, all things are relative to the trig) stopping for a late breakfast at Steamers. Wonderful pit stop.
Then I headed south and found the Culm. It is the other side of the M5 to Cullompton and you can't walk along much, but there were pleasant views across to Cullompton and St Andrew's church.
I also started a clothes moth campaign. The pheromone traps I'd brought enticed them out of the crevices and I slaughtered 30 in one day. They are easy prey as they don't seem to like moving fast. I must have the sloth moth variety.
Back to lugging things around, Riona's wedding dress arrived a couple of days later and I strolled down to the Post Office to collect it. I have more space to store this type of thing than her. I hadn't realised how large it would be and felt like Ms Small carrying it back home.
JC arrived back on Monday and within a day or two (or was it hours?) was champing at the bit to start on the lounge. So we emptied most of the contents into the dining room and kitchen and started sanding, filling holes and sugar soaping the walls.
27/28/29 March - I had Friday off. This involved a short run, library visit, trip to Ottery St Mary to check the house, see friends for coffee and to spend a large amount on Farrow and Ball paint. Once home, I dashed to the GP's for a health check and, probably unsurprisingly, was declared to have high blood pressure so am now on daily monitoring. It's absolutely fine but 2 caffeinated coffees and a bit too much charging around gave it a spike.
Yesterday we joined my aunt, Maureen, and other family members in Swindon, to celebrate her forthcoming 80th birthday. She'd booked us Ten Pin bowling which was fun but confirmed that I am hopeless at it. Anyway, it's the taking part that matters (ahem).
Then we ate in a local Italian where we were in a quiet spot so were able to catch up with each other. She liked the flowers I'd made.
Today, the last Sunday of the month, was lounge's first coat of ceiling paint and gloss. JC isn't enjoying all the wood in the room. Aside from the usual skirting, door and window frames, there is panelling and wooden shutters - not to mention the fire place and inbuilt book cases which will be satinwood. I started prepping the baton to fix the blind to the kitchen wall and finished off the seams on it.
It's progress but everything takes a lot of time and effort. It'll be worth it.
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