One month

Hello again

Another spectacularly beautiful day here in Oban; quite warm and summery, with a nippy breeze, though. I spent a while in the garden pruning the honeysuckle and some kind of shrub with lovely pink flowers and spiny branches. I didn't have my camera with me but will post a photo next time I remember.
What I did take photos of is the current state of my flat -- it's still box heaven! But some corners are beginning to look decidedly livable. Other corners await the arrival of a piece of hardwood flooring to complete the 1950s parquet in what will be my own study/bedroom, and some items of furniture, including bookshelves.
Sorted one of my major storage problems. I don't have any attic space so what should I do with some files I have to keep? There's a big gap of nothingness above the kitchen cupboards, and the moving boxes with the files in them fit very nicely. I found a roll of old wallpaper that I used to wrap the ugly brown cardboard boxes -- not perfect, but it will do for now. Huge amount of work, though...
My kitchen reminds me so much of old-fashioned kitches I used to see when I was a kid. This morning I rescued a used pull-up blind and hung it on the window -- sometimes the sun is just too bright and hot so I needed a kind of curtain. Looks ok.
The hallway could be bigger but it's actually not all that bad. The whole layout is really pretty good -- compact, but useful and usable.
This is my "White Cube" -- what will be my little study/bedroom. At present it awaits new flooring and then the old floor will need to be sanded and oiled. Then I can put things in permanently. It's a lovely, airy, light little space where I love to sit and read, or have breakfast, or practice my flute, or do yoga. Maybe I shouldn't fill it with more stuff? I'm thinking of getting a futon that I can roll up in the daytime.

The bedroom is a tip. That wardrobe is so crooked it laughs at you -- the people who lived here and put things in had no patience to do jobs right -- I've been mending and cleaning and shaking my head at how poorly jobs can be done. I never would have believed it.
And one thing this blog doesn't show is the noisiness of the house. Sound travels far and wide and some nights here have been nightmarish because of the lack of consideration of one young neighbour and his mates. Totally unimpressed by the fact that the police called twice one night to make them quieten down. The latest commotion -- just talking and laughing really loud, mind -- lasted nine hours, from just before 2am until just before 11am on the Friday/Saturday night. I'm still reeling from lack of sleep.
However, all's not bad. For one thing, the garden I have inherited contains a spectacular fleshy shrub with clusters of whitish-yellow downhanging trumpet flowers:I cut a few branches and put them into my beautiful big glass vase (actually intended as an umbrella stand). They're now messing up the floor in my little hall as they drip with a sugary sap which drives the bumblebees crazy outside. No idea what it's called.